No Laughter Here (4 page)

When Dad tried to jolly me with a trip to the
video store, Mom said, “Leave her alone. She's sulking. Let her sulk.”

Dad wasn't hearing Mom at all. He said, “Let's shoot some hoops, baby girl. I'll spot you eight points.”

I shook my head no. Then
he
started to sulk, which annoyed me because there wasn't room for his sulking. Only mine. And on top of that, I had a headache. One that had been creeping up the back of my head for a while. I had the exact same headache last month at the start of the half moon. I knew, because the first time my head throbbed like this, I opened my window so I could howl at the moon,
arroOUUU
. There was the moon, with its face turned sideways, laughing at me.

Dad wouldn't let things be. He was still trying to get me to open up. “Bad day at school, puddin'?”

Mom got annoyed. “Roy.”

He wouldn't let go. “Someone giving you a hard time? Is it that Juwan character?” He turned to Mom and said, “That boy thinks he can get away with it because she's an
only
. There's always strength in numbers on the playground, Gladys.”

Out of nowhere, Mom and Dad's ongoing argument, the one they think I can't hear at night, worked its way into the living room. It's all about the baby Dad wants Mom to have before they get too old. Dad doesn't believe that I should grow up alone. Mom answered, “Fine, Roy. I'll have another baby if you stay home to take care of it.” After that Dad was excited like a kid on Christmas Eve and started making plans to work at home. Mom saw her reverse psychology hadn't worked and told him she wasn't having any more kids. She said there were too many kids in the world as it was.

I wanted to go upstairs before they made my headache worse.

Dad told me, “If I have to escort you to school each and every day, I will.”

I wouldn't talk. My head was killing me and I was mad at Victoria. I just wanted to be in my room with the door closed.

My refusal to talk only made Dad more concerned. “Akilah, I'm your dad,” he coaxed. “If there's anything I should know about, you can tell me.”

Now I knew how Victoria felt when I kept bugging her, then trying to jolly her. I was still mad at her, but I understood.

“Dad, I don't feel like talking,” I said.

“Is it girl stuff?”

I screamed. I didn't know Girl Warrior had an ounce
of sissy in her, but boy did it come out.

Mom told Dad what movie she wanted to rent, then pushed him out the door. Literally. I braced myself for some slicker interrogation from my mom. After all, she's a pro at getting kids to open up. She deals with kids who clam up after seeing or going through horrible stuff. But today she did the unexpected. She fixed me a cup of chamomile tea with lots of honey and broke a Tylenol in half for my headache. Then she went upstairs to her room and closed the door.

 

My headache was gone by the next morning, but that feeling of things not being right between Victoria and me was still there. I thought we'd have an awkward moment when we sat down at our desks, but she didn't even look my way. Not once. Well, two could play that game, I thought. If our fight didn't bother her, I wouldn't let it bother me.

For the next couple of days I stuck with Janetta and my other friends. I expected Victoria to play jacks with Nahda or Sadia, her other friends, but she stayed by herself during recess and lunchtime.

We still didn't say boo to each other. Not when we passed dittos from left to right or when we corrected each other's spelling quizzes. When I thought about it long enough, I concluded that sitting next to Victoria was like it had been since the first day of school. She took her seat, handed in her homework, copied down the lessons, and stared ahead like she was listening, although I knew
she was doing her “present but absent” trick. By the end of the week, I thought, if she turned my way first, I would say hi, but she just kept doing her trick.

I couldn't help but notice that Victoria, Miss Mathorama, never volunteered to solve problems at the board, nor did she raise her hand, or laugh at anything. Not even when Ms. Saunders read a nonsense poem that was so hilarious that Ms. Saunders giggled through half of it. And even while everyone was laughing, I caught Ms. Saunders doing what I had been doing: checking out Victoria.

Ms. Saunders needed a volunteer to clap erasers
and clean the blackboard, so I stuck my hand up. Not that I had to fight off anyone for the honor. She smiled at me, knowing I couldn't help myself.

“This shouldn't take too long,” Ms. Saunders said as the class, including Victoria, filed out into the hallway. “You might be able to catch up with your friends.”

“Oh, that's okay,” I said. “I'm in no hurry.”

She was opening the lower window so I could stick the erasers out of it. Then she said, “Akilah, you're friends with Victoria,” in a leading-up-to way.

“Not really,” I said.

She didn't believe me. Isn't it funny how a person can communicate a clear thought with one look?

I had to clarify. “We're not speaking.”

“I see.”

I pounded the erasers together,
bang, bang, ba-bang
, creating a cloud of chalk dust. It didn't bother me, but Ms. Saunders, who was a good ten feet away, started to cough.

“Sorry,” I said.

She said it was all right, but didn't ask any more questions about Victoria and me.

 

I didn't have to pass by Victoria's house to go home. I could have made a U around the school, gone down Henley Road, then walked up to my house instead of going the usual route. I could have taken the long way, the avoiding-Victoria way, but I wouldn't. I was not the guilty one. Instead I was defiant. I was proud. My giant steps proclaimed I was not the bad friend.

I was walking my defiant walk, feeling proud, when I saw Nelson entering the Ojikes' yard.

Nelson doesn't take my breath away. I breathe just fine when he is near. Instead, my legs slide out from under me, and my arms want to flutter. Like I'm both falling off a cliff and floating in the air, like riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, but in slow motion.

Nelson is the first boy I truly, truly liked. He's sixteen. Practically a man. He stands taller than Mr. Ojike, which is amazing all by itself. Mr. Ojike is at least six feet and Dad is five ten. So, yeah. Nelson is taller than my father.

Nelson's teeth are white and even. When he smiles, those white teeth against all that chocolate, unh, unh, unh! Back when we were friends, I told Victoria that I was going to marry Nelson so we could be sisters, but that was a lie. Nelson is going to be mine for the sake of being mine. He is better than any boy I know, so why
waste my time having silly crushes on boys who are not Nelson?

I plain old love Nelson. Know how much? I organized a protest against school uniforms when they sent home notices announcing that our school was considering navy pleated skirts and white shirts with fake neckties. Of course Girl Warrior swung into action. I wrote up my own petition and collected signatures at Shop-Rite and after church. I even sent e-mail to the local newspapers that said, “Why should we all look alike? Think alike? Be alike?” And then the Ojikes moved into the neighborhood and I saw Nelson standing tall in his school uniform: a navy blazer, a white shirt, tan pants, and a real necktie. Unh, unh, unh. I dropped my petition and my e-mails against school uniforms right then and there.

On Saturdays Victoria and I used to go to the park to watch Nelson play football (which was actually rugby) with other Africans who live around our way. We'd sit in the grass and guard Nelson's stuff, and we rooted like fools no matter what he did. Then he'd jog over for his water bottle, which I held onto. He'd squeeze the bottle, swallow, then toss it back to me.

And his accent! British like the Prince of Wales, except when he speaks to his parents. Then he speaks in a Yoruba dialect. Nelson is very twenty-first century and traditional at the same time.

“How do I find you alone, Akilah?”

Tell me I didn't feel silly! I held myself together and just shrugged.

“Where is your shadow?”

“You tell me,” I said. “She quit me first.”

“A falling out.” He said this so seriously, but I knew he wasn't taking me seriously at all.

“Should I fetch Victoria? She might already be inside.”

I couldn't look at Nelson without seeing Victoria. I wanted to stay mad at her, but I was now more puzzled than mad. Kinda like Ms. Saunders, trying to put it all together. If anyone knew why Victoria didn't want to laugh or shoot her hand up in class like in the good old days, Nelson did.

“Why's Victoria acting so strange?”

He repeated back, “Strange?” although he knew what I meant. He was just stalling. He couldn't fool me. Just before they left for Africa, I conducted my own personal study on Nelson Ojike so I wouldn't forget one detail about him. I spilled all my Nelson data inside my journal, using the pages for June second through the fourteenth. I know every look on his face. Every tone in his voice. Every polo shirt he owns.

“She won't laugh. Don't want to laugh. She keeps to herself. And she writes in really tiny letters.”

“Ah!” he said, like a lightbulb had flashed on. “She is getting over illness. She'll soon be herself.”

It was the first time I saw his teeth smiling at me that I didn't have that deep-down Nelson love hurling me like the Coney Island Cyclone. Nelson was lying to me. Every inch of me knew it. My legs stayed firmly
under me and my arms didn't feel like flying. I hadn't completely fallen out of love with Nelson, but once I knew he was lying to me, I wasn't hardly falling off of no cliff.

When your one true friend makes you mad,
you think you will never have another friend. You will have a poodle before you have another friend—and poodles are nothing but trouble. I see how Gigi always has Miss Lady in circles trying to untangle the leash around her ankles.

That only made me remember stuff Victoria and I did together, like start a dog-walking business. We were all psyched to walk dogs around the park but hadn't thought who was going to pick up all that poop.

I decided to write Victoria a note. One word:
Sorry
. Someone had to take the first step, and my steps were bigger than hers.

This was hardly our first falling out. Shoot. We'd get mad, call each other names, insult each other's shoes and lopsided braids, then pretend that the other didn't exist. We'd get tired of acting out and would make excuses to be in each other's space. After one grin everything would go back to normal. No questions asked.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those lonely girls
with only one friend in the world. I have friends. It's that Victoria is my one true friend. But not best friend. I don't like that term. Sooner or later the “best friend” tests you. “Who is your best friend, her or me?” Janetta Mitchell put me through that. She said, “You my best friend, Akilah. We been close since Pre-K.” Then she wanted me to say it back, again and again. Victoria and I are different. We don't talk about being friends. We
are
friends. True friends.

We met two years ago at the playground. Her father worked in the Nigerian consulate's office. In fact, Miss Lady spread the rumor that the Nigerian government paid for the Ojikes' house and car. That only made Victoria seem more interesting to me.

“My name is Victoria” was how she introduced herself. When I said “I'll call you Vickie for short,” she repeated herself: “My name is Victoria.” She did not like for short.

I said, “Okay. If you insist.”

She said, “I insist.”

Then I said, “My name is African.”

She looked at me square on, no blinking, no smiling, and said, “Hello, African.”

I laughed, then said, “No, my name is Akilah.
It
is African.” She said, “You said your name is African, so I called you by your name.”

“Do you know what
Akilah
means?” I quizzed.

“Of course I do,” Victoria said. “It means ‘born when the hyena was laughing.'”

“Not hardly. It means ‘intelligent.'”

“It means ‘laughs like an intelligent hyena.'”

She said it so matter-of-factly that I couldn't stop laughing. Then she said, “See?”—not even cracking a smile.

“I am named for Queen Victoria. For the Victoria Falls, and Lake Victoria. Have you heard of Lake Victoria?”

If it is in Africa, I was sure I had. My mother surrounds me with all things African. I have dolls from thirty African countries. Mom taught me some Swahili, some African dances (which Victoria later laughed at), and gave me books on African history and geography. Somewhere I must have run across Lake Victoria.

“Why don't you have an African name?” I asked her.

“Why do you have an African name?”

“Don't answer with a question,” I said.

“Don't question.”

We clicked. From that moment I knew Victoria was the missing piece to my puzzle. She didn't say that typical “Yo' greasy granny” stuff like Juwan. She was like me, an individual, and not about to hide it. From then on it was always she and I.

 

During language arts, I used my best cursive letters to write the one word in the center of a paper. I tore it out of my loose-leaf binder, folded it down to a tight rectangle, and held onto it until the first warning bell rang.

Finally school was over, so I dropped the note on
Victoria's desk. I gave Victoria a chance to scoot out of her chair and walk with me, but she stayed seated, her head down.

I looked up. Mrs. Ojike was standing at the door. She wore a blue and yellow printed head wrap and matching dress that had this swirling white embroidery around the neckline. That was nothing. Nisha's mother drives up to the school wearing sandals and saris that show her belly even in the winter.

Ms. Saunders was going to give Mrs. Ojike the bad news: Victoria had to transfer to one of the slow classes.

I knew Mrs. Ojike had come in the nick of time. She was going to give Ms. Saunders some insight into Victoria's behavior. Maybe Victoria is forbidden to laugh after the age of ten. Now that I thought about it, Mrs. Ojike doesn't laugh. She smiles, but never breaks into a hearty haw-haw like my mother and aunties do.

Nelson laughs and Mr. Ojike laughs. But now Victoria would be like her mother and lose her laughter. Maybe becoming a lady in Nigeria is like becoming a lady here. Sit up straight, cross your legs, smile, and don't beat up boys in the park.

Ms. Saunders rose and beckoned Mrs. Ojike inside. I went up to greet her.

“Hi, Mrs. Ojike.”

“Well, hello, Akilah.” Mrs. Ojike looked down at me. It was weird, like looking at Victoria thirty years from now.

“Can I wait and walk home with y'all?” I had no
shame. My mother would have died if she had heard me.

“I'm afraid not today, dear. We will be a while.”

I glanced back at Victoria, but her head was still down on her desk next to the note.