Frank heard the phone ring when his mother was in the kitchen, drying the last of the supper dishes.
“Frank, Dedra’s on the phone.” His mother smiled and handed the phone to him. He knew she liked Dedra. “That girl has spunk,” she used to say. But that had been when Dedra was the cheerleading captain at West Hill High. When she had cheered for him.
He took the phone into the pantry behind the kitchen and closed the door. He missed talking to Dedra. It was hard to see her since he had stopped going to football practice. He used to walk her home afterward and had planned to ask her to the senior prom. But that was at West Hill. Would there even be a prom now?
“Frank, why didn’t you come meet us at the tennis courts? We need everyone to help plan and organize for the walkout.”
The tennis courts.
He sat on the floor in the dark. Did she care about him, or was he just another body in her protest now?
Frank remembered the first time he had kissed her, after one of her solo tennis practices the previous fall. They hadn’t had tennis rackets, but they had tossed a ball back and forth. Dedra had told him about Althea Gibson and how Althea had shaken hands with Queen Elizabeth after winning Wimbledon. He could still hear her hope when she’d said, “Maybe I can meet Althea someday. Or Rosa Parks.”
He lost himself, thinking about her and listening to her breathing in his ear.
“Frank?”
He hadn’t gone to the tennis courts. He didn’t want to call attention to himself. The last time he had joined a walkout, he’d gotten arrested. He needed time to think this over.
“Well, we’re walking out at noon. I wanted you to know.”
He heard an angry edge to her voice. He still didn’t answer. He wanted to hear her soft breathing.
“Frank?” She stopped speaking.
Her silence worried him.
“I couldn’t go to the planning meeting. My mama needed me to watch Rachel and Baby James.”
The lie was too transparent.
“Don’t you want to see me? Why couldn’t Sissy have watched them? She’s old enough.”
He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t gone. He was trying to figure it out himself.“Frank, what’s wrong with you?”
He admired Dedra. She was ready to fight for all the players and all the cheerleaders and all the black students. He wasn’t like her: his disappointment over not playing football cut too deep, and he was having trouble fighting for himself.
“Frank, we don’t have any senior privileges. We’ve got three more months of senior year. We at least want our prom. And what about next year? We don’t have our spots on the student council, even though I was president at West Hill. You couldn’t play football. We’re going to sit on the lawn until we get representation. Will you be there?”
“I’ll think about it, Dedra.”
“We need to do more than think. The principal promised us he would set it up, but it never happened.”
Frank remembered the meeting in the main office with his mother and Mr. Peterson the day after the first walkout. The office had been available because Mr. Armstrong had met with some of the West Hill students that day. That was when promises had been made. But now months had passed, and there still wasn’t any representation for the black students in any sports or student government at Kettle Creek High School. His football teammates and the cheerleaders had organized a second walkout. And Dedra was their leader. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t official.
Frank remembered the quiet girl he’d met when they were freshmen. She’s not quiet anymore. She wants to be like Rosa Parks and Althea Gibson.
The next day during his fourth-period class, Frank kept looking at the clock. At noon, he held his breath. Chairs scraped the floor. Footsteps followed. His English teacher turned from the board as the door opened. Five or six Negro students lined up quietly to walk out of the room. Frank saw his teacher, Dr. Willa Henson, frown at what was happening. She pushed her glasses above her forehead to get her blond hair out of her eyes. Then two of the girls left the line and went over to her, saying, “We want to leave, Dr. Henson.”
“But why? What will this accomplish?”
“We need to be heard.”
Frank was surprised to hear his teacher tell them, “I know. Go ahead.”
He looked around to see the remaining students, all white, just sitting and waiting for what would happen next.
Frank stood up and walked to the window. He looked down at the lawn in the front of the building. From his third-floor view, he could see the street and the circular drive around the flagpole. Black students stopped to take brown bags from parents who seemed to have known this was going to happen and were actually making deliveries. Laughter echoed up to him as the students sat on the grass and began to eat their lunch as if they were at a picnic—except for Dedra. He saw her stand to speak to the principal. He knew what the request was. He wondered what the answer would be.
If the principal and the coaches could be like Dr. Henson, things might be better. Frank had been selected for this class. It was a small class of sixteen students, chosen for their potential and maturity. Today they were writing in their journals after having a discussion about the crossover and the challenge black and white students were having about the attitude “This is the way we do things, and this is the way we don’t.”
He had never had a teacher who was called Doctor. She expected more of Frank than any teacher ever had. Not just neat and nicely written pages—she wanted his thoughts.
His heart was racing; he had made up his mind. He sat back down at his desk.
More students were leaving their classrooms, shouting and slamming doors.
As he sat in his chair, his teacher sat on the edge of her desk. She looked at him for a long time before she spoke.
“Frank, you were on the football team, weren’t you? I heard you were a star player at West Hill.”
“Well, don’t you want to be heard too?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I’m not going to miss class. I’m going to graduate, and I’m going to college.”
Dr. Henson studied him. She ignored the white kids, who were whispering and shaking their heads. Then she said, “Well, there’s more than one way to succeed at something. All right, class. Let’s continue our discussion.”