I took a bar of Ivory soap and one of Cecile’s washcloths and scrubbed away at the black ink scrawled all over Miss Patty Cake. Big Ma taught me to be a hard washboard scrubber. To not accept dirt, dust, or stains on clothes, floors, or walls, or on ourselves. “Scrub like you’re a gal from a one-cow town near Prattville, Alabama,” she’d tell me while Vonetta and Fern ran around and played. “Can’t have you dreaming out of your head and writing on the walls. That’ll only lead to ruin.”
I grabbed Miss Patty Cake’s dimpled arms and chubby legs. I went after her cheeks and forehead. I scrubbed every blacked-up piece of plastic, wearing down that Ivory bar from a nearly full cake to nearly half flat. I scrubbed and scrubbed until my knuckles ached. It was quite a job. When Vonetta picked up that black Magic Marker, she had been determined to make Miss Patty Cake as black and proud as Crazy Kelvin wanted her to be.
I soon found it didn’t matter if I scrubbed like a gal from a one-cow town or if I gave up on Ivory soap and turned to stronger cleaners. While the heavy-duty cleaners and scouring pad lifted the black from the white bathroom sink, Miss Patty Cake’s body was another story. The Magic Marker ink seeped down into Miss Patty Cake’s soft plastic skin. At best, the Ajax, Pine-Sol, and scouring pad left Miss Patty Cake gray, scratched up, and strong smelling. Hard scrubbing or not, there was nothing more I could do. Miss Patty Cake would never be Fern’s baby doll the way she’d been as long as anyone could remember. I shook all the water from her insides, dried her off, then put her in my suitcase to spare Fern from seeing her doll baby grayish and ashy.
I was too tired to try to make this thing between Vonetta and Fern wilt away. This wasn’t exactly fighting over who gets the gold crayon or the last cookie. I knew better than to look for help from Cecile. Worn-out, I began to see things like Big Ma did. There was no point in flying us across the country for next to no mothering.
I just kept counting down the days. The best that I could do was keep Vonetta and Fern separated. Vonetta bathed by herself, and Fern bathed with me. Vonetta slept on the top of the daybed, and Fern slept with me below.
Fern no longer looked for her doll when we left Cecile’s for breakfast. I wouldn’t say Vonetta did Fern any favor, but maybe things worked out the way they had to.
Still, Vonetta remained proudly defiant, walking two steps ahead of us and then leaving us altogether once her new friends, the Anktons, were in sight. She and Janice, the middle Ankton, threw pebbles at Hirohito Woods and fussed over who hated him more.
For snack time, Sister Pat passed out grapes. After we ate our fill, Sister Mukumbu gave us a lesson on the California grapes that we had just eaten and how the migrant workers who picked them had to fight for their rights.
I don’t think the lesson went the way Sister Mukumbu had planned. Everyone felt badly for having eaten the grapes. The room was quiet. Then Sister Mukumbu announced free time for the next hour. All the kids went wild at the prospect of running around in the park for an hour, but Fern and I didn’t feel like running with them.
Sister Pat had classes at her college and had to leave. When all the kids except Fern and I ran out to the park, I asked Sister Mukumbu if she had any chores or if she needed help in the classroom. Not that I wanted her embarrassing me, having me stand up front and rotate around the sun. It just felt strange, my Timex ticking and me having nothing to do. If only I’d thought to bring my book with me. A lot of good Island of the Blue Dolphins did me snug inside my pillowcase.
Sister Mukumbu rose immediately. She had just the thing to keep me busy until the class came together for arts and crafts. She asked Fern and me to count the Black Panther weekly newspapers, stacking them crisscross every fifty copies. She said the older kids would take them to local stores or sell the papers themselves. She made it sound like we were doing a great service by helping the newspaper carriers become more “organized and accountable.” It just gave me something to do and Fern a reason to stick with me.
Poor Fern. She didn’t have the knack for counting. She was still angry and heartbroken about Miss Patty Cake. She couldn’t get past twenty copies without losing her place and had to start over, again and again. My stack of papers grew while she had yet to count out her first fifty.
“Can’t we just go to the park and play?” she asked.
I was tempted to let her go but said, “Come on, Fern. We have to get this done. All you have to do is count out ten and lay them this way. Then count another ten and lay them that way.”
I felt Sister Mukumbu watching as I showed Fern the shortcut. You know when someone’s eyes are on your back and whether it’s in a good or a bad way. I felt her watching us in a good way. Soon Fern caught on, counting and crisscrossing. Her stack of papers began to grow. Not as high as mine, but it grew. Fern was now busy and not missing Miss Patty Cake for the moment.
After a short while I felt Sister Mukumbu’s eyes leave us. She must have figured we were all right and had continued doing her own work.
Since the Black Panther newspaper cost a quarter, I told myself I’d only skim the front and back pages as I stacked the papers. I would read what I could see. I knew if I flipped a page over and read it line by line, I was officially reading someone else’s paper. Or as Pa would call it, stealing.
I skimmed the front page of every five copies. I got into a real rhythm. Counting and reading a few key words at a time. There was more artwork than printing on the front page, so I couldn’t read much. One thing was for sure. I’d know Huey Newton if I ever saw him on the street. You couldn’t help but see Huey Newton all over the newspaper. His face was cocked slightly in the upper corner of the paper like the president’s face on a dollar bill. Now the Black Panther leader was in prison where he belonged, according to Big Ma.
As I counted, I dug Huey’s corner picture, him wearing his beret looking cool and revolutionary. I flipped open a newspaper quickly, skimmed the article in five-second glances at a time, then flipped it closed. The article was about Huey talking about Bobby. There was also a photograph of people protesting that I wanted to get a better look at. They were people carrying the same kind of signs that we had colored in. Those could have been our signs. We were probably part of the revolution. Wouldn’t that make a fine classroom essay: “My Revolutionary Summer”?
I wanted to read the newspaper. Not skim. Not steal. I wanted to fold a paper over, sit back, and read every word.
I must have lost count. I was too busy imagining a Black Panther carrying our FREE HUEY sign. Too busy to notice my neat stack had grown into uneven bundles with either more than fifty or less than fifty newspapers.
“Sister Delphine.”
Sister Mukumbu stood before me with a smile on her face.
“Nuts!” Fern said, because Sister Mukumbu’s voice had startled her, making her lose count. She began to recount.
“Yes, Sister Mukumbu?” I answered weakly. I hadn’t even heard her get up from her chair or felt her eyes on my back. It wasn’t like me to get lost like that.
“Do you want to read a newspaper?”
And embarrassed. I’m not the kind to be embarrassed. Thank goodness she was a teacher and not some boy who could read the thoughts spinning in my head.
I nodded my yes, which only felt worse since I was not a nodder.
I dug out my two dimes from last night’s change. “I’ll bring a nickel tomorrow,” I said.
She smiled and said, “Twenty cents will be fine, Sister Delphine. You’re entitled to the worker’s discount.”
I was too embarrassed to say thank-you and gave her another nod. I took my newspaper and folded it twice to read about Huey, Bobby, and the protesters later.
Now, instead of having two of the ten dimes needed to call Pa and Big Ma, we were back to having no dimes. Fern and I kept counting and stacking.