No Laughter Here (9 page)

School wasn't the same without Victoria. I
answered questions when asked and handed in my homework on time, but my mind wasn't really on spelling tests, projects, and reports. One afternoon I got halfway home from school before I realized I didn't have my science book. My book bag was too light. I ran all the way to the school and banged on the door, hoping the custodian would hear me. Finally Mrs. Jenkins, a hall aide, opened the front door.

“School's over, young lady,” she said. “You're headed the wrong way.”

“My science book is upstairs,” I said. “I can't do my homework without it.” I was still out of breath.

Mrs. Jenkins didn't want to let me inside. Hall aides can't leave until all of the students are out of the building.

“Fifth grader?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Ms. Saunders's class.”

“Well, be quick. I don't want to come upstairs looking for you.”

I ran up the steps to the top floor, hoping to find Ms.
Saunders gone and the classroom door unlocked. No such luck. Ms. Saunders was in the hallway, fixing something in the display case.

“Akilah,” she said. “You've ruined my surprise.”

In the center of the display, between the Halloween masks we made in art, were two large, wooden African masks.

“I wanted to surprise you all in the morning.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot my science book.” I went inside and got it. When I came back out, Ms. Saunders was still adjusting one of the masks, which wouldn't hang straight.

“They're ceremonial masks,” she said. “A gift from my Kenyan students.”

“Oh.”

“What, Akilah? No facts about Kenya or ceremonial masks?”

She was teasing me, but I wasn't in a teasing, Encyclopedia Brown mood.

“We have a lot of African stuff at home,” I said. “I'm not much into Africa, anyway.”

A set of footsteps came clacking down the hall. I turned around. It was Mrs. Jenkins.

“It's all right,” Ms. Saunders called out to her. “I'll escort Akilah out of the building.”

Mrs. Jenkins waved to Ms. Saunders, then left.

Ms. Saunders locked the display case and stood before it, admiring the masks. She wanted me to like the Kenyan masks the way my mom wanted me to
like my African dolls.

“Since when are you ‘not much into Africa,' Akilah?” She was still teasing me. She said it with a smile.

“You outgrow stuff,” I said.

“So suddenly, Akilah?”

I shrugged. “Ms. Saunders, Africa isn't everything you've read about. Tomorrow everyone will see those masks and think they're great. Then you'll tell us about the mahogany trees they came from and how the masks were carved with knives. But I'll bet you won't tell us how they carve girls with those knives.”

Ms. Saunders's smile thinned. She said, “Come inside,” then closed the door behind us. She pulled Ida's chair up next to her desk, and we sat down.

“I did more than read about Africa. I taught in Kenya for four years.”

“I know,” I said.

“It was a rewarding experience, Akilah. But it also challenged me.

“Teaching school there was nothing like teaching school here. I had students of all ages in my class, and often they were absent. It was hard to keep lessons going, but I managed. Anyway, I started to notice my seven-year-old girls were disappearing, one by one. When I asked the headmaster—he is like the principal—he was reluctant to answer me. Exhausted by my inquiries, he finally said, ‘It is a private matter. None of our concern.'”

A private matter. That was what Mrs. Ojike told my mother before she made us leave her house.

“Still,” Ms. Saunders continued, “I wanted to learn about the culture. I asked everyone about the disappearing girls, but no one would talk to me. Finally, the woman who washed the desks and floors took me aside and explained what they did to little girls.”

“Mutilation,” I said.

“Yes,” Ms. Saunders said. “I couldn't believe it was true. But then I noticed how the older girls walked, with a careful glide.”

Shlush, shlush, I thought. “Like Victoria.”

Ms. Saunders nodded. I knew she couldn't discuss one student with another, so I spoke.

“Victoria told me what they did to her, after she ran out of that class. You know. Paths to Discovery.”

“Ah,” Ms. Saunders said. That brought back memories for both of us. She and I were supposed to have begun with a clean slate after that class. Ms. Saunders said, “I started the semester with one silent student. And then I had two.”

“I couldn't talk about it, Ms. Saunders. I made a vow to Victoria.”

“You were protecting your friend,” she said. “Even if it meant risking punishment. These eyes see a lot, Akilah. They could always see the real you.”

I was glad of that.

“Neither one of us knew what to call the thing they had done to her. I kept searching the web until I found the words.”

“Female circumcision,” she said.

“And female genital mutilation.”

“That is a lot for a girl to know.”

“It's a lot for a girl to go through,” I said back. “It's wrong.”

“It's not part of your world, Akilah. I myself couldn't understand it at first, but I tried. It was one of my many challenges. To understand.”

“I'll never understand,” I said. “Victoria's mother said it was to stop the good feeling.”

Ms. Saunders said, “That's part of it.”

“Her brother said mutilation makes girls clean and proper. A girl can't get married unless she has that done. The groom's family wouldn't want her.”

Ms. Saunders nodded. “The practice of mutilation is tied to marriages. I've been to several weddings in Kenya. The families negotiate for a long time before a wedding can take place. Believe me, there is nothing to negotiate if the girl has been sexually active, if she is no longer a virgin. Akilah, you remember when we talked about the dangers of sexual activity?”

“Yeah,” I said. Thanks to that class, instead of getting tagged with cooties out on the playground, you get tagged with STD, a sexually transmitted disease.

“You can't bring anyone unclean into a new family. A young woman who has not been circumcised is not considered clean, or a woman, for that matter.”

Clean and proper, I thought.

“It's not right, Ms. Saunders. You're a woman because that's what you are. Not because someone mutilates you.”

Ms. Saunders squinted and gave me a weary smile.
She said, “I'm not going to argue with you, Akilah, but I'm challenging you to keep an open mind. If Victoria had lived in her family's village all of her life, she might have been prepared for her rite of passage.”

“Never,” I said.

I knew what she was trying to do. She wanted me to see the other side. I refused to let my mind bend in any direction where mutilating girls was okay.

“Ms. Saunders, you don't even know the real Victoria like I do,” I said. “She doesn't want to get married. She wants to rule a country.” That sounded silly, but that was her plan. To follow her heroine, Queen Victoria, and rule a country.

“Mrs. Ojike is transferring Victoria to another school,” I added.

“We'll see,” Ms. Saunders said.

I didn't think there was anything to see. Victoria hadn't been to school for a week. Even though the International School had no openings, I doubted whether she was coming back to our school.

Ms. Saunders glanced at the closed door, then said, “Thanks to your mother, Victoria is getting some help—but that is all I can say.”

I got excited about the possibilities for a moment. “Can she be put back?” I asked. “Can they make her the way she was?”

Ms. Saunders said, “I think we can help Victoria to accept what has happened. But no one can make her the way she was.”

If I were walking home with Victoria, I would
have said, “
Ambivalent
. The word of the day is
ambivalent
.”

You know how you have words stored in your head because you've heard them or read them, but you've never had a reason to use them? Well, I could have used this one: “Ambivalent. I feel ambivalent toward my mother.”

How could I forget that she burst into my room and stole the secret between Victoria and me? A secret I gave my most solemn vow and risked punishment to protect.

Without thinking about the consequences, she went charging over to Victoria's house and got Victoria in trouble with her parents. Then got me in trouble with Victoria. And on top of it, she wouldn't admit that she was wrong.

And while I was mad at her, and waiting for her to admit she was wrong or at least apologize, Mom was getting help for Victoria.

Ambivalent.
The word of the day is
ambivalent
.

 

From the end of our block, I could see my father stuffing orange garbage bags with elm leaves that had fallen into the front yard. Last year I begged him to buy those orange garbage bags with the jack-o'-lantern faces so our house would be the only one on the block with them on Halloween. Now I was embarrassed to watch my father stuffing and shaking those giant plastic jack-o'-lanterns.

Practically every window on our block was decorated with pumpkins, witches, and skeletons. I was ten years old and hadn't even thought about my Halloween costume. Usually by now Mom and Dad would be arguing about “the appropriate costume” for me: Cleopatra, Bessie Coleman, or a basketball-playing ninja. I always ended up making my own costume.

“What are you supposed to be?” Victoria asked the first time we went trick-or-treating together.

I put together a box, mop head, and a hula hoop. I said, “I am a Game Boy.” I was eight.

There was no mistaking who Victoria was. She only went as the queen of England. One year she wore a tiara. The next year, a pillbox hat. She always wore white gloves, carried a scepter, and was made up with pink lipstick over false buck teeth. She was regal.

This year I'd probably stay home and hand out candy to the little kids. That would please my mother. She doesn't like knocking on our neighbors' doors begging for candy, then inspecting every wrapper in my loot bag. She throws out half of my candy anyway.

Dad, on the other hand, loves Halloween and any
other chance to do this kid stuff with me. He says he can't remember a single one of his own Halloweens, Christmases, or birthdays. I think he does remember them. He just doesn't want to talk about them.

Satisfied with the shape of his two garbage bag pumpkins, he placed one on each side of the porch.

“Hey, puddin'.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“How's school?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“No trouble from you-know-who?”

“Dad.”

“Just checking.”

“You know about Victoria, don't you?”

He nodded.

“No one's supposed to know,” I told him. “But
she
went running over there, pointing and accusing.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, little girl.
She
?” He meant the disrespectful way I referred to my mother. He sat down on the porch steps. I sat next to him.

“Mom caused trouble for everyone,” I said.

“Your mother may have reacted emotionally, but in the end, she did all of the right things. Victoria is going to get some help, you know.”

“What kind of help?”

Dad just said, “Help.”

Ms. Saunders knew. My dad knew. Everyone knew what was going on but me.

“You mean a shrink?”

“Psychologist.”

I mimicked him. “Psychologist.”

“You are like your mother.”

I gave the “am not” look, but that only made him chuckle. My dad is really handsome, especially when he laughs like that.

“Akilah, if you knew what would happen to Victoria before she left for Nigeria, what would you have done?”

“Stopped them.”

“Your mother's exact words.”

Of course I didn't want to hear that. I was still feeling ambivalent.

“If something is wrong, we right it. That's who we are. That's what we do. We don't stay silent.”

Those were her words too.

“So, uh, puddin', don't you have something to tell your mother?”

“Like what?” I asked.

If Dad wasn't so brown, he'd have been purple. He looked embarrassed, but I couldn't figure out why. Then he made a face like he had smelled something rancid. Now, if I were truly like my mother, I would have said, “Spit it out, Roy.” I just sat there without a clue, watching my dad turn colors.

“You might want to tell your mother, uh, that, uh, you, uh, had your first…”

“You know?”
I was mortified.

He nodded. “Did your mother, uh, also tell you about, uh, proper disposal?”

I hid my face in my book bag.

“What am I going to do with two women driving me crazy?”

“I'm not a woman,” I said. “I'm a girl.”

I went up to my room. As soon as I opened the door, the funk hit me. I guess you can't have that stuff lying around.

I took the ruined underwear and the jeans that I had stuffed in my drawer and put them in my laundry bag to bring downstairs. I gathered up my collection of sanitary napkins, each one folded and taped into tight Easter eggs.

Mom was sitting in a lawn chair reading a book when I came out back. Next to her on the patio table were two mugs and a thermos. I went over to the garbage can and dumped the sack of napkins. When I clanked the lid over the garbage can, she put her book down and said, “It's about time.”

“You know, girl,” Mom began.

“What, girl?” I replied.

“You did well. You didn't panic. That's the main thing.”

I sat in the other lounge chair and waited for her to finish. She poured green tea from the thermos into our mugs.

I steeled myself, expecting Mom to scold me about hiding my period or for stinking up my room. She just sipped, smiled, and stared off over our fence.

Once I knew it was safe, I told Mom, “I was prepared.”

She surprised me. She hadn't called my aunts to tell them the news. She hadn't cooked a special dinner to celebrate. There were no green tea libations raised up to Mother Moon and no mumbo-jumbo speeches about my journey into womanhood. There wasn't even a first period story. I guess we had already done that.

People say females are better at talking things out. We also know how to share silence.

The warm mug felt good in my hands. I inhaled the
steam. Me and Mom. Sitting in the backyard sipping tea, coasting back into normal. I didn't give yes-no answers and she didn't act like a madwoman.

Well, I knew my mother wasn't a madwoman. She just did what she thought was right. Maybe because what happened to Victoria was so wrong. When I thought about it, everyone believed they were right. The Ojikes, Victoria's grandmother, her aunties, and Ms. Saunders. Everyone. But no one asked Victoria. She didn't have any rights. She didn't have a say. She was still silent. Not like Mom and me enjoying the evening fall air, but locked silent from not knowing why they did that to her.

All of a sudden I couldn't enjoy being outside with my mom anymore. I was mad because everyone was right and Victoria was silent. Well, Victoria had spoken to me, but we still couldn't laugh together. And that wasn't right.

The word
right
kept singing in my head.
Right, right, right
. Like lyrics to a song I couldn't shake. But by the twenty-first
right
, I heard something I hadn't heard all those times before. By the twenty-first
right
, I heard the answer to Victoria's silence. Or at least, a start.

I asked if I could be excused to go on-line. Mom was still staring off and said, “Yes, Akilah. Feel free.”

I ran up to my room and powered up my computer. It's a start, I thought. But what would Victoria think? It couldn't work without her.

I made my e-mail short and coded, in case she had to read it quickly. I typed, “When something is wrong, we write it.”