Hadley, Virginia

1954

 

Tuesday, May 18, 1954

Diary Book,

It’s early, before the sun even knows she’s got sleep in her eyes. With the way the heat is already rising, Mama will no doubt say this morning is as hot as the day I was born.

Folks in Lee County still talk about me coming into this world. “Someday you’ll put it in a book,” Daddy likes to say.

Well, thanks to Goober, I now have a book to write in.

The best way to tell about something is from the beginning. Even in a diary book that’s private, and for my eyes only, it’s good for me to write about myself from the start — to claim this book as really, truly mine. In case anyone ever finds my diary, they’ll know about me.

Mama said I was born right as the new day was dawning. Came into this world during the “in-between,” when night is changing to day, when morning starts to roll out like a pie crust. That’s why Mama and Daddy named me Dawn, after the in-between.

When Mama cradled me for the first time, she put my name to a song. “Dawnie, Dawnie, sweet potato pie.”

The nickname stuck — Dawnie.

My middle name, Rae, is the name Mama had before she married Daddy. She was Loretta Rae then. She’s Loretta Johnson now, the name of Daddy’s people, and my name, too. Dawnie Rae Johnson.

When I was born, I came on strong like the sun, and, Mama says, “Loudest baby to ever cry in Hadley Hospital.”

“You were shouting good news,” says Daddy. “You’ve been blessed with the gift of gab ever since.”

One thing about being born when the sun’s about to rise — and being named after that time of day—is that I always beat the morning. When my eyes are wide open, the sun is still deciding to sleep for five minutes more.

This morning when I woke, I was hard-pressed to wait even five minutes for anything. The first chorus of bullfinches were welcoming May with their song. Seems those happy birds knew it was my birthday. And thanks to Goober, my celebrating had already started.

As soon as I felt this hard, flat square pressing up through my pillow, I knew Goober had done something special. Goober is some little brother. He can sure rattle me plenty, but he knows how to make me happy, too. Only eight years old, and full of surprises. During the morning’s in-between, I yanked this diary book out from under my half-’sleep head.

When I got to the kitchen, I was all smiles. Goober was there with Mama and Daddy. He’d lined up his peanut shells along the edge of our kitchen table, nose-to-tail, in a parade.

Most likely it was Goober who’d propped my pogo stick on one side of my chair, and my baseball bat on the other.

Goober spotted the book in my hand right off.

“Dawnie,” he said, “I made it for you special. It’s a diary for your birthday.”

Special is sure right. This diary is small and square, and put together like two slices of dark toast pressed into a sandwich. Its spine has been sewn with thick twine. The pages are rough at the edges, but there are plenty of them for writing. I named my birthday gift as soon as I held it — Diary Book. Thick as a brick, and sure hefty. Lots of gristle on this book’s bones. Just like me.

At breakfast, I ran my fingers along my diary’s bumpy spine.

“You made this?” I said to Goober.

“Mama helped me,” Goober said.

“We know how much you like to write.” Mama looked as proud as Goober.

Goober rocked in his chair, set the chair’s back legs up to tilting. Then he handed me another gift: a new red pencil, with a plump eraser.

“For the bestest sister,” Goober said.

“You’re the bestest, Goober,” I said, then hugged him. “Thank you.”

I sure don’t know why people say Goober is slow. I think he’s as regular as anybody, only different in certain ways. Mama’s tried to explain it to me, but I have a hard time understanding. “Your brother’s one of God’s beautiful creatures. You came here with the gift of talk. Goober’s gift is that he sees the world in his own way.”

There’s nothing wrong with Goober’s eyesight. Sometimes he won’t look at you when he speaks. But my brother can no doubt see fine.

Some kids say Goober’s addle-brained. Others say he’s touched in the head, or a simpleton. To me, Goober’s just special.

My little brother’s given name is Gunther Johnson. But the boy loves peanuts, so we’ve been forever calling him Goober. Most days his pockets bulge with peanuts and their shells. His skin is the same brown as a peanut, too. “And he’s just as pudgy.” My daddy always winks when he says this.

Daddy works nights mostly, hauling and loading milk casks and cheese crates from the backs of trucks at Sutter’s Dairy, the biggest dairy supply in all of Lee County.

Daddy leaves for work after supper, returns right before morning, eats breakfast with us, then reads his stack of newspapers before he sleeps. This morning, like always, Daddy was deep in his reading. Didn’t look up once. That’s Daddy. He reads like words on a page are the tastiest plate of grits ever.

“You get that from him, Dawnie,” Mama says. “The two of you read faster than drinking root beer through a straw. And you, child, take in book learning just as quickly.”

Mama’s right. At school I’m quicker than most kids.

Daddy can’t get enough of his newspapers and magazines. He stacks them all next to his coffee cup — Look, an NAACP journal called The Crisis, and our local paper, the Hadley Register. Daddy even somehow gets his hands on that Northerner newspaper the New York Times.

This morning when I sat down, Daddy took a break from his breakfast reading. The little smile playing in his eyes told me a surprise was brewing. He studied me for a long moment. “Happy birthday, Dawnie.”

Then he pushed that New York paper under my nose. “Here, child.”

He was eager to show me the front-page headline. “Clip this for your new diary.”

I looked carefully.

Daddy told me to read what I saw. He said, “Speak loud enough to scare some pigeons.”

I read slowly, pressing each word into the warm morning air.

Seems Mama already knew the news.

Didn’t take her but a minute to hand me a pair of scissors from her sewing basket and a tin of paste from her craft bin.

“Make your birthday book look pretty,” Goober said.

Nobody even had to tell me what to do. I knew right off why those scissors and paste brush were suddenly in my hands.

I’ve carefully glued the headline right here as a memory of the day I turned twelve.

HIGH COURT BANS
SCHOOL SEGREGATION;

9-TO-O DECISION
GRANTS TIME
TO COMPLY

Washington, May 17

Wednesday, May 19, 1954

Diary Book,

I want to tell you everything. I could write all night about today, but Mama has already given me two warnings. “Dawnie, lights off. It’s past nine o’clock!”

At school, kids and teachers were talking about integration, and what it said in that New York paper. I even heard our principal, Mr. Calhoun, say, “An ice storm will fall on the tropics before any white folks let us into their schools.”

I could write more, but Mama’s calling for the third time. “Dawnie, turn off that light!” I’ll put you under my pillow where I first found you. You can share the spot with my birthday candle, the last one to lose its flame from my blowing. Mama says the final candle to go out is the one that makes your wish come true.

I’ll be back at you soon, Diary Book.

Catch you during the in-between.

Thursday, May 20, 1954

Diary Book,

Today Yolanda and me didn’t come right home after school, like we’re supposed to. I mean, this is my birthday week, and I did make a wish on the candles Mama had put on my cake at supper on Tuesday. I didn’t need those candles for wishing, though. I’ve had the same wish for as long as I can remember — to see the inside of Prettyman Coburn, Hadley’s white school.

Mama and Daddy have told me time and again that I am never to go to the white part of town without them.

Daddy once said, “If I ever get wind of you going over there, your behind will wonder if it can grow skin again.”

But I wasn’t really going to be in the white part of town, I was just passing by the white part of town so that I could see Prettyman.

Yolanda and me took the long way home. Really, it wasn’t even on the way home, but it was long. Truth be told (since this is my diary, I can be honest), Prettyman is way on the other side of Hadley, nowhere near to where we live.

By walking the main streets, it takes just about one whole hour to walk the two miles to Prettyman from our neighborhood. It’s less than half that time when you take shortcuts.

Even though this was the long way home, it was the shortest way to get to Prettyman. Yolanda and I walked along Weedle Lane, which brought us through the piney woods, up behind Prettyman, where the sports field meets the railroad tracks. The grass is high and yellow there, and thick with weeds. I had my pogo stick stretched across the backs of my shoulders, arms hung over each end.

I nudged Yolanda. “Look at that baseball field!” I said.

“It’s like something from a movie,” Yolanda said.

I blinked. “They even have a dugout.”

“And padded bases,” Yolanda said.

We stayed low in the grasses.

I saw a girl come out Prettyman’s back door and unlatch a bell from a hook on the school’s bricks. She looked to be my same age. She walked around the side of the building to the front, holding the bell. The bell was no bigger than a teacup, but when she waved it, it sure clanged loudly. That bell’s sound was as beautiful as the sight of the baseball field.

“You hear that, Dawnie?”

“They must ring that same bell when you step off a cloud to enter heaven,” I said.

Saturday, May 22, 1954

Diary Book,

I’m as awake as a hooty owl on this black night, thinking about Prettyman’s baseball field. I’ve been trying to sleep, but over and over, I keep seeing the same moving picture in my mind: Me, Dawnie Rae, rounding the bases on Prettyman’s baseball diamond. Can you imagine anything better? I wouldn’t be surprised if those bases were made of real diamonds.

Here are a few more things I want to write about me, to make this diary truly mine. Folks call me a “hay girl,” or a “coal catcher.” That’s the same as calling me a tomboy. People can say what they want. They’re mostly right in thinking I’m not scared of getting dirty. Hay and coal don’t bother me. Neither do dirt, night crawlers, bugs, or even the smell of rotten eggs.

Running fast and hard makes me happier than a grasshopper at a jump-rope contest, and I swim as good as any frog.

I’m nimble, too. I can wrestle a knot free from a tangle of shoelaces, trap a moth by its wing with two of my fingers, and clear the hedge that separates our yard from Marietta Street, where we live.

I’ve never liked dresses or shoes that shine. Even if I were going to meet President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself, I’d show up to shake his hand in dungarees and Keds. Don’t stick me in starched skirts or anything with a ruffle, except on Sundays when Mama insists that I look “correct” for church.

As much as it hurts to wear one of the three dresses or two skirts I own, I do it sometimes for Mama and Daddy, and for Goober, who likes to say, “Dresses show your strong ankles, Dawnie.”

What’s really “correct” is what suits a person best. And what suits me is playing baseball. More than anything, I want to be part of the All-American Girls Baseball League, a group of women baseball players. But there are no Negroes playing in the AAGBBL. Not a single one.

Someday I will write a letter to Jackie Robinson, second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the first Negro baseball player to play in the modern major leagues, to see if he can help get me into the AAGBBL.

If anybody would know how to break in, Jackie would. Used to be that Major League Baseball didn’t allow colored players. Jackie changed all that. He stepped over what folks called “the color line,” and added some color to the major leagues.

Anyway, for now, I’ll have to keep batting in Orem’s Pasture, down past Yolanda’s house at the place where Ebert Street meets up with Landleton Avenue.

Monday, May 24, 1954

Diary Book,

Things at school are getting stranger and stranger. I’m glad we’ve only got a few weeks to go before summer break.

Today Mr. Calhoun called me and two other kids into his office. Yolanda, Roger Wilkes, and I slid onto the bench that faced Mr. Calhoun’s desk.

Mr. Calhoun was looking mostly at me, it seems. Before he could even speak, I defended myself for what I thought I’d done bad. “Mr. Calhoun, I swear, the only reason I brought my pogo stick into school today was because yesterday when I left it out, there was bird plop all over the handle. Geese are coming back to Virginia from farther south, and they’re having a welcome home party.”

Yolanda looked at me sideways. She was wearing a smirk. “Geese make big plops,” she said.

Roger snickered, but I really didn’t see what was so funny. Yolanda was sticking up for me, and she was only telling the truth.

Mr. Calhoun didn’t think it was funny, either. He was serious when he said to me, “Dawnie, you have the highest grades in the elementary division at Mary McLeod Bethune School, and as such, we’d like you to give a speech for the sixth-grade Stepping Up ceremony next month.”

I know I have good grades, but giving speeches — that’s not me. I answered with a question. “How come Yolanda and Roger are here?”

Mr. Calhoun was quick to answer. “The three of you are our best and brightest students, and we’d like each of you to speak at the Stepping Up ceremony. Yolanda and Roger will say a few words. As the highest-ranking student, you, Dawnie, will deliver a speech.”

Yolanda bumped me with her leg. Roger was shaking his head, like he was being asked to walk on fire.

“Additionally,” said Mr. Calhoun, “we’ll be administering a special academic test to each of you to assess your full abilities as you enter seventh grade.”

I don’t mind school tests, in the same way that baiting a fishhook doesn’t bother me. But it’s the end of the school year, and I’m sick of studying, and it doesn’t seem fair that we have to take a test, seeing as the three of us are the smartest kids at Bethune.

Right then I was wishing I was getting in trouble for my ploppy pogo stick. At least a scolding would be over as soon as we left Mr. Calhoun’s office.

Mr. Calhoun explained that the test would be given in four parts, each for a different area of study, and that we’d take the test in one hour segments after school, beginning next week. At the same time, at home in the evenings, we’re to work on our remarks for the Stepping Up program.

Roger and Yolanda started to grumble quietly.

They had no good reason to complain. They were way luckier than me. They were being asked to “say a few words” at the Stepping Up ceremony. I would have to give a whole speech! I tried to turn my attention to taking the test, which came to me a little more natural.

Roger raised his hand. “Mr. Calhoun, is the test on stuff we’ve already learned?”

“It’s a standardized test issued by the Department of Education for the state of Virginia. It covers all aspects of the sixth-grade curriculum,” Mr. Calhoun said.

“How are we supposed to study?” Yolanda wanted to know.

“Just come prepared to do your best” was Mr. Calhoun’s answer.

As much as I tried, I couldn’t yank my thoughts away from the ceremony. I asked a question more important than all the questions about the test. “Do I have to wear a dress for the Stepping Up?”

Mr. Calhoun said, “That’s up to you, Dawnie.”

When we got outside, Yolanda said, “That’s up to your mama.”

After Suppertime

When I told Mama and Daddy about the Stepping Up ceremony and the test, they were pleased.

“Up, up, up,” said Goober. “You can fly, Dawnie.”

Daddy said, “You’re a Johnson. You’ll perform well on that test, and you’ll step up proudly at that ceremony.”

Mama’s words were hard to hear. “I’ll go down to Woolworth’s tomorrow and buy fabric for a new dress. Two weeks isn’t a lot of time, but I can make you something lovely for your Stepping Up speech.”

“You can fly, Dawnie,” Goober repeated. “Dawnie can fly.”

Tuesday, May 25, 1954

Diary Book,

Since what I write is between you and me, I will use your pages for pie-in-the-sky dreaming. My biggest, most pie-in-the-sky wish is to meet Jackie Robinson.

Jackie won’t ever get the chance to read you, but I will write him letters right here on your pages. I will tell him what I wish I could say if he knocked on our front door, and stayed for supper.

Dear Mr. Jackie Robinson,

I am the only girl in all of Lee County who loves baseball. I can bat, pitch, and even ump at a game if I have to. Out back, hanging from our yard’s biggest tree, there’s a rope with a mop head tied to the end of it. My tree mop, I call it.

This is how I’ve learned to bat. Every chance I get, I swing at that mop head, keeping my eyes pinned to its strings, pushing my bat right up on it to send the mop head swinging.

Mr. Jackie Robinson, I’ve always wanted to know:

How does it feel to play baseball in front of so many people?

Who taught you how to swing a bat?

When you’re on the field, what are you thinking about?

What does Brooklyn look like?

Your fan,
Dawnie Rae Johnson

Wednesday, May 26, 1954

Diary Book,

There are two public schools in Hadley—ours and theirs.

Our school, Mary McLeod Bethune, is for colored kids only. It includes kindergartners up to twelfth graders. Everybody at Bethune is colored, including the teachers.

When you live in Hadley, and your skin is any shade of dark, you attend Bethune. There are three “divisions” at our school — elementary, middle, and high school. But really, it’s all the same — the Negro school, where white kids wouldn’t go if it was the last school on God’s earth. Bethune is in the colored part of town, the place white folks call “Crow’s Nest.” I hate this name. I am no ugly blackbird, and I don’t live in a nest. I live in a green wood-frame house on Marietta Street, just off Carlton Avenue, a few minutes from Bethune.

Their school, Prettyman Coburn, is for white kids only. It’s in the white part of town, the part people call “Ivoryton.” I hate this name, too. How come they get to live in Ivory, when we have to live with crows?

Our school is named after Mary McLeod Bethune, a fine Negro lady who started a black college and gave advice to President Franklin Roosevelt. Good for Mary. She really helped Negroes. But I will only tell this in my diary, because I’m ashamed to admit it out loud — I hate our school.

I mean, I like going to school, but I hate the stuff in school. At Bethune, everything’s broke.

Our pencils are chewed to the bone. The spines on most books are cracked and so raggedy. And how many lessons have I had to piece together because the pages of our books are torn, or missing?

At Bethune, our classrooms are cramped. We stay in the same room all day with the same teacher who teaches us all subjects.

Even though we’re not supposed to chew gum in school, underneath the desks there are enough wads of Wrigley’s Spearmint to patch the cracks in a whole bathroom. And speaking of bathrooms, the girls’ rooms at Bethune stink. The toilets never flush right. The sinks are rust-stained the ugliest brown ever. Even a crow would not want to pee at Bethune.

Bethune’s wall clocks haven’t worked since I started in kindergarten. It has been 2:45 at Bethune for seven years!

Bethune is a redbrick building that covers two blocks. When it rains, the bricks rain, too. The streets and sidewalks around Bethune fill with red clay streams from the silt powder that’s come loose from the school’s rickety bricks. I like rain, but sometimes I worry Bethune will melt right into the ground, like syrup on a pancake.

Prettyman Coburn is two miles from where we live. It’s double the size of Bethune, and twice as nice.

That school is a limestone castle, and as white as the kids who go there. Like Bethune, Prettyman takes up two blocks. But those are two of the cleanest blocks anywhere, with sidewalks free of cracks and weeds.

The outside of Prettyman Coburn School looks just like its name — pretty. There’s a clock on Prettyman’s front cornice. A brass clock that tells the time perfectly and is always correct.

That’s how it is. Negroes get a stinky school with broken clocks. White kids get a castle.

We pass Prettyman Coburn each Sunday when we drive to church. Every Sunday, I look and look at that white-as-white building, with the big white-as-white doors, and the little pointy trees lining the walk, spreading across the front like the collar on an expensive coat. And every Sunday, I wonder what’s inside Prettyman’s walls. If the outside is any clue, the kids at that school are getting their book learning with some nice stuff.

I hear they’ve got a science lab in that pretty school, that you get a different teacher for each subject, and that students move from room to room for their classes. I would give my eyeteeth, and my molars, too, to have a science lab at school. There’s even something called a “homeroom” where kids start and end the day. Can you imagine? A classroom like a home?

Thursday, May 27, 1954

Diary Book,

Yolanda and I walk to school together every morning.

Well, Yolanda walks. She carries her books and mine, while I pogo.

This morning I told Yolanda I’d race her.

“No fair,” Yolanda said. “You’re wearing overalls. I’m in a skirt. I can’t run in a skirt. And — I’m carrying a bunch of books.”

“I’ll give you a head start.”

“What if I trip or get my clothes dirty? My ma will put a wooden spoon to me when I get home.”

Poor Yolanda. She’s as fast a runner as me, but hardly ever gets to run for real, because of wearing skirts and dresses every day. I mean, she can sorta run, like when a car is coming, and we’re trying to make it across the street. But that’s not fun running.

Today I agreed to walk with Yolanda. “Okay, me and you, together.”

Even though Yolanda’s feet couldn’t run today, her mind was working fast. “We’re early, Dawnie,” she said. “How about we go again past Prettyman before Bethune, just to see?”

I’d never been by Prettyman in the morning, other than on a Sunday with my family. I’d already disobeyed Mama and Daddy once by going to Ivoryton without them.

“I don’t think we should,” I said, wanting more than anything to see kids going into that pretty building with its pointy trees and diamond fields, all under the morning sun.

“We’ll just pass by the back, like before,” Yolanda said. “We won’t even stop this time to look really. We can just keep walking.”

We got near enough to the school to hear the bell that was ringing to welcome the students. The same girl from before was ringing it, too. She looked so proud and happy to be holding that bell.

The bell’s rounded tone seemed to be calling me.

Saturday, May 29, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama says there’s not enough time to make me a fancy enough dress for the Stepping Up ceremony. So today we went downtown to Millerton’s Department Store to buy me a dress.

The whole thing gave me a bad case of the how comes. That’s when questions pester me and will not let go. The how comes are like flies. As soon as one how come shows up, more follow.

How come the saleslady at the store wouldn’t let me try on any of the clothes? She made Mama hold each dress up in front of me.

Same for the shoes. Mama had to trace my foot on a piece of paper and slip the paper inside the new shoes to see if they’d fit.

I noticed a white girl my same age going in and out of the dressing room, appearing each time with one of the new dresses on, and her feet in new shoes, seeing if they were her size.

How come Mama didn’t tell the saleslady that you can’t know if something fits unless you put it on your body?

How come Mama hushed me when I started to say this to the saleslady myself?

How come Mama held my hand so tightly the whole time we were in that blasted store? She was near to crushing my fingers in her grip. Alls I could think on was how the blood was being shut off from my pitching hand.

How come Mama’s voice changed from strong to scared whenever the saleslady spoke to her?

How come Mama never once looked that saleslady in the eye?

We settled on a pastel dress with a rounded white collar, and black patent leather shoes with an ankle strap. The dress had a label that described it as “Peach Melba.”

I stood very still in front of the store mirror, my arms out wide like a scarecrow, while Mama held up the dress and shoes in front of me.

Right then I wanted to do something that would’ve made Mama punish me from here till forever — I wanted to spit! First on the saleslady, then on the dress. Then on the insides of each patent leather shoe.

I know how come I wanted to spit, too — it wasn’t fair that I couldn’t try the dress on, ugly as it was. It’s a good thing I held on to my spit. I don’t think there was enough of it inside my mouth to show how mad I was.

The white girl came out of the dressing room wearing the same pastel dress. We both stood in front of the mirror.

“Oh, Mother,” squealed the girl. “This dress is dreamy! I’ll take it.” She was so happy, and twirling in the same dress my mama was buying for me.

How come the white girl’s mother told her they would not be buying the pastel dress?

When I cut my eyes, and looked hard for a moment, I knew that girl. It was the girl from Prettyman Coburn! The bell-ringer girl!

It’s too bad her mother wouldn’t let her buy the Peach Melba dress. It looked good on her. Her hair is pastel to match the dress. And with all that twirling, she made the dress come alive.

But as my mama was folding my Peach Melba dress into a Millerton’s shopping bag, her mama was forcing the other Peach Melba dress back on its hanger, and onto the dress rack.

Later, I heard Mama tell Daddy we’d be eating Goober’s peanuts for dinner till September since they’d spent so much money on that stupid dress.

Daddy said, “I’ll eat peanuts till I’m older than Methuselah if it means my Dawnie can look proper for her Stepping Up.”

Sunday, May 30, 1954

Diary Book,

Shepherd’s Way Baptist Church has to be the loudest congregation in all of Lee County. Services start off slow, but as Reverend Collier works up his sermon, the amens and hallelujahs can be heard all the way over in Norfolk, and they grow like the swell of dust that rises after sliding into third base.

This morning, Reverend Collier talked about integration. He even took out the New York newspaper Daddy had shown me, and read from it as part of his sermon. He rattled the paper, turned it into a fluttering fan to cool off his parishioners.

“This is the truth. Right here,” he proclaimed. “In the New York Times from a week ago last Tuesday.”

Seems everybody had read the same article Daddy had shown me. And for anyone who hadn’t, Reverend Collier spelled it out for them. “Chief Justice Earl Warren from the Supreme Court says, ‘Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’ ”

The amens started up. Reverend Collier flapped and fluttered the New York paper. “Says here that separating black children from others of similar age and qualifications because of their race” — ten more amens before the reverend could finish — “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to be undone.”

You would have thought Reverend Collier was announcing that the Shepherd’s Way choir was getting new silk robes with gold trim.

“Glory be!” shouted Miss Eloise, our choir director.

“Hallelujah!” flung forward from somebody behind me.

“Amen!” rose on all sides.

When we got home, I asked Mama if I could please put on my Keds and go outside. She was so busy peeling potatoes that she shooed me off with a quick, “Go play, child.”

Soon as I laced up my Keds, I was the one filled with:

Glory be!

Hallelujah!

Amen!

I ran to find Goober, who was perched under the tree mop, crunching on his peanuts.

Tuesday, June 1, 1954

Diary Book,

Why is everyone making such a big deal about the Stepping Up ceremony? We’re not really stepping up to anyplace.

Even though we’re going from sixth grade to seventh grade, we’re staying at Bethune, like all the other colored kids in Hadley. All we’re doing is stepping over from the elementary “division” — the side of the building that faces Monroe Street — to the middle school “division” — the wing that lines Crossland Avenue.

We’re stepping over to more chewed pencils, more stinky bathrooms, more books with missing pages. And did I mention that Bethune does not have a library?

Wednesday, June 2, 1954

Diary Book,

Today, along with Yolanda and Roger, I took the test Mr. Calhoun described to us last week.

It started off easy enough, and I was even humming “When the Saints Go Marching In” just to stay awake.

I wrote, checked off boxes, and filled in blanks without even sweating. But then something strange happened. Not strange like a noise or a bird flying in the window. But strange inside me.

Suddenly, I knew the answers, but I didn’t know the answers, too.

The test was easy as cake, but it started to feel hard somehow.

It was when my mind began to stray that this happened. I looked around at the other kids in the room and wondered, What is this test really for? That’s when I struggled with the answers.

One question I will never forget: Provide a word beginning with the letter M that defines a powerful force that propels in a tumultuous fashion.

I read it over and over again.

I broke it down.

… a powerful force … that propels …

Since the clock on the wall is broke, I couldn’t tell how much longer we had left to finish the test. I don’t know what the word tumultuous means. I didn’t want to just write anything, because if I’d wanted to change my mind I wouldn’t have been able to erase my answer — my chewed-up pencil had a bitten-off eraser. Why hadn’t I brought my new red pencil from Goober?

Mr. Calhoun gave us a time warning. “Two more minutes.”

And for the first time ever, I started to sweat a test!

… beginning with the letter M … a powerful force that propels …

I wanted to chew hard on some of that Wrigley’s gum that was stuck in a wad under my desk.

Finally, with Mr. Calhoun’s “One more minute” warning, I wrote: “MY pogo stick.”

Thursday, June 3, 1954

Diary Book,

I’ve been trying not to think about the Stepping Up ceremony, but it’s now a week away, and I guess I should get my speech together. I don’t even have a title for the speech, or any idea about what I should say.

I don’t believe in the boogeyman, but I do believe in the Panic Monster — a big scary thing that scoops you up and does the shaboodle-shake all over your insides.

Mama calls this nerves. I call it a puddle under my arms, a dry throat, and teeth set to chatter.

The Panic Monster has got me in his claws right now, and won’t let go.

Friday, June 4, 1954 Before Bed

Diary Book,

Mama came into my room with the dress from Millerton’s on a hanger. She wanted me to try that thing on. The dress rustled under the paper Mama had draped over it. By punching a hole through it with the hanger, the dress stayed covered from its shoulders to its hem. I tried to pretend I’d fallen asleep, but Mama wasn’t having it.

“That is the fakest snore I will ever live to hear,” she said.

I giggled. “Can I try it on tomorrow?”

Mama considered me for a moment. She peeled back the dress’s paper drape. “Well, I suppose we should let the creases fall out from the dress before trying it on,” she said.

I went back to making phony snore sounds.

Kaaaa … shooooo … Kaaaa … shoooo …

That left Mama giggling, too.

Saturday, June 5, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy loves baseball as much as me. Today he showed me how to choke up on the bat, to grip it firm at its base so my swing packs more power.

“Then meet the ball,” Daddy instructed. “Make friends with the ball as the pitch approaches you. No matter how fast it comes, say, ‘Hey, ball, it’s me and you, baby.’ Then swing at it. And when you swing, be intentional,” Daddy said. “Go at it fully — mean to do what you mean to do.”

Daddy and I practiced in our backyard for near to an hour. When the sun got too hot, Mama brought us lemonade.

“Let the child rest,” she told Daddy. “She needs to come inside and work on her speech for the Stepping Up.”

Mama had that Peach Melba thing in her hand. She’d removed the paper covering completely. “Come, Dawnie,” she coaxed. “You need to try this on.”

“I’ve been playing, Mama. I sure wouldn’t want to get dirt or grass stains on that pretty dress.”

That worked better than fake snores. Mama didn’t even answer. She turned back toward the house, holding the dress away from her.

Daddy must have seen the relief come to my eyes. “Are you ever going to try it on?” he asked.

“I gotta write my speech” was my answer.

“I suppose the dress won’t really matter unless your speech is ready,” he said. Then he told me to think of the speech as meeting a baseball with a bat. “It’s you and your message, coming together,” he said. “Keep it simple.”

I wish it was simple. I have not written a single word of that blanged speech!

So, right here, right now, I’ll start.

Hey, speech. It’s you and me. Simple, right?

How come, then, I can’t think of something simple to say?

Sunday, June 6, 1954

Diary Book,

I thought maybe if I wrote down some of the reasons why I don’t want to give the Stepping Up speech, it’ll help me get to reasons why I might like to give it, and then maybe I’ll actually think of what to say for the speech.

Reasons I don’t want to give the Stepping Up speech:

1. I don’t want to wear the Peach Melba dress.

2. I don’t want to wear the hard black shiny shoes.

3. Even though I have the gift of gab, it doesn’t work for giving speeches.

4. Stepping over doesn’t deserve a speech.

Monday, June 7, 1954

Dear Mr. Jackie Robinson,

I have not written one single word for my Stepping Up speech. The ceremony is four days away. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had to give a speech, and had no idea what you’re gonna say? That’s what’s happening to me right now.

Speechless,
Dawnie Rae Johnson

Tuesday, June 8, 1954

Diary Book,

I’ve had my pogo stick for as long as I can remember. It’s rusty and rickety, and it squeaks, but it still works.

I slammed hard on its pedals today, hoping a bunch of pogo jumping would bring on some good ideas for my speech.

Not one speech-y thought came. Punching the pavement with my pogo sure felt good, though.

That pogo’s spring is on its last leg, but it keeps going. My own legs are getting stronger every time I pump.

Thursday, June 10, 1954 Late night

Diary Book,

The Panic Monster doesn’t ever sleep, no, no, no.

He gets into his rhythm, and works. Tonight he’s going double-time.

Shaboodle-shake-shake. Shaboodle-shake-shake.

I’m as rattly as a loose screw in a can.

Tomorrow is the Stepping Up ceremony.

The only speech I know is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Panic Monster, have mercy!

Friday, June 11, 1954

Diary Book,

It’s just after the in-between. I’ve been up most of the night. Now the sun is showing off the very top of her head.

Morning soon.

Still no speech.

Shaboodle-shake-shake. Shaboodle-shake-shake.

Later

Today was the Stepping Up ceremony, and in all my twelve years of life, I have never stepped like that.

Getting ready to go to Bethune was the worst part.

The Peach Melba dress didn’t fit me right. When I came out of my bedroom, Mama and Daddy were like two hovering chickens, peck, peck, pecking.

The Panic Monster flaring up alongside my parents didn’t help matters. I was sweating more than a cold pitcher of iced tea set out on a hundred-degree day.

“The dress is too small,” I said.

I turned around so they could both see that the dress’s zipper would only go halfway.

“Square your shoulders, Dawnie,” Daddy said. “That’ll help.”

Who knows how a father figures out stuff like that? But Daddy was partly right. When I stood straight-straight, with my shoulders pressed back and my neck lifted, the dress seemed to fit better.

“We can’t take any chances,” Mama said, scurrying off to get her sewing basket. “Stay just like that, Dawnie.”

I didn’t move. I held my breath, even.

Mama came quick with a needle and peach-colored thread. She started stitching from the place where the waist of the dress joins the body part of the dress — Mama sewed me in! The only thing closer was my skin.

I have other dresses I could have worn, but they’re homemade and plain, and I knew Mama and Daddy were set on me wearing the dress from Millerton’s. Besides, I don’t dare challenge Daddy and Mama, not ever. So I let Mama do her needle-and-thread busywork up the length of my back.

When Mama bit off the final tail of thread, I still had my shoulders fixed, and my neck stretched as straight as my pogo stick.

It got worse. Mama wiped down my new shoes with Vaseline to make them even shinier. Isn’t patent leather shiny enough?

My face came next. Same Vaseline. Same high shine on my forehead, cheeks, and nose. Then there was the talcum powder. “To keep you dry,” Mama explained.

I coughed and coughed as Mama doused me with that thick talcum. The powder helped dry my sweat. But by the time we left, I was a ginger-snap cookie, decorated with powdered sugar, sewn up in a Peach Melba dress.

“Pretty Dawnie,” Goober said, clapping. “Want a peanut, pretty Dawnie?”

I reached for a peanut. “Thanks, Goob.”

But Mama was quicker than me. She snatched that peanut faster than a hen grabs at a kernel of corn. “No eating before you’re about to give a speech. It weakens the voice, dulls the smile.”

We walked to Bethune, like always. On our way, we met up with Yolanda and her ma and daddy. “You look good in that dress, Dawnie,” Yolanda said. “But you’re walking funny.”

I didn’t answer. Between the talcum still rising off me and my Peach Melba trap, I could hardly breathe.

The whole school — all four hundred and seventy-two students and their families — filled every corner of Bethune’s gymnasium. Night crawlers in a can had more room than we did, all squeezed together in that hot, cramped place.

There were three chairs on the stage, where me, Yolanda, and Roger were meant to sit before delivering our remarks.

Roger and Yolanda settled into their chairs right away. I didn’t dare sit. One bad move in that dress, and Peach Melba would be done for.

“I’ll just stand,” I told Mr. Calhoun.

“Suit yourself, Dawnie.”

Roger spoke first, then Yolanda. They each said short thank-yous to their families and teachers, and talked about how glad they were to be “stepping up” to seventh grade.

Alls I could think about was the Pledge of Allegiance and the Peach Melba dress that was now choking me. The talcum powder wasn’t doing its job. (The Panic Monster has a way of killing anything that’s even the least bit helpful.)

I was so overcome with terror that I couldn’t even remember the Pledge of Allegiance. The wrong words kept filling me up.

I pledge allegiance to perspiration …

Then came the Panic Monster for the tenth time today, his sharp claws lifting me from the puddly place under my arms. His loud-as-thunder shaboodle-shake rattling inside my head.

Mr. Calhoun announced that I was the sixth grader with the best grades. That throughout my time at Bethune, I showed “very bright promise,” and that I had brought honor to Mary McLeod Bethune’s legacy.

I made my way to the very front of the stage, still not knowing what I would say.

I pledge allegiance to perspiration …

Shaboodle-shake-shake-shake!

Our school has no microphones or fancy equipment for speaking, so it was just me and all those people.

Shaboodle-shake-shake-shake!

Then me and all those people sucked in a loud breath when my too-tight dress busted its seams.

Mama’s sewing stayed put in the back by the zipper, but the dress had split open on each side! Thank goodness for my undershirt. At least I had no skin showing! But the dress was no-doubt torn.

Not only did I step up at today’s ceremony, I also stepped over to the place on the stage where nobody could see the rips in my dress. Then, quick as those Vaseline-y shoes would take me, I stepped off that stage and into a far corner.

Mr. Calhoun didn’t try to coax me back with the other speakers. He just left me to my spot. He came to the front of the stage and started applauding loudly. Everybody joined him, including me. “Thank you, Roger, Yolanda, and Dawnie,” he said enthusiastically.

And there it was, as it’s been for weeks. No speech.

Peach Melba from Millerton’s had saved me.

The Panic Monster started to let go. Shaboodle-shake slowed its rhythm. At least I could breathe regular again.

As the top student in sixth grade, I got a copy of the Webster’s Dictionary, donated by a local chapter of the Delta Sigma Thetas. The dictionary is used, but it’s new to me, and in very good condition.

I pressed the dictionary under one arm to cover the open place showing my undershirt, and kept my free arm pinned to my other side to conceal the rip there.

Afterward, for a special treat, Daddy took me, Mama, and Goober to the Woolworth’s food counter.

There is no colored section at Woolworth’s. That place is “Whites Only” all over. We can order our food and leave, but we can’t sit and eat with the white customers. We can’t even come in the front door. There’s a back entrance for Negroes.

When the waitress asked what we each wanted, Daddy gave the order.

We don’t have special treats from Woolworth’s often, but when we do, I usually get an egg cream. But, Daddy said, “For this occasion, Dawnie gets a banana split.”

As soon as we got home, Mama took a seam ripper to the back of the dress, and released me. I don’t know why she bothered to put the dress back on its hanger. I will never wear Peach Melba again.

Saturday, June 12, 1954

Diary Book,

Our family now owns two big books.

The King James Bible (Old Testament) and the Webster’s Dictionary, also old. Even though the dictionary is used, it has all its pages as far as I can tell.

Daddy insists that I keep the dictionary in my room. “Smart children need books around them,” he says. Man, is that book big.

How many words can there be in the world?

Tonight I read the article from the New York newspaper a second time. I looked up two words in my dictionary — segregation and integration.

Segregation: The state or condition of being separated.

Integration: The act or interest of combining.

If I wrote my own dictionary, I would call it The Dictionary of Dawnie.

Here are my definitions:

Segregation: Negro kids go to Bethune. White kids go to Prettyman Coburn. Colored people can’t try on clothes or shoes they want to buy to see if they fit. We can pay for the clothes and shoes, but once we leave the store, we own the stuff whether it fits or not. Negroes can be hungrier than hungry, but we can’t sit down at the food counter to eat at Woolworth’s. We can be thirstier than sand in the desert, but we can’t drink water from a fountain if that fountain’s wearing a sign that says “Whites Only.”

The same is true for swimming pools, restaurants, and the Hadley Motor Hotel. They’re all segregated.

Here is one more definition of segregation from The Dictionary of Dawnie:

Segregation: Stupid.

Integration: Pie-in-the-sky.

Sunday, June 13, 1954

Diary Book,

After church today, a strange lady came to our house. She had two men with her. I know most folks in Hadley, and most folks know me and my family. But I had never seen the likes of these people. The men were Negroes, but the lady was white. I could tell by the looks of them they were not from around here.

I have never in all my whole life seen a white person come into our house with so much ease! She had a weird way of talking, too. Or, maybe I should say tawlking. Every other word out of her mouth had a saw behind it. She asked Daddy if it was okay that she’d parked their caw in our driveway. And she didn’t tawlk about her ideas — she was full of idears.

Even her clothes were not right. I’m smart for book learning, but I am no expert on girly fashion-y stuff. I do know, though, that wearing a black dress in the middle of the afternoon is what people do only for funerals. And I have never seen lipstick that dark on a real live person.

The Negro men wore suits, but the suit jackets had wide lapels and cuffed pants. Definitely not something I’ve ever seen in Hadley.

The not-from-around-here people spent near to a whole hour sitting in our living room. Drinking lemonade from our glasses, and tawlking, tawlking, tawlking to Mama and Daddy about their idears.

I was outside near an open window, so I caught snatches of what they were saying. I heard something about my Stepping Up speech.

Goober must have sensed something weird, too. He was very restless. He kept snatching my pogo stick and trying to slam his feet on it, and singing and screeching, “Dawnie can fly! Dawnie can fly!”

Finally, the people left. On the porch, Mama and Daddy shook their hands, even.

The white lady in the black dress gave Mama a hug! Right outside where everybody could see.

Goober and I were in the side yard. I’d given up my pogo stick to Goober. It was the only way to keep him quiet. We watched the not-from-around-here people drive away in their caw.

As soon as they were out of sight, I raced inside.

“Did somebody die?”

Saturday, June 19, 1954

Diary Book,

Here’s a secret I’m embarrassed to admit out loud, because it seems like a pie-in-the-sky wish that can’t ever come true.

When I grow up, I want to be a doctor. I want people to call me “Dr. Dawnie Rae Johnson.”

Other than studying hard, I’m not real sure on how I could get to become a doctor. I do know that I would have to first learn enough to be smart enough to somehow go to college, then doctor school.

What I don’t know is how you get the learning you need that puts you into college so you can go to doctor school after that.

What I also do know is that whatever books and supplies a kid needs to learn the stuff to go to college, and then to doctor school, are not at Bethune. And what I also don’t know is anyone who’s ever gone to college.

That’s why Dr. Dawnie Rae Johnson is as far away as Mars.

Tuesday, June 22, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy brought me a present — a new Jackie Robinson baseball card! I have now read the stats on the card at least a hundred times. I’m tucking the card in my diary’s safe gutter to mark today’s date as the day the card got to be mine. The stuff about Jackie is sure nifty. Here are some Jackie facts:

* Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson

* Major League Baseball Debut: April 15, 1947, for the Brooklyn Dodgers

* Received the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award in 1947

* The first Negro player to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949

* Bats: Right

* Throws: Right

I want to add one more fact about Jackie:

* Bravest player on the field.

Saturday, June 26, 1954

Diary Book,

Today I told Yolanda about my dream of being a doctor. Why in the world did I do that? I might as well have been telling her that hogs can dance the Hokey Pokey.

Yolanda laughed so hard.

She asked me, “Have you ever seen a colored doctor in Hadley?”

Well, no, I have never seen a colored doctor. Or a colored nurse, either. I’ve seen plenty of colored teachers and preachers, but no Negroes working in medicine.

Before I could answer, Yolanda told me, “My pa says there are only colored doctors in places like New York City, and not many of them.”

What I didn’t tell Yolanda was that I saw a colored lawyer once — I actually saw three colored lawyers.

I didn’t see them for real, in person, walking around and talking. I saw their picture in the New York paper, along with the article about integration. I have un-pasted and re-pasted the picture part of that article here. The words under the picture say:

LEADERS IN SEGREGATION FIGHT:

Lawyers who led battle before U. S. Supreme Court for abolition of segregation in public schools congratulate one another as they leave court after announcement of decision. Left to right: George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James M. Nabrit.

Those lawyers are sure smiling. They look real happy.

If there are Negro lawyers, there must be colored doctors and nurses, too.

Tuesday, June 29, 1954

Diary Book,

I just had to write two letters today, one to Jackie Robinson, and one to some other people I probably won’t ever meet, but who I admire.

LETTER NUMBER 1
Dear Mr. Jackie Robinson,

My friend Yolanda squashed my dream of becoming a doctor before the dream even had a chance to grow. Her words hit me hard. Real hard.

Mr. Jackie Robinson, what did your best friend say when you told him you wanted to play baseball in the major leagues? Did he laugh hard and ask, “Have you ever seen a colored baseball player in the major leagues?”

I bet you’re laughing now.

Signed,
Wanting to be Dr. Dawnie Rae Johnson

LETTER NUMBER 2

Dear George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit,

If you’ve ever seen a heel stomping on a wildflower, that’s what it was like when I told my best friend that I wanted to be a doctor. Yolanda just smushed my wish. It hurt when she did that.

Dear lawyers, now that I have seen your picture and read about you, I know what’s possible. But I have to ask—What did your friends say when you said you were going to be a lawyer? Did they smush your dream? Did it hurt?

Now that you’ve shown them what having a dream can mean, are they smiling as much as you are in that New York newspaper photograph?

Sunday, July 4, 1954

Diary Book,

Everybody and their brother comes to Linden Park for a picnic on the Fourth of July.

I don’t know who decided to call Linden a park. The park is really just the back lot of Clem Linden’s Barbershop, a place rusty cars and dandelions call home. It’s home to us, too, one of the places in Hadley where white people won’t go. We can be free to do whatever we want, how we want. Clem’s got a small patch of collards growing next to his tomato plants, and a mess of pole beans coming out of the land like the legs of a giant.

Reverend Collier and his wife showed up at the same time we did. The reverend has the biggest car in all of Lee County. It’s a Pontiac, with fenders so shiny, you can look into them and clean the corn kernels from your teeth.

Somebody had already set up tables of food. There were heaps of coleslaw and mac-and-cheese. And I had to wonder if there was a chicken left alive within twenty miles of Hadley. The tables were covered with drumsticks and thighs.

Yolanda’s pa and Daddy played horseshoes with Clem Linden and Reverend Collier. All they talked about was this integration business.

Daddy said, “It’s about time. But this is not going to be an easy fight.”

Yolanda’s pa said, “If integration means whites and blacks are supposed to go to school together, white children can come to Bethune. Let us teach them a thing or two. Let us show them how the other half lives.”

Clem was quick to point out, “They’re going to make our lives miserable. White folks can’t stand knowing we’re getting something they have. I’m not throwing my kids into that hornets’ nest. My children are staying at Bethune.”

The reverend said, “This is a time of hope for our children. The best way to make that hope into something real is to rise and meet it. ”

Soon it seemed everybody was discussing integration. If collards could talk, they would have been debating with Clem’s tomatoes.

I was sick of it all. I’m glad I’d brought my baseball bat. I was able to rustle a game together.

Reverend Collier volunteered to be the ump.

Freddy Melvin was the pitcher. Freddy’s got more hot air than a wind balloon with a basket underneath it. He makes my gift of gab sound like mumbling.

I was the first batter up. Freddy Melvin shouted, “Hey, grandma, you ready to play ball?”

“Just pitch it, will you?” I said.

Freddy pitched underhand, slowly. He was treating me like a girl player. When the ball loped at me, I caught it, didn’t even try to swing.

I walked the ball back to Freddy. “Pitch it regular,” I told him. “I’m ready to bat — and to run.”

“Don’t you need a cane for runnin’, little old lady?” Freddy said.

Freddy knew I could bat the pants off anybody. He was just wisecracking.

His next pitch came fast, overhand.

Yeah, Freddy can call me “grandma” all he wants. But this granny hit a triple.

“Here’s your ball back, gramps!” I called to Freddy. “I hear there’s a sale on canes down at Millerton’s. You might want to get one,” I hollered from third base.

Roger Wilkes was up next. If I’m grandma and Freddy’s gramps, Roger’s great-grandpa. He moves slower than slow, and can’t bat worth a dime. “Bring me home, Roger!” I yelled.

I sure wish Freddy had pitched Roger a slowpoke-y underhand girly pitch. Roger’s the one who needed it, not me.

Freddy was making it worse by winding up his arm to show Roger he meant business. The pitch came—shwoop! Roger jumped back, out of its way.

“Strike one!” called Reverend Collier.

Freddy’s next pitch was faster than the first. It tore past Roger.

“Strike two!”

“I wanna go home, Roger! Home, you hear?” I shouted.

Roger adjusted his eyeglasses. “Home, Dawnie.” He nodded.

Schwooooop! Freddy’s third pitch was a smear of white.

Roger leaned in, and managed a good hit!

He worked his way to first base.

I hauled it home.

Freddy came at me with the ball, trying to get me out before my feet landed on the base. But I was too fast for gramps.

“Safe!” called Reverend Collier.

It was sure true. Today in Linden Park, I was as safe as could be.

Man, that baserunning felt good. As summer’s heat hugged its warmth around me, integration flew far out of my mind.

Sunset’s light had called every mosquito in Hadley, inviting them to leave a dotty map on my arms and legs.

Then came dusk. And fireworks dancing in the night sky.

Saturday, July 10, 1954

Diary Book,

Today was Goober’s ninth birthday, and my turn to give him a special gift. I decided to take Goober to Ruttledge Street, where Mr. Albert sells bags of roasted peanuts with salt. He peddles peanuts from a cart, along with squash, peaches, rhubarb, and cukes. Mr. Albert is a member at Shepherd’s Way Baptist Church, and he told me to bring Goober by for the peanuts, for free, since it’s his birthday.

Goober ate the peanuts fast. There was a film of salt left at the corners of his lips when he was done. He licked at the salt. “I’m thirsty,” he said.

Every Negro child in Lee County knows that when you’re thirsty, and there’s no colored drinking fountain, you drink your own spit till you get home.

But Goober, he doesn’t know nothing about colored water fountains, or those marked “Whites Only.”

He kept whining, “I’m thirsty. I’m thirsty.” And before I could stop him, he was running fast to get water from a “Whites Only” fountain.

I know a water fountain doesn’t care who drinks its water. But white people care. They really care.

Goober got to the “Whites Only” fountain, and started slurping the water. Then he dipped his face down into the basin to cool off! I have never been more scared for Goober than when I saw three white boys coming up on him from behind. I knew those kids. They were the Hatch brothers, Bobby, Cecil, and Jeb. Their daddy owns Hatch Hardware.

“Goober, get back!” I shouted.

Goober startled, then lifted his face, which was glistening from the water.

The boys had circled around Goober, who was offering them a drink from the fountain.

Bobby, the oldest Hatch brother, is my same age, but much taller. He said, “Well, if it ain’t a Negro retard!”

My heart was a fast pitch inside my chest, making its way to my throat.

The Panic Monster had sharpened his claws, and did they ever pinch!

“My brother can’t read good,” I managed to say. “He was thirsty. He made a mistake. But we’re leaving now.”

Jeb Hatch said, “Look, is that a colored girl, or a colored boy? Can’t tell by the dungarees.”

Mr. Albert had left his cart and come over. He looked just as scared as I felt inside. “Goober, Dawnie, get on now. Go home, you hear me?”

But Goober said, “Want some water, Mr. Albert?”

I didn’t want to holler at Goober. That would scare him. He didn’t know what was happening.

Mr. Albert folded one arm around Goober and one around me and backed us away slowly.

“Get outta here, and take that Negro retard with you!” Cecil called.

All three Hatch boys started to chant. “Negro retard! Negro retard!”

Then came sticks.

And spitting, too.

Daddy and Mama have told us to always tell them when we have a run-in with white folks. But telling about run-ins always leads to more trouble somehow.

It is late night as I write this. Goober has been rocking in his sleep.

And singing very quietly, “Happy birthday to me,” as he dreams.

And whispering “Negro retard” into his pillow.

Monday, July 12, 1954

Diary Book,

It’s the in-between. Not night, not morning. I’m folded into my bedroom’s tiny closet with a flashlight, writing.

It’s hot as blazes in here, and the only good air is what’s slicing through the crack of my partway open door. I’ve come to my closet because what I’m about to tell you feels supersecret. And, Mama has some kind of special power that lets her know when I’m awake, or when I’ve got my flashlight on under my covers. I don’t want to beckon whatever that thing is in Mama.

Yolanda told me that same white lady and the two Negro men in city suits came to her house.

“Did they sit in your living room?” I asked.

Yolanda nodded.

“How long did they stay for?”

“My daddy showed them to the door soon after they started talking,” she said.

I told Yolanda how the lady hugged Mama.

Yolanda’s eyes went wide. “Hugged for real — like, touching each other?”

“For real,” I said.

That’s when Yolanda fished a crumpled sheet of paper from her pocket. It was a mimeograph copy of a flyer with lines for people to sign their names.

“This is what the two men and that lady gave my ma and daddy before they left.”

I have the steadiest hand in Lee County, on account of how firm I can hold a baseball bat. But my hand, all on its own, has a little quiver to it right this minute. And I’m doing something I hate when others do it, especially at school — I’m chewing on the pencil Goober gave me.

The paper Yolanda showed me has Mama’s and Daddy’s signatures on it.

I am pasting it here, just to make sure it’s real, and that this is not one of those dreams like when a Martian comes and takes you to someplace green.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)
TAPS TOP STUDENTS TO START
INTEGRATION PROCESS.
Parental Consent Required.

Right off, I recognized Mama’s curly signature and Daddy’s blocky way of forming letters. They’d signed me up to attend Prettyman Coburn, come September!!

Later–Full Morning

Diary Book,

Is what I pasted during the in-between really here? Or is it part of a Martian dream?

I’m going to flip your thick pages back, one … two … three …

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)
TAPS TOP STUDENTS TO START
INTEGRATION PROCESS.

Parental Consent Required.
Student Name: Dawn Rae Johnson
Grade as of September 8, 1954: 7
Parents:

Thursday, July 15, 1954

Diary Book,

Yolanda’s no pogo-stick expert, but she’s good at rhyming and singing. Today I jumped high and hard on my pogo, while Yolanda set my pumping to a song.

Pogo, pogo,
Where do we go?
To the clouds.
To the sky.
Jumping, pumping, way up high.
Pogo, pogo,
Where do we go?
To the moon.
To the stars.
Take a pogo trip to Mars.

Monday, July 19, 1954

Diary Book,

There was a small item in today’s newspaper about the All-American Girls Baseball League. It looks like the owners of the AAGBBL will decide to suspend play for the 1955 season. Some of the players will keep touring around, but eventually the AAGBBL will call it quits. The paper said the crowds at the baseball parks, coming to see girls play, are drying up. How can that be? Who wouldn’t want to see the best girl batters, pitchers, and base runners around?

Now I’ll never get to play in the league. I hope Yolanda doesn’t ask, “Have you ever seen a Negro player in the All-American Girls Baseball League?”

I was planning to be the first one.

Thursday, July 22, 1954

Diary Book,

Tonight for supper Mama served my favorite two foods — pulled pork and fried pickles. When I came to the table, Goober had set up his peanuts in the shape of a happy face, smiling at the center of us all.

Right off, I asked, “How come we get special food on a regular night?”

“We’re celebrating,” Mama said.

Mama and Daddy explained some of what Mr. Calhoun had told us, that the test I had taken at school with Yolanda and Roger had been issued by the Department of Education for the state of Virginia. They said that because of the test results, I’d been picked to attend Prettyman Coburn in September.

They told me the test was set up to be very hard so that even me and the other smart kids at Bethune couldn’t pass it. If we all flunked, the Department of Education would have a reason to keep us out of Prettyman.

“I don’t ever flunk,” I said.

Mama nodded. “You three kids who took the test passed.”

She told me I only missed one question. I knew the question Mama was talking about. She said, “They showed us your test.” Mama looked pleased. “On one of the questions, the test asked to give a word that means a force that propels, and starts with the letter M. It said this force is tumultuous, like a storm.”

I told Mama, “That question didn’t say anything about a storm.”

“Anyway,” said Mama, “the correct answer was maelstrom.”

I folded my arms. “What kind of word is maelstrom to give to a kid on a test?”

Mama said, “You did very well on the test, Dawnie. That’s what matters most.”

Daddy was smiling and shaking his head. He said, “‘MY pogo stick’ does start with the letter M.”

He told me about the white lady in the black dress and the colored men in big-collared suits who’d come to our house. They were from the NAACP, a group of people whose members work to get equal rights for Negroes.

“How come that lady was tawlking funny?” I wanted to know. “And how come she hugged you, Mama?”

Daddy answered with a question. “How come you weren’t minding your business, Dawnie? That was a private meeting between grown-ups.”

Goober had set a fried pickle spear onto his plate, and had made a pickle-shaped man with peanut arms and legs. “Funny tawlking. Grown-ups funny tawlking,” he said.

I didn’t dare mention the paper Yolanda had shown me. Daddy told me the lady was from New York, and that’s how Northerners speak, and that there’s nothing funny about people wanting to help you. Even white people.

“That lady’s name was Cynthia Woods,” Mama told me. “She was very kind, and was pleased that we agreed with the work she and the others from the NAACP are doing.”

Mama and Daddy told me that I’d get a better education at Prettyman Coburn, and, they reminded me, Prettyman is a far walk from where we live, a whole two miles away. “But you have a right to attend the best school in this district,” Daddy said, “no matter how far it is.”

I guess that meant I had the right to walk on those clean Prettyman sidewalks. And the right to say good morning to those pretty, pointy Prettyman trees out front. And to play on that pretty Prettyman baseball diamond after school.

I’d walk a million miles for that.

Yolanda doesn’t own a telephone, so I couldn’t call to tell her about how happy I was that she and Roger and me were chosen to be Prettyman students.

With all this news, none of us had eaten. Mama said grace.

“Pass the pork,” Daddy said.

“Pass me a pickle,” I said.

Goober said, “Look at my peanut-pickle person, Dawnie. See my peanut-pickle person, on my plate?”

Mama doesn’t ever let us play with food, but tonight she allowed Goober his fun. “Let’s eat” was all she said.

Monday, July 26, 1954

Diary Book,

Tonight after supper I asked Mama and Daddy if we could buy a TV.

They both answered at the same time: “No.”

“Televisions cost money,” Mama said.

“Money we don’t have,” said Daddy.

I don’t know much about money, except that when you have a nickel, you can buy five pretzel sticks from Woolworth’s. When you have a penny, you can buy a sucking candy. When you have a dime, you can buy a root beer. Last Christmastime, I got a penny, two nickels, and even some dimes. I didn’t spend none of that money. Since I’ve been old enough to hold a penny, I’ve been saving to buy a new pogo stick, an Ace Flyer.

I also know this: When you don’t spend money on things like Peach Melba dresses that are too tight and shiny shoes you don’t wear much, you have more money in your pocket for a TV.

We were sitting out on our porch watching Goober chase fireflies.

The radio was on. We were listening to a commentary about an upcoming game between the Dodgers and the Red Sox when the program was interrupted.

The man on the radio said, “U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd vows to stop integration in Virginia schools.”

“Get the baseball commentary back on!” I insisted.

For the second time, Mama and Daddy spoke together: “Shhhh!”

The man on the radio was talking about school, and I did not want to hear it! It’s summer, right? Can we please not think about school?

Even Goober agreed. He’d caught a firefly in a jar, and ran to show me.

“Baseball back on!” he sang. “Baseball back on!”

Wednesday, July 28, 1954

Diary Book,

Yolanda and I played our favorite game today. A game we call “Tell the Truth or Die Tryin’.”

Yolanda always starts truth tellin’ by making an X over her heart with her pointer finger. “Cross my heart, hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. If I’m lyin’, watch me cryin’. ’Cause I know I will be dyin’.”

Then we press our foreheads together to see if either one of us has shed a “lyin’ cryin’ dyin’” tear, and to seal the truth between us.

Today Yolanda said she wouldn’t be coming to Prettyman with me. Her parents don’t believe in integration, especially her father. “My pa says why go to a place where you’re not wanted.”

I didn’t believe Yolanda at first. She said, “Cross my heart, hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. If I’m lyin’, watch me cryin’. ’Cause I know I will be dyin’.”

She had to be lyin’. This could not be true.

“Are you telling me a story, Yolanda Graves? ’Cause if you are, cut it out.”

Yolanda shook her head. “I’m telling the truth, Dawnie, I swear.”

Yolanda didn’t need to cross her heart to show me she wasn’t lying. Her down-in-the-mouth expression told me she was being real.

Then I remembered the paper Mama and Daddy had signed. I’d been so flabbergasted by seeing their names, that I’d forgotten to look to see if Yolanda’s parents had signed the form, too. I guess they hadn’t.

“Well, if you’re not going to Prettyman, I’m not going, neither,” I said.

But I didn’t mean that, and Yolanda knew it, too.

“You gotta do it, Dawnie,” she said. “How will we ever know what it looks like inside that school if you don’t go?”

“Roger Wilkes can tell us.” Yolanda said, “Roger Wilkes’s glasses have more smudge on them than a windshield stuck with mosquitoes. I’m surprised he can see his own feet.”

Yolanda wouldn’t look at me. “Besides,” she said quietly, “Roger’s not going to Prettyman, either. His daddy and ma wouldn’t even open the door for those NAACP people.”

“So it’s just me?” I asked.

Yolanda kicked at the gravel under her feet. She nodded. “It’s just you going to Prettyman, Dawnie.”

Just me?

If a balloon could feel what it was like to be sat on at a birthday party, it would know what I felt right then — pop!

Saturday, July 31, 1954

Diary Book,

This weekend, Reverend Collier is hosting folks from Calvary, a visiting congregation from Reston. To welcome them, we held a church-wide picnic at Orem’s Pasture.

I don’t know who does the naming of places in Hadley. Orem’s Pasture isn’t really a pasture, like where cows gather. Orem’s is a raggedy patch of crabgrass that separates Ivoryton from Crow’s Nest. It is the closest we come to the white part of town. The grass is more brown than green, but the pasture is wide, and offers plenty of open space, and is closed in by a chain-link fence.

Seeing as there were so many people needing to picnic, I guess Reverend Collier chose Orem’s to give us all enough room for spreading our blankets.

There was a boy from Calvary who’d brought two baseballs, a bat, a bunch of mitts, and even an umpire’s mask. I’d brought my bat, too. And my mitt.

The kid’s name was Lonnie. He called together a baseball game soon after everyone from both congregations had gathered.

All the boys from Calvary came to the center of the pasture. So did the boys from Shepherd’s Way. So did I.

Lonnie looked at me sidelong. “This ain’t softy ball,” he said. “It’s a baseball game.”

What Lonnie didn’t know is that I can knock the jelly out of any ball that comes at me, and that I’m no softy.

Freddy Melvin spoke up quick. “Let her play,” he said.

Lonnie wasn’t having it. “No girls.”

Freddy made a sour face like he was being forced to eat okra. But he was faking. “We’ll put up with her.”

Fake sour face and all, Freddy wanted me on his team. “We can stick her in the outfield,” he told Lonnie.

Now I was the one making a sour face. “The outfield?” I protested. Everybody in Hadley knows I’m a second baser, just like Jackie Robinson.

“You wanna play, or not?” Freddy asked.

“Yeah, I wanna play. But I wanna play where I can play, not dawdle with the butterflies.”

“Dawnie, when it’s time to bat, you’ll play, ’kay?”

“Not okay,” I huffed.

But Lonnie was already assigning his players and the game was starting.

It was Shepherd’s Way against Calvary.

Roger was quick to join our team. Goober, too.

“They playin’?” Lonnie asked.

There’s only one thing I hate about baseball — losing. I couldn’t tell Roger not to play, but I had some control over Goober.

Before I could think of a way of gently encouraging Goober not to play, Mama was at centerfield volunteering him.

“Goober can set up,” she said, and she started helping Goober make bases from whatever was nearby.

Together Mama and Goober drove the nose of a pop bottle into the dirt to mark first base. Second base was a box top. Third, a snatch of tire rubber. Home plate was a sock Goober had found and stuffed with newspaper. This seemed to satisfy Goober’s wanting to be on the Shepherd’s Way team.

Mama, Daddy, Goober, the Reverend, and a whole mess of people from Shepherd’s Way pulled their picnic blankets closer to the game. Yolanda was there, too. “Make it happen, Dawnie!” she shouted. “Show ‘em you mean business, girl!”

The Calvary team was up first. That Lonnie kid, he sure knew his way around swinging a bat. He met Freddy’s fastest pitch with a mean crrrrack, giving me some play way out in the pasture. I scooped the ball, hurled it. But by the time Roger stumbled over his feet, Lonnie was home free — and home-run happy.

When it was our turn up, Freddy let me bat first. Lonnie was pitching.

“Bring it home, Dawnie!” Daddy shouted. “Don’t just swing. Use your noggin. Think, child. Meet the ball.”

“Home, Dawnie!” Goober cheered.

I had a good grip on the bat. Hiked it high over my shoulder. I was ready. Feeling confident. Feeling fine.

When I surveyed the pasture, there was rattling coming from the fence. All three Hatches had shown up, and were watching from the spot closest to Ivoryton, where the fence separates Orem’s Pasture from the road. They didn’t dare pipe up or misbehave. There were only three of them, but lots more of us, including grown-ups. Just having the Hatches around bothered me, though. I tried my best to ignore them, but it was hard doin’.

It helped having Daddy coaching me from the sidelines.

“Chin up, Dawnie!”

Lonnie slammed in a pitch. Man sakes — there was fire on the stitches of his ball!

“Strike one!”

Lonnie craned his knee high up, brought the ball back — flam! That pitch was hotter than the last. It could have melted the fenders on Reverend Collier’s Pontiac.

The two words every batter hates shot up from behind me: “Strike two!”

I released my bat for a moment. Did the thing that riles Mama most — spit in both my palms. “Choke the bat!” Daddy coached. “Choke it, Dawnie!”

Lonnie’s teammates cheered him. “Put it down the middle, Lonnie-man! Show her this ain’t no place for a girl.”

Lonnie bombed me with his pitch. As slammin’ as it was, I never lost sight of its power. I didn’t hit the ball, I laced it — high and far, all the way to St. Peter’s post at the pearly gates.

I put some smooth peanut butter on that jelly doughnut.

Flung my bat, and breaknecked like heck toward the pop bottle in the dirt — to first base.

It sure helps being big-legged. A box top never looked as good as when I was landing on its second-base square.

Soon that rubber tire patch was calling my name — third base!

Now I was bombing forward, blowing through puffed cheeks, working my way to the stuffed sock, to home base. My ball had soared so far and high that it took the Calvarys a good two minutes to get it back. Still, every baseball player knows you’re not safe till you hear the ump make the call.

As I watched that stuffed sock get closer, I could hear Lonnie hollering to his outfielders, “Get the ball. She’s near to home!”

Daddy must have kept Mama from fainting at what came next. I didn’t just slide into home base, I sliiiiiid on my belly, mopping the land with the front of my shirt.

I’m not one for eating dirt, but dirt from sliiiiiiding into home base tastes sweeter than brown sugar. Never mind that it stung my eyes. I was nose-to-the-ground, smelling that musty sock, smelling home.

“Safe!” came the call.

I got to my feet, danced a happy kick-step. Brushed the brown sugar from my front.

Our game continued through the afternoon. I hit a double and two more homers.

Shepherd’s Way beat Calvary, but only by a little.

It wasn’t until the game was over that the Hatch boys left. They’d hung tight to the fence, fingers laced to its chains, watching me play.

Sunday, August 1, 1954

Diary Book,

Calvary’s minister, our guest speaker, delivered today’s sermon. “The Lord doesn’t take sides,” he said. “But he does know good baseball when he sees it. Yesterday, the players from Shepherd’s Way gave the Lord a front-row seat to some lively ball playing.”

Wednesday, August 4, 1954

Diary Book,

Today was hotter than the hinges on the devil’s front door. Daddy and Mama took me on a practice walk to Prettyman Coburn so that we could see how long it would take to get there from home, and to make sure I’m clear about the directions on foot. Mama and Daddy don’t know anything about the shortcuts Yolanda and I have found, so we walked the main streets, the longest way to get there.

Two miles is no fun in the heat. I’d started out on my pogo stick, but took to hoisting it across my shoulders after just a short time. Goober noted the streets and avenues, calling out their names as we walked.

Mama and Daddy peppered me with rules about what to do and not do when I attend my new school.

Mama’s rules were about being polite and not making trouble. Daddy was strict about safety.

All the rules started the same way:

“Always remember …” and

“Don’t forget …” and

“Make sure you …”

“Always remember—you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“Don’t forget to smile.”

“Make sure you greet your new teacher courteously.”

Daddy gave a warning.

“Rule number one,” he said, “keep your hands to yourself.”

Even Goober had rules — polite ones and safety ones:

“Give nice people a peanut,” he said. And, “Give mean people three peanuts.”

Monday, August 9, 1954

Diary Book,

Goober’s not allowed to come out of our fence without first asking me or Mama or Daddy. Today he wanted a pogo lesson, but we had to stay in our small front yard to do it, which is not enough room for jumping, and not enough concrete for pumping good on the pogo stick.

I tried showing Goober how to pogo on grass, but my pogo kept sticking in the dirt. This made Goober cry, then wail. “I want to fly like you, Dawnie!”

He kept saying it over and over, louder and louder. Screeching like he does when he’s upset. Then he slammed the pogo stick hard on the grass, and cried more. I sat him down on our back steps until he calmed down.

“Let’s play airplane,” I said softly.

Goober spread his arms wide. He ran in zigzags around our yard.

“Watch out for the other planes, Dawnie, okay?”

“Okay, Goober.”

“Do you see the other planes flying, Dawnie? Do you see them flying?”

“Yes, Goober, I see them.”

Monday, August 16, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy brought home a new magazine today. It’s called Sports Illustrated. A whole magazine about sports! Its pages were shiny, and felt so good touching up against the skin on my fingers as I turned them. And the pictures — I couldn’t stop staring.

Wednesday, August 18, 1954

Diary Book,

Without asking me, Goober played with my pogo stick. I don’t like him touching my things, but the worst part is that he left the pogo stick out in the rain. The stick is already rusty enough!

I’m mad as a hornet right now, and ready to attack Goober!!! That boy!! Somebody needs to leave him out in the rain so that he can rust. At least then, he’d be too stuck to mess with my stuff.

I wish I could send Goober back to the planet where boys like him come from!

Right now, if it were up to me, I’d put him on a rocket ship, set the destination dial to “Way Far Away,” and send Goober flying off for forever. I HATE when he does stuff like this. HATE IT!! If Mama and Daddy ever heard me say what they call “the H word” — H-A-T-E — I’d be the one sent off on a rocket, and made to live on Jupiter.

Mama says that in God’s eyes there is no hate. But what about MY eyes? What about MY eyes that have to look at my rusted pogo stick and be hornet-mad every time I see the brown, crusted metal on the pogo’s spring?

What about MY eyes that have to see what happens when Goober acts up?

So yeah, HATE is a bad word. But when your brother leaves your favorite-est thing in the world out in the rain, you HATE him for it.

That’s why a diary book is good. I can write the H word as much as I want. I can feel H-A-T-E, but not ever say it.

I HATE having a little brother like Goober!!

I HATE putting up with his baby-brother dumbness.

I HATE being the one who has to stick up for Goober so much.

And I HATE that God made Goober the way he is.

HATE! HATE! HATE!

And, here are some more H words—HA! HA! HA!

Mama and Daddy can’t stop me from writing H-A-T-E!!

Saturday, August 21, 1954

Diary Book,

Instead of calling my pogo a pogo stick, I should call it a pogo stuck. More rust has set in. The spring is crusted and slow to give. Darn that Goober!

Sunday, August 22, 1954

Diary Book,

I think Reverend Collier is getting lazy. His sermons used to be about things like finding joy in the Lord’s surprises. Now all Reverend Collier talks about is integration and fairness in education.

Can’t he think of some new ideas?

Thursday, August 26, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama says grease heals. Today she slathered my pogo’s spring with bacon grease left over from frying, and it worked. That bacon grease made the spring like new. So, I’m back to jumping on my pogo stick. It now smells like pork strips, but at least I can say, “Bye-bye, pogo stuck.”

Monday, August 30, 1954

Diary Book,

Other than Daddy’s truck, our radio is the most expensive thing we own. The voices coming out of that brown box give us all kinds of news. Mama and Daddy listen close most every night. My parents are very strict about what we tune into with our radio. We’re only allowed to play Christian music. Comedy shows, or anything Daddy says is a time-waster, are not allowed.

Thank goodness Daddy listens to baseball games. Other than that, “The radio is for news,” Daddy says.

Who wants to hear some man talking about boring newsy stuff? I’d rather listen to quiz shows like Break the Bank. But Daddy’s not having it. So, unless there’s a baseball game on, I only half listen.

But tonight, I listened all the way when Daddy turned up the volume. The radio commentator said, “Virginia governor Thomas B. Stanley has appointed a thirty-two-member all-white Commission on Public Education to examine the effects of the recent Brown v. Board of Education school integration ruling. The governor has charged this commission with studying how the Brown decision impacts schools in the state of Virginia. The findings of this study will help the governor plan a course of action. The commission is chaired by Senator Garland Gray of Sussex County. It has been named the Gray Commission.”

I didn’t fully understand all the talk about commissions and findings. But I did know that Daddy and Mama were pressed to our radio.

Friday, September 3, 1954

Diary Book,

Why does summer seem to disappear the minute we turn the page on our kitchen calendar from August to September? Just yesterday I was fanning the sheen from my face with a dish towel, and wetting the towel with cold water to press on my forehead.

This morning I was fishing in my dresser drawers for something with sleeves until morning’s chill gave way to warmth. I miss summer already. Even bee stings and sweat-weather.

Saturday, September 4, 1954

Diary Book,

School starts in four days. Alls I can think about is me at Prettyman Coburn.

Me on that pretty baseball field.

Me inside a school with working clocks and toilets that flush.

Me in a homeroom.

Me with white kids.

Only me.

With white kids.

Only, only.

Me.

(The Panic Monster has been whispering to me lately. His growl has been low, but there’s no mistaking shaboodle-shake!)

Monday, September 6, 1954

Diary Book,

Today, when I asked Mama why we celebrate Labor Day, she said, “To acknowledge those of us who work, to pause on behalf of laborers.” But there was no pausing in our house today. It was like we were getting ready to meet the queen. Some kind of scrub bug has bitten Mama. She spent the day sweeping and wiping all over our house.

“Is somebody special coming?” I asked.

“You’re special,” Mama said. “And you’re going to a new school.”

I started to ask what me going to Prettyman has to do with furniture polish and a broom, but I held my tongue. Somehow, to Mama’s way of thinking, a clean house means a good first day of school.

Tuesday, September 7, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama’s gone cuckoo bird! Yesterday it was cupboards and carpets. Now it’s me. Tonight when I took a bath, Mama scrubbed me cleaner than clean. She washed from my eyebrows to my toe jam, then set my hair on hard plastic curlers. Those curlers have teeth on them, too. “For gripping your hair,” Mama explained.

Now she expects me to get a good night’s sleep on these teethy pink plastic things. Mama had given me a whole mess of curlers from her hair care kit, too many for my small head of hair. When I told her I didn’t need the extra curlers, and to please put them back in her hair-care kit, she insisted that I keep a pile of the curlers on my nightstand. “They come loose and can fall out while you sleep,” she told me. “Besides, curlers are like socks. They have a way of disappearing. Always good to have some handy.”

While I was in the bathroom messing with the curlers in my hair, trying to tie up my hard plastic teethy head in a scarf, Mama laid out clothes for my first day at Prettyman Coburn.

When I got back to my bedroom, there it was on a new hanger, dangling from the doorknob — the Peach Melba dress! Before I could protest, Mama explained, “I sewed a panel into each side to open up the bodice. It’ll fit fine now.”

The patent leather shoes were on the floor, side by side, at the foot of the dress. I’d taken to calling those shoes “the Vaselines.” They had more grease on them than a petroleum factory.

The shoes fit, but even with ankle socks, they rub at the heel and on the tops of my feet, at the place where the buckle meets each of the straps. The worst part, though, is that Mama had made a hair bow to match the dress. That thing looked more like a bone than a bow. I would be going to Prettyman Coburn with Vaseline feet and a Peach Melba bone in my hair!

I didn’t say a word — I couldn’t. Partly because the only word flinging up inside my head was ugly, and partly because I didn’t want to hurt Mama’s feelings. She had worked hard on mending the dress, shining the shoes, and making the bow.

But what about my feelings? I don’t give a nose hair what people think about me, but I also don’t like to look stupid.

Later – the in-between

For the life of me, I can’t sleep.

I’ve counted sheep, chickens, baseballs, the stars out my window, and the moans made by our pipes. I’m more excited than on Christmas Eve.

What shiny surprises will be waiting for me tomorrow?

Even with all my excitement, shaboodle-shake is rocking my bed — and my head.

Wednesday, September 8, 1954

Diary Book,

Last night I dreamed about the Panic Monster.

I woke up with a bad headache, from the curlers. When I took them out, their teeth had left marks on my forehead and at my ears. And my curled hair made me look like a muffin-head.

Mama secured the bone with four big bobby pins.

Then she and Daddy started in with repeating their lists of “Always remember …” and “Don’t forget …” and “Make sure you …”

But before Mama or Daddy could get too deep into their rules, the phone rang. I answered it. I knew the voice right off. It was that white lady from the NAACP, asking to tawlk to Mama or Daddy.

I pushed the receiver at Mama. “Yes, hello, Cynthia,” she said, with a smile in her voice. But soon Mama was frowning, and shaking her head, and saying, “I see … I see …”

When she hung up, she told Daddy and me that I would not be going to school today, that the Hadley school officials had put a stop to me attending Prettyman.

“When will I go?” I asked.

“The NAACP is working toward lifting the hold by noon today,” Mama said.

But noon came and went. We waited for further news and instruction on what to do. The phone didn’t ring once.

Finally, by three o’clock, Mama said, “Take off the dress and put it back on its hanger. Set the shoes in their box, and be careful with the bow.”

I am the only kid in Lee County who got to skip the first day of school.

I now know what it’s like to feel two ways at once — disappointed that I would not be admitted to school today, and relieved that I would not be admitted to school today.

As much as I didn’t want to show up with muffin hair and a Peach Melba bow, I didn’t want to not go to school at all.

Thursday, September 9, 1954

Diary Book,

Today was the same as yesterday. Waiting and wondering, and listening for the phone to ring. Goober has started school at Bethune. I don’t like the ripped-up schoolbooks and raggedy pencils at Bethune, but I’m sure sick of sitting around while Mama scurries from the kitchen to the living room, wiping her hands on her apron, and telling me to keep clean.

Friday, September 10, 1954

Diary Book,

I’ve done the same routine several days this week — scrubbed in the tub, set my hair in curlers, woken up, put on the Peach Melba dress, and waited to hear if I’d be attending school or not.

Daddy says people who make the state laws are working to slow down integration. NAACP officials are meeting every day to determine if it’s safe for me to go to Prettyman Coburn.

Today Daddy brought home three different newspapers and read, read, read. After supper, before Daddy left for work, he was pinned to the radio, listening close. I listened, too, hoping for some news. “Governor Stanley has called again for cool heads, calm, steady, and sound judgment,” the man on the radio said. “Stanley started out in favor of integration, but has been swayed by the majority, and has, in recent weeks, been in support of segregationists.

“School board officials have threatened to close all Hadley public schools rather than integrate them.”

I’m a trapped rabbit, eager to jump — right out of my skin!

Sunday, September 12, 1954

Diary Book,

Church was packed today.

Reverend Collier started his sermon by asking, “Who among us steps back in the face of a threat?”

He talked about what the school board was trying to do to keep schools separate.

The reverend ended his sermon by telling us, “Those who have faith always step forward.”

Monday, September 13, 1954

Diary Book,

Back-to-school once meant back-to-boredom.

Back-to-books.

Back-to-Bethune.

Back-to-broken.

But today when I watched everybody except me go back to school for the second week, I wished I was also going back — to anything.

But I have been held back from school for dumb reasons.

Butterflies in a net have more freedom than me. At least they can breathe. I’ve been holding my breath for near to a week.

Thursday, September 16, 1954

Diary Book,

Sitting home. Waiting. Hair curled. Vaselines strapped on tight. Help!

Friday, September 17, 1954

Diary Book,

I am dying of Peach Melba bone disease. Could I at least wait in dungarees?

Sunday, September 19, 1954

Diary Book,

Well, I got my back-to-school wish after all. Turns out, I’m going back to Bethune tomorrow.

Back to bitten-up pencils and broken books. Mama and Daddy are sending me to Bethune for now, until people make up their minds about which school I’m going to for good.

Monday, September 20, 1954

Diary Book,

I don’t know what’s worse — no school, or old school. At least I can go back to wearing clothes that fit and hair that’s nothing like a muffin.

By the way, in this year’s classroom it’s 11:20 all day long at Mary McLeod Bethune School. The books have yellow pages and are dog-eared. Today I stared and stared at my classroom’s broken clock, and as yucky as chewed gum feels, I pressed both thumbs hard under my desk.

More than ever, I knew that Bethune doesn’t have whatever it is I need to learn to go to college and doctor school.

It’s like I wrote before. I have no idea what I need, but I know Bethune doesn’t have it. That’s why I want to go to Prettyman so badly. Even though I have never set foot in that building, I have a hunch the kids inside are getting everything a girl needs to go to doctor school.

Wednesday, September 22, 1954

Diary Book,

Seems the only person happy to have me back at Bethune is Goober. “Dawnie’s here,” he said to everyone who would listen. I’m now in the middle school “division” at Bethune, and, boy, is it bad. It had rained all night, so the streets and sidewalks were red from the leaky bricks. A silt smell rose from the wet pavement. Double ugh!

There’s something I hadn’t noticed about Bethune before. It droops. Even when it’s not raining, the building’s shoulders slouch.

Kids who had been my friends in sixth grade were calling me uppity for wanting to attend Prettyman. Yolanda didn’t even stick up for me.

When I asked to share her umbrella on the walk home, she said, “There’s not enough room under here.”

“Be that way,” I said. “Rain suits me fine.”

But not walking with my friend made something in me droop, too.

When I got home, my thumbs were red from pressing so hard under my desk.

Friday, September 24, 1954

Dear Mr. Jackie Robinson,

This whole thing feels like being stuck in the wrong dugout, waiting to bat. Wanting to run. Can we please just get this game started? I want to show Prettyman how Dawnie Rae can play.

From,
You-know-who

Saturday, September 25, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama does laundry for a living. She cleans, dries, irons, folds, and mends for families in Ivoryton. She’s home most days, except on Saturday mornings when she delivers the clean linens and shirts to her customers.

Folks call Mama “Loretta the Laundress,” mostly because she can remove stains better than anybody else, and could press the wrinkles from a raisin if she had to. Mama’s iron works harder than a farm mule, and she’s got her own special starch she’s invented using potato water and lavender.

This afternoon when I helped Mama hang the wash, I asked, “Are we uppity?”

Mama had clothespins pressed between her lips, holding them while she secured a sheet onto the clothesline. She released the clothespins, one at a time, clipped each to a corner of the sheet, and stood back as the breeze billowed the sheet toward her. She said, “What kind of cockamamy question is that?”

I told her what the kids at Bethune were saying.

It’s not often that Mama sucks her teeth, but today she did. “Dawnie,” she said, “let me remind you of a simple truth my own mother taught me, and that I have repeated to you and Goober a thousand times — sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.”

I’ve known that ditty ever since first grade, when Mama taught me the words to sing to that wisecracking Freddy Melvin, who once said I had beaver-tail feet.

“Sticks and stones” works most times, but today it didn’t answer my question. If going to Prettyman Coburn will make me uppity, I need to know.

I definitely want good books and the secret for going to doctor school, but I sure don’t want to be uppity.

Sunday, September 26, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy explained that the judges working in the federal courts have issued an order. Hadley has to give Negro students the option to attend the white school if we want to. Prettyman Coburn’s got no choice — they have to let me enroll, or else they’re gonna be in trouble with the law.

“They’re kicking and screaming about it,” Mama said. “But even crybabies can’t stop what’s right.”

So, school integration is going forward. Tomorrow I report to Prettyman.

Tonight Daddy came and sat on the edge of my bed. With the curlers in my hair, I’d taken to sitting up at my headboard, hoping to fall asleep that way. It was easier than waking with tooth marks on my forehead.

Daddy held me gently by both my shoulders. He was looking at me squarely, so I knew to pay attention to what he was about to say.

He explained that the people from the NAACP had advised that he and Mama not come to school with me, that having them there might cause trouble.

“What kind of trouble?” I asked.

“Dawnie, you may see a lot of people gathered outside of the school tomorrow. Not everyone is in favor of you attending Prettyman Coburn, and there might be some who protest. The NAACP officials feel it may be harder to protect you if we’re there. Protesters may feel less threatened by one Negro child, versus all of us. If they see colored adults, they may get riled. This could cause them to want to retaliate.”

I listened carefully. The skin at the tops of my ears went warm.

Daddy had more to say. “Dawnie, you were born with the gift of gab. But sometimes that gift is not to be shared. This is one of those times. If someone offends, lock your lip, child. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

Mama came into my room after tucking in Goober. She explained that she would walk Goober to Bethune, like always, and that Daddy would walk me part of the way to Prettyman, but needed to say good-bye on the corner of Waverly Street and Vine Road. He would not come close to the school building.

Daddy’s work shift had started earlier, and Mama would be picking up Goober from Bethune in the afternoons. So I would walk home from school by myself. “Just make sure you stay on the main streets,” Daddy said. “And keep alert.” I nodded again, twice this time, to show I understood.

After Daddy and Mama kissed me good night, I looked up two of Daddy’s words in my dictionary.

Protest: An expression of disagreement or complaint.

Retaliate: To return like for like, often in an evil manner. To avenge, be out for blood, defend. Now my whole ears were warm. My neck, too.

Monday, September 27, 1954

Diary Book,

If I live to be a hundred, and I’m stuck to a porch rocker with bad legs, three teeth, and a mind as rusty as a rained-on pogo stick, I will never forget today.

I hope I don’t wear out my pencil in writing it all. But I can’t help but tell everything. Just as it happened.

I was up and dressed while the moon still hung above our house. Daddy had come home from his shift at Sutter’s and was ready to take me to school when I came into our living room. Goober and Mama were up, too, eager for this day to start.

Mama had pressed my dress with a mighty will. The bow, too.

She’d packed my lunch in a molasses bucket, and wrapped the whole thing in the leftover fabric used to sew the panels into the sides of my dress. Even my lunch tin was ready to make a good impression.

It’s one thing to wear a new dress and stiff shoes. Walking in them is a whole ’nother thing.

Daddy took my hand. We started out quietly. No talking, each embraced by the in-between. The sky was dressed in blue velvet. Stars decorated its cape. Our streetlights spread yellow pools onto the sidewalks.

Everything was still. Even the dew was asleep.

Daddy seemed to be thinking on something. His hand clenched mine. His jaw was tight. I was thinking, too. About Yolanda. About the New York lady with the black dress. About Goober. And most of all about Prettyman Coburn.

A raccoon stopped me and Daddy from thinking too deeply. She peeked out from the fence post at the edge of Mrs. Thompson’s tea-rose garden. That raccoon moved with a sure waddle, not the least bit bothered by us. She was so pretty. And special. Her black eye mask was decorated with two full rings of white fur, not just white brows like most raccoons.

“She’s one-of-a-kind,” Daddy said. “Like you, Dawnie.”

Raccoons are plenty in these parts of Virginia, but there was no plenty about this raccoon. I’ve seen none other like her.

I named her right away, on account of how she moved. “Nice to meet you, Waddle.”

Daddy and I slowed our walk. Then Daddy stopped. It was full-light then. Morning.

Night crickets had quit singing, but the bullfinches had joined up with the whip-poor-wills, and there was a contest between them for who could out-flute the other.

Daddy said, “This is where I say good-bye, Dawnie.”

We were still four blocks from the school building. I wasn’t scared to walk the rest by myself, just sorry to lose the warmth of Daddy’s hand as he let go.

“Head on now, Dawnie,” he said. “Show everybody how smart you are.”

I pulled my lunch tin close. There was pride in Daddy’s eyes, but he looked uncertain, too. He waited for me to reach Elber Street, one block closer to Prettyman, then he waved good-bye.

It was when I got to the corner that I saw parked police cars, with their siren lights flashing. There were people everywhere, gathered in a snarl, waiting. I saw boys and girls, and grown-ups — and the sheriff. They stood behind barricades.

When I read a sign that said MOTHERS AGAINST INTEGRATION, I knew they were waiting for me. Not once did I want to turn back. I had waited too long for this day. The clock on Prettyman’s front said it was half past seven. School started at a quarter to eight. I was hard-pressed on how to get into school, but determined, too. I figured if I went around to the back entrance where Prettyman’s field meets up with the gymnasium door, I could get inside that way. But my figuring wasn’t fast enough. “There she is!” somebody shouted.

That’s when the trouble started. The girl from Millerton’s Department Store — the one with the peach-colored hair — came onto Prettyman’s front steps with the school bell in her hand. She clanged the bell to signal the day’s start. Something about the power of that bell called me forward. I was not going to be late on my first day.

I moved slowly along the street, then turned onto Prettyman’s front walk, where the crowd pushed at the barricades. Even then I wasn’t too scared because I was so eager to get inside.

The sheriff nodded toward one of the policemen, and four of them came up on all sides. They were carrying long guns! I wasn’t sure if they were there to protect me or stop me. The police kept the people behind the barricades, pressing them back when they shoved to get at me. But even with all their force, the police could not keep those people quiet.

The Panic Monster came quick, shook me hard.

The protesters’ mouths were twisted and angry. Their faces looked liked tightly crumpled balls of paper. And, oh, were their tongues ever sharp!

“There goes the monkey!” someone hollered.

“Kill that chiggeroo!” somebody else yelled.

The Panic Monster was holding so tightly.

Shaboodle-shake-shake-shake-shake.

I tried to put my ears on the sound of the school bell, but it was hard not to hear the hatred in the people’s voices. Bobby Hatch and his brothers had shoved to the front of the barricades. The very worst part of it — the part that frightened me most — was that they shouted mean things about Goober in front of all the other people.

“And she’s got a brother, too. But he’s more stupid than any monkey.”

Shabooooodle-shaaaake-shaaaake-shaaaake-shaaaake.

In the crowd I saw a small girl, a child much littler than me. Her face looked kind. She was holding out a flower and a note. Her mama encouraged her to give me both of them. I smiled. So did she. But as she set the note in my hand, she spit on my new shoes. And the note wasn’t a note at all. The little girl had drawn a picture. It was scribbly, but there was no mistaking its meaning. It was a picture of me on my pogo stick falling into a patch of pricker bushes. Underneath she’d written, “Scratch off the black.”

Quietly, I just kept repeating what Mama had taught me. “Sticks and stones … Sticks and stones …”

I know the end of the rhyme says “names can never hurt you,” but that’s not true. Names do hurt. Hearing other kids yelling mean things was worse than a punch in the stomach. And it made me want to holler back, but I’d promised Mama and Daddy I wouldn’t.

More than anything, I wished I’d brought my baseball bat with me. Not to use it, but just to have it nearby. Just to grip it as tight as I could. To give my clenched fists something to hold on to.

I was afraid my dress might rip. Not from not fitting me, but from holding in so much riled-up stuff at my insides.

When I finally got to Prettyman’s front door, it looked so big. I knew that if I could just get inside, I’d be all right.

The policemen pressed in closer on each side of me as we made our way up the steps and into the building.

Prettyman sure lives up to its name. The wide hallways and tiled walls gleam under the morning sun that blesses them with her light. I was starting to see why the white part of town is called Ivoryton.

The policemen took me to the second floor, to the principal’s office, where I sat and waited. And waited and sat. And had to use the bathroom, but didn’t dare ask.

At least the Panic Monster had let up for now.

I could see by the placard on his office door that the principal’s name was Mr. Lloyd.

The phones rang all morning. Each time she answered, the school secretary spoke graciously. “Prettyman Coburn, may I help you?” And each time, she looked over the tops of her glasses at me.

I stayed very still. Watching the clock. Wondering when I’d be meeting my teacher. Nobody talked to me. My lunch tin rested on my lap. At two o’clock, the school bell started to ring from outside. Its clang was muted by the thick windows. When I looked out, the police cars and barricades were still there. But this time a grown-up was ringing the bell, not the girl from the morning.

Mr. Lloyd wouldn’t speak to me, or look at me even. He explained to his secretary and the policemen that most parents had taken their children home soon after I’d come into the building, and that there weren’t enough students at school for the teachers to teach. The bell was a signal to the teachers that the school day had ended. The principal pushed his chin in my direction. “This child’s done for today,” he told the policemen.

My insides started to churn. Back came the Panic Monster.

I didn’t want to face those angry people with their signs and spitting. Thankfully, Mr. Lloyd told the policemen, “Take her out the back.”

We left the building at the place where I’d hoped to enter, through a set of steps alongside the gymnasium that led to Prettyman’s baseball field.

Maybe it was seeing those bases and that green-green grass that put a hankering on my feet. Maybe it was the sky so big above me. Maybe it was the bullfinches, free in the trees, and still singing. It didn’t matter that home was two miles away. I took off my Vaselines. Held them tight by their straps. Hugged my lunch tin. Then I ran and ran and ran till I saw our house and Goober waiting for me inside the front fence. Mama was there, too, hanging laundry. She didn’t see me coming until Goober called out, “Dawnie!”

Mama put both her arms around me and smoothed my rumpled hair. My muffin had lost its curl. My bow had flown off while I was whipping through the streets and avenues that led me home. Mama’s hands smelled like her lavender laundry starch. Their gentleness was a sure comfort. She kissed me twice on my forehead, then by my ear. She whispered, “Dawnie, Dawnie, sweet potato pie.”

Something inside me tumbled open, and I cried.

Evening

Pulled pork and fried pickles for supper. I tried, but couldn’t eat none of it. My stomach was too tight. And queasy.

Goober sat with his chin rested on the table.

He rocked gently in his chair. He’s been very quiet all evening. He hasn’t looked at me much. His eyes have gone someplace else for now. He’s locked himself off.

All through supper, Goober mostly watched the pickle person he’d put on my plate. Finally, softly, he said, “Eat, Dawnie.”

“Not hungry, Goober,” I said.

Tuesday, September 28, 1954

Diary Book,

The Panic Monster had a hold of me all night. He sure works hard, even when I’m sleeping.

Daddy had to wake me this morning. I’d slept past the in-between, past the clock, even.

“Dawnie, time for school,” he said, rubbing slow circles on my back.

Mama was there, too, saying, “You don’t have to shine, but you do have to rise.”

There was light at my window. It startled me. Morning had snuck up on me.

I dressed quick. I could only stomach orange juice.

Mama had set out one of my church skirts, a simple blouse, and a cardigan. It was still more dressed up than if I were going to Bethune. At least Mama took pity on me, and let me wear a plain white headband, not a bone-y bow.

I hurried into my clothes. But the Vaselines — uh-uh. Mouse traps on my feet would have been more comfortable than those shoes. Mama and I agreed on my loafers, which I wear for everything except baseball.

Mama secured my knuckles around the handle of my molasses lunch tin, which she’d still dressed up in the Peach Melba fabric.

This morning my picture was in our town newspaper, the Hadley Register.

The headline said: SHE STANDS ALONE.

Daddy bought ten copies of the paper. He’d picked them up on his way home from the dairy supply, as newsstands were just opening.

I’ve clipped the article here:

The first steps toward school integration in Hadley began yesterday when one brave Negro girl entered Prettyman Coburn School. With courage and determination, the child faced hundreds of angry protesters who assembled in an effort to keep Prettyman Coburn segregated, and to prevent the child from enrolling.

Many parents have refused to let their children attend Prettyman Coburn School. By midmorning yesterday, several had come to the school to remove their children. In a statement, Spencer Lloyd, the principal at Prettyman Coburn, said, “Allowing Negroes to attend our school poses a hazard to the safety and well-being of our institution.”

Local officials and members of the state legislature are in continued talks with Virginia governor Thomas B. Stanley about next steps in the process. Until further notice, school integration remains the law. Any Negro wishing to attend Prettyman Coburn School, or any white student wishing to attend Hadley’s other public school, the Mary McLeod Bethune School, is free to do so under the laws set forth in the recent Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling banning segregation.

Even though the paper never printed my name, there were photographs of me going into Prettyman.

Looking at the newspaper pictures, I don’t recognize myself. My hair is all muffin-y. My Vaselines are catching glints of light from every which way. And my face — What is that eyes-looking-straight expression?

Under my picture the caption says: “A Soldier for Justice.”

Wednesday, September 29, 1954

Diary Book,

Today Daddy and I walked to school at a clip. We said our good-byes at the same corner, Waverly and Vine.

I saw the police cars up ahead, but very few other people. Seems the angriest folks had stayed home. It was quiet, too. Like a fever that flares one day, then cools the next. I sure didn’t miss all that hollering, but I noticed right off there was no school bell. I did miss that.

I went around to the back of the building, where I’d left Prettyman yesterday, and got in that way. It was easy. The policemen didn’t even see me. I came in on my own.

Walking two miles to school with Daddy is a long way, but today, moving through the corridors of Prettyman felt like a road that never ends. Even though the floors in that school glisten — somebody sure has a good mop — there is no pretty scenery along Prettyman’s halls.

This morning Mr. Lloyd gave me my class schedule and pointed me toward my homeroom. He wore the same pained expression as someone who was being forced to clean a skunk’s den. He did not want to be doing this.

I walked with my eyes and feet forward.

Oh, did I get some ugly stares.

I know for sure that I look like a regular person. I have two arms and both my legs. I have one head on top of my neck. It’s a round head like everybody else’s. Even though my hair is still muffin-y from Mama’s curlers, as far as I can tell, there are no trees or corn stalks growing out the top of my head.

And even though Mr. Lloyd was hard-pressed to direct me toward my homeroom, as far as I know, I do not smell like a skunk.

By most counts, I’m a normal girl. But with the way those kids were staring at me today, you’da thought I was a bearded lady at the Lee County Carnival. From morning to afternoon, there was all kinds of ogling at me in the hallways. And people got all quiet.

And stepped away to let me pass.

And whispered.

And watched.

And wondered if I was gonna bite them.

Balancing all my schoolbooks on my head would have been an easier weight to carry.

Just as heavy was meeting my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Taylor. She looks like a turtle with pearls, and glasses on a chain around her neck. Mrs. Taylor was not too happy to see me come into her classroom. Neither were the kids in that class. There was more silence than in a graveyard at midnight. I spotted Bobby Hatch right away. He stuck his tongue out at me when Mrs. Taylor had her back turned.

After that, I didn’t look left, right, and especially not behind.

I kept my eyes up front, where I found my seat, and an uneasy peace.

The rest of the day was like walking through a field of fog. I somehow found all my classes, where silence and more staring met me.

When I got home from school, our small living room was filled with people — Reverend Collier, Mama, and of course, Goober. Those people from the NAACP were there, too. Daddy had left for work. They were all waiting for me. Their heads were down. They were holding hands, praying.

Soon as I saw everybody, I asked, “What’d I do?”

“We wanted to make sure you got here in one piece,” said Mama.

One of the NAACP men said, “We’re here to guide your transition into Prettyman.”

“And to offer support to you and your family,” said the NAACP lady.

Reverend Collier said, “While waiting for you to return from school, we were pausing for a prayer.”

Goober spoke next. “Amen for Dawnie. No broken pieces on Dawnie.”

I couldn’t get my Keds on fast enough. I spent the rest of the afternoon in our yard, batting at the tree mop.

Goober sang, “Amen for Dawnie … Dawnie amen!”

Thursday, September 30, 1954

Diary Book,

Today I remembered what hard wanting is. Mrs. Taylor presented each of us with our class jobs for the school year. With the naming of each job came some kind of reaction.

It went like this:

Job: Line Monitor: The student who helps us line up.

Reaction: Two eager volunteers stood.

Job: Office Messenger: The person who takes notes to the school office.

Reaction: Boys mostly, saying, “Me, Mrs. Taylor.”

Job: Morning Salutation: The student who reads the day’s date in front of the class.

Reaction: Girls mostly, saying, “Please, Mrs. Taylor.”

Job: Blackboard/Erasers: The kid who sponges the blackboard and claps dirty erasers.

Reaction: Silence. Let’s not all jump at once. Not a me or please within fifty miles of Hadley.

Job: Bell Ringer: The one who rings the school bell mornings and afternoons.

Reaction: Every hand, including mine, up high. Me and please back so fast.

I didn’t speak out like the other kids, but me and please were fighting each other all over my insides.

Mrs. Taylor explained that Melanie, the girl whose job it was to ring the school bell, would no longer be attending Prettyman. Her parents have sent her to a private school.

Later I overheard another girl tell her friend that Melanie’s parents did not want their daughter going to school with a colored child, so they took her out.

Mrs. Taylor told us that Bell Ringer is a popular role among students, and requires what she said is “a level of responsibility.”

I listened carefully when she explained that each year a student from one grade gets the Bell Ringer job. Last year’s Bell Ringer was a sixth grader. This year, Bell Ringer is reserved for seventh-grade students.

Mrs. Taylor said, “Bell Ringer is a duty that’s to be earned. It’s a privilege. The student who will take on this role is the one who can best master all subjects during this school year.”

At Bethune, that was me.

Mrs. Taylor told us that the decision for who would get to ring the bell is made at the end of the school year for the school year coming up. Bell Ringer is a job that starts in May, then begins again in September. Since Melanie’s gone, Mr. Lloyd, the school principal, will be the Bell Ringer for now.

Mrs. Taylor called each name in her roll book, and assigned us our jobs. Far as I could tell, the roll book names were listed alphabetically. But when Mrs. Taylor got to the Js, Dawnie Rae Johnson was nowhere. Finally, after somebody named Mary Anne Young, Mrs. Taylor called out my name.

Now, this is what makes no sense. Every kid sitting in that room is in seventh grade. Some of them didn’t look too awake. But even the most slowpoke sleepyheaded seventh grader, even the dumbest worm in the can, knows that the letter J does not come after the letter Y. And I would bet all the dimes I’ve saved from my Christmas money that Mrs. Taylor knows this, too.

I was sure not going to head to the front of that classroom, snatch the roll book, and point out the right way to list names in alphabetical order.

So from now until June, Dawnie Rae Johnson will be wiping the blackboard and clapping dirty erasers every afternoon.

Friday, October 1, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama took one look at my new textbooks and said, “This is serious business, Dawnie. This school does not mess around.”

I told Mama about Prettyman’s baseball diamond, and clapping erasers, and how badly I want to be Bell Ringer. She listened, but was most interested in my studies.

We laid out each of the textbooks and school papers on our kitchen table and studied them carefully. The papers told us what we’d be learning all year, in every subject, each month. It listed the school principal and our teachers:

School Principal — Mr. Spencer Lloyd

Homeroom — Mrs. Vera Taylor

Math — Mrs. Barbara Hughes

English — Mrs. Jane Ruth

History — Mr. Andrew Dunphey

Science — Mrs. Polly Elmer

Gym — Mrs. Gail Remsen

And so on.

I’ve never seen anything like these papers. Not ever.

The papers said things like Algebraic Reasoning and Expository Writing and History in Context. There was one word I knew for sure —frog. Under Biology, the paper said: Frog Dissection.

“What’s that?” I asked Mama.

“Pulling apart a frog.”

“Why in the world would anybody want to pull apart a frog?”

“Biology is science, Dawnie. Seeing the parts of a frog will help you learn about innards.”

The closest I’ve come to pulling apart a frog is pulling a frog from the pond down near Orem’s Pasture, and pulling a frog back from the start line while waiting for the whistle to blow at a frog jumping contest, and pulling frog legs with gravy from a platter at a picnic.

I looked real good at that paper, then at the thick, shiny books with covers that cracked open and gave off a smell that said new.

And, oh, those book pages. Smoother than silk cleat socks.

This was why I wanted to go to Prettyman so badly. There had to be something in one or all of those silky books about how you get to be a doctor. But, Lord, did those lessons look hard, even for me.

My palms went warm. Itchy, too. It was just like before a baseball game, or when I first taught myself how to work a pogo stick.

I can do this. I can do this.

Saturday, October 2, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy got very quiet after he finished reading today’s paper. He folded it into a small, hard square, and set it on top of Mama’s sewing basket for her to read. I got to the paper first, when Mama was busy with laundry.

I saw it right away—an advertisement from the owner of Sutter’s Dairy, where Daddy works.

It said:

Sutter’s Dairy
Supports Segregation

Join us in our pursuit
for what is right in God’s eyes.

Sunday, October 3, 1954

Diary Book,

Reverend Collier gave a sermon today about the Sutter’s Dairy advertisement that was in the paper.

He asked all of us at Shepherd’s Way Baptist, “What is right in God’s eyes?”

Every eye in the place was on me and my family.

Monday, October 4, 1954

Diary Book,

I have kissed my molasses lunch tin good-bye! Prettyman has a cafeteria. With hot food. And varnished floors. And windows big enough to show off the trees that wave hello from outside.

And buttered corn nibblets.

And mashed potatoes.

And meat loaf.

And Jell-O!

There was not a fried pickle in sight, but that didn’t matter. Mama’s fried pickles are the only ones worth eating.

Two ladies served the food, both Negroes. They smiled with quiet pride when I came through the line. They introduced themselves as Miss Cora and Miss Billie.

Thanks to Miss Cora and Miss Billie, my lunch plate was piled with more food than any other child’s plate in that cafeteria. I got two Jell-O squares — red and green.

But as sweet as Jell-O and a plate full of corn nibblets can be, food doesn’t taste good when you’re eating all alone.

Tuesday, October 5, 1954

Diary Book,

Daddy came home from work before Goober and me even went to bed. That’s usually when he’s at work. When he pulled up to the house in his truck, he didn’t come in right away. He stayed outside for a long while. “Is that Daddy’s truck?” I asked Mama. “Why’s he home?”

Mama only half answered. “He likes to let the motor run. Keeps the truck warm before turning it off.”

She hurried Goober into the bathtub.

In my bedroom, she brought me a clean nightgown. “Why’s Daddy home?” I asked again.

“It’s time for bed, Dawnie” was all Mama said.

Wednesday, October 6, 1954

Diary Book,

It’s bad enough having Bobby Hatch in my homeroom, but it’s triply bad having to go to school with all three Hatch brothers. Cecil Hatch is in the sixth grade. Jeb’s in fifth. Even with the grade differences between them, those boys seem to somehow travel in a pack.

They must have each been born under a full moon, ’cause goodness knows they are ugly as wolves, and just as mean.

The Hatches made today’s walk through Prettyman’s halls far from quiet. Those boys don’t know a thing about whispering. As I was coming into the building this morning, they were ready to make some noise.

I walked in hugging tight to my books. Jeb’s nose was running. He gave a hard sniff, rattled back some snot. Wiped his nose with his knuckles.

The boys let me pass with not a word from their mouths. But as soon as my back was to the three of them, they started howling after me.

“There goes Dawnie chicken lips,” Cecil called.

“Got a chicken head, too, that girl,” said Jeb.

Bobby said, “I’m still not sure she is a girl. With the way she handles a bat and runs bases, I think that chicken-lipped colored has got some boy in her.”

I wanted to ram a bat at Bobby’s head right then. He just wouldn’t shut up. “No real girl can play baseball like that,” he said.

Bobby’s too dumb to know he was paying me a compliment about my ball playing. And he’s too dim-witted to realize there was envy wrapped in his words. He was plain jealous of how good I am on the field.

Bobby’s mouthing off encouraged the other kids standing around to start clucking. Alls I heard were their chicken noises spurting up in back of me.

Daddy says smart feet are feet that walk away from trouble. But something made me turn around right then to get a good look at those clucking kids.

For a good long minute, I watched them at the other end of that long hallway, clucking and carrying on.

Maybe it was the same something that encouraged me to turn around that also put a serious tickle on my funny bone. I had to work hard to keep from laughing! The Hatch brothers and everyone with them looked stupider than stupid, acting like chickens! And did you know that raccoons eat chickens? I should have brought Waddle to school!

Anyway, they were supposed to be making fun of me, but, Lord, did they look funny. I spent the rest of the day with a bust-out laugh roaring up inside me, every time I thought about Prettyman’s chickens.

I couldn’t let that laugh free, though. I didn’t want to give the Hatches anything to get riled about. I kept my bust-out laugh trapped somewhere deep in my belly.

Later

Nothing to laugh about tonight.

Daddy’s lost his job.

“How come?” I asked Mama.

“Folks have threatened to boycott Mr. Sutter’s business if he keeps Daddy as a worker.”

I blinked.

“What’s wrong with Daddy’s work?”

“It’s not Daddy’s work that’s in question. Customers don’t want to support a business that employs a man whose daughter is integrating their school.”

“I made Daddy get fired?”

“You make your father proud. It’s the fear of ignorant people that’s pushing Mr. Sutter.”

“I’ll go back to Bethune, then,” I said.

“Stop talking nonsense, Dawnie.” Mama was just short of snapping.

I shut up, but it was hard for me to not keep talking. I wanted to tell Mama I was serious about going back to Bethune. As much as I like all the pretty stuff at Prettyman, I’m messing things up for Daddy by being a student at that school.

Thursday, October 7, 1954

Diary Book,

I hate my school job! I hate it because it’s stupid. I hate it because it’s not fair. And I hate it because it means I miss recess, so I won’t ever get to play on Prettyman’s baseball field.

There are two parts to my job, which really means I have two jobs.

Part 1 — The Sponge:

I dip a spongy clump in the wash bucket and trail it, top-to-bottom, on the blackboard. That sponge is as big as Goober’s head, and it takes a lot of two-fisted wringing to keep it from dripping all over the place.

Out the window I watch kids pushing past each other to get to the school yard. While they run, I sponge, then take the bucket down the hall to the sink in the janitor’s closet, where I pour out the chalky water. That bucket is bigger than a Buick, and it bangs my leg when I walk with it. And hoisting it to the lip of the sink is no picnic.

Part 2 — Erasers:

I take them out back, near the school yard. This being my first day on the job, I started off slow. Every time the black pads slapped together, they sent out a soft thud, then a dust cloud of chalk.

Bam — pooof! Bam — pooof!

I don’t do anything halfway, so I was not going to let that swelling dust get to me. But soon the bam — pooof! was spreading more and more pooof into my nose and eyes, and all around my head. A white film dusted my hair. And eyelashes. And neck. And clothes. More dusty than Mama’s talcum powder.

Even though I can run a 50-yard dash without getting winded, I could hardly breathe. My coughing was louder than the hacking of a sick dog.

When I got back to class, the other kids were coming in from recess. They were shoving, and happy, and laughing from getting to be in so much fresh air.

And here’s what else isn’t fair. Because he’s a Negro, Daddy’s lost his job. Because I’m a Negro, I have to keep mine.

Friday, October 8, 1954

Diary Book,

Leave it to Mama to find a way to get chalk dust off my clothes and out of my hair. Her methods are always easy for her, but hard on me. Today she came at me with a ribbon of flypaper and pressed its sticky strip all over my clothes.

That definitely pulled up the chalk dust, but snatched at the backs of my hands near the ends of my sleeves and any other skin I had showing. For my hair, Mama made me stand by our summer house fan to let the chalk dust blow off.

And, oh, did it blow.

And, oh, did I not like it.

Saturday, October 9, 1954

Diary Book,

Mama’s added something new to my Saturday chore list — raking leaves. I spend my school days beating erasers and emptying slop water, and my Saturdays doing yard work. Do kids have fun anymore?

Monday, October 11, 1954

Diary Book,

For all the staring — or clucking — kids do when I walk through the halls at school, in Math class I have the opposite problem. Mrs. Hughes, my Math teacher, ignores me.

In Mrs. Hughes’s class, I’m as invisible as a ghost.

I admit, Math is my hardest subject, but I try at least. Today, each time I raised my hand, Mrs. Hughes looked right past me. I can see that her glasses are as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle, but I know Mrs. Hughes is not blind.

During our Math lesson today, Mrs. Hughes asked us to give an example of an integer. Nobody raised their hand. Not one kid knew how to answer. I sort of knew how to answer, so I put my hand up, and I held it up.

The answer — I think — is that an integer is a whole number, not a fraction or a number that has a decimal. An integer can be positive, negative, or zero. The numbers 12, 3, –42, and a million are all integers. I think.

At first I thought Mrs. Hughes was giving some of the other students a chance to answer, but not one kid took the chance. I could feel the blood running from my hand. My arm started to get tired, but I was not putting it down till she called on me, or at least looked in my direction.

Mrs. Hughes repeated the question. “Can anyone give an example of an integer?”

Nobody said anything.

“Do I have any volunteers?” asked Mrs. Hughes.

Do I have any chance of getting called on? I wondered.

The room had fallen silent. No one wanted to take a chance with the answer. They all saw my hand up. I think they were hoping Mrs. Hughes would call on me so that she wouldn’t call on one of them.

Bobby Hatch burped, and everyone giggled.

We were nearing the end of the period. Mrs. Hughes went on to a new question. An easy one that even the stupidest kid could answer.

Mrs. Hughes asked, “What is a real number?”

This sent ten hands flying up. I didn’t bother raising mine. It was clear I was not getting called on, even though I know that a real number is the kind of number people normally use, such as 1, 89, –37. I stayed quiet.

Here’s what else I know — I have now figured out the answer to the real problem in Mrs. Hughes’s Math class.

It all adds up to this:

1 white teacher + 1 Negro student + 28 white kids = 1 invisible Dawnie Rae Johnson.

Or, here’s another answer to a Math class problem:

1 teacher – 1 iota of kindness = makes me feel less than zero.

P.S. This being Columbus Day, I’d have thought we’d have had the day off. But it was probably Mrs. Hughes who said, “Let’s keep school open so I can make Dawnie feel smaller than a baby ant.”

Tuesday, October 12, 1954

Diary Book,

In Mrs. Ruth’s English class I am far from invisible. Mrs. Ruth loves to call on me, even when my hand is not raised. But it seems my understanding of English is different than Mrs. Ruth’s understanding.

I mean, we’re both saying the same thing — at least that’s how I see it. But to Mrs. Ruth’s way of thinking, every answer I give is wrong.

Today, with how Mrs. Ruth was treating me, I wondered if I was even speaking English. She asked me to name the parts of speech. Easy.

“Verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun,” I said. I thought for a moment. There were more, but I couldn’t remember them all. “And preposition,” I added.

“That’s wrong, Dawnie,” Mrs. Ruth said. “There are eight parts of speech — verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, and conjunction, and interjection.”

Mrs. Ruth was right. There are eight parts of speech. I’d forgotten two. But did that make my whole answer wrong?

For the next question, Mrs. Ruth singled me out again. She didn’t seem to call much on other kids. Some of them even wanted to answer, but I’m the one who got all the attention. And I’m the one who got slapped down every time I spoke.

“Dawnie, what is a synonym?”

Another easy question, but I thought carefully before answering. I asked myself, Are there eight parts to a synonym?

I said, “A synonym is a word or a way of saying something that means the same thing as another word or another way of saying something.”

That was the right answer. I just knew it.

“Wrong, Dawnie,” said Mrs. Ruth. She looked pleased to be saying those two words together. Wrong Dawnie.

“A synonym is a word or expression that has the same meaning as another word or expression,” Mrs. Ruth proclaimed.

Alls I could think was, Isn’t that what I just said?

Mrs. Ruth asked, “Dawnie, are you paying attention?”

Mrs. Ruth, are YOU paying attention? This is English class, right? Are WE speaking the same language? Because I am SAYING the exact same thing you’re saying, but saying it different, and forgetting just one small part. But—like a synonym—we MEAN the same thing.

Are YOU paying attention, Mrs. Ruth? Are YOU? How about if I call you Wrong Mrs. Ruth?

You are wrong for ridiculing me in front of everyone when my answer is mostly right.

I said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m paying attention.”

Dear Mrs. Ruth,

I have a gift for you—a present. (In case you are not paying attention, gift and present are synonyms.)

Here are a bunch, a bundle, a heap of synonyms for how I feel about your English class:

Aggravated.

Enraged.

Furious.

Hotter than Tabasco sauce.

Mad as a hornet.

Angry as a rattler.

Sincerely,
Truly,
Honestly,
(These are more synonyms, Mrs. Ruth.)
Dawnie Johnson

Wednesday, October 13, 1954

Diary Book,

I like my History teacher, Mr. Dunphey. He’s different than the other teachers at Prettyman. For one thing, he’s young and wears sweaters, not a jacket and tie like every other man teacher at school. Mr. Dunphey is definitely not from Hadley. He is no-doubt from north of here.

He greets everyone with a handshake as we enter his classroom, even me. And he addresses each of us by name, while shaking hands.

Mr. Dunphey talks funny, though. Not the same kind of funny as that lady in the black dress. He stretches my name like he’s pulling a long rubber band—Dahhhnie.

He tells the class to pay attention so that later we can go out into the school yaaad. I think he means school yard.

I don’t care what it’s called, because I won’t be going there any time soon.

And I don’t care that Mr. Dunphey puts a Northern spin on my Southern name.

Thursday, October 14, 1954

Diary Book,

This evening just past supper, Mr. Sutter, from the dairy, came calling on Daddy.

Daddy stepped onto the porch. Mr. Sutter kept a distance between them. He was holding a lantern. While Daddy and Mr. Sutter spoke quietly, Mama and Goober washed dishes in the kitchen.

I went out on the porch.

Daddy said, “Go back inside, Dawnie.” He was holding a lantern, too, close to his face.

I disobeyed Daddy, though he didn’t know it. I went inside, but stayed near to the door screen, where I watched and listened to the two men talking.

“Evening, Curtis,” Mr. Sutter said. He never once took his eyes off Daddy.

Daddy was cordial, but careful, too. “Something you need from me, Mr. Sutter?”

“How’s your family?” Mr. Sutter asked.

Daddy raised his lantern. “We’re getting on fine.”

“You find work yet?” Mr. Sutter wanted to know.

Daddy shook his head. “I’m looking.”

Mr. Sutter’s lantern lit the hollows of his face.

Daddy asked his question again. “Something you need from me?”

Mr. Sutter’s voice got low. “These are uncertain times, Curtis,” he said quietly. “Keep an eye on your wife and young’uns.”

Daddy wiped the top of his lip with the back of his hand. “Always do,” he said.

Goober called me then. “Dawnie, come dry the plates.”

Mr. Sutter said good night.

“Night,” said Daddy.

Friday, October 15, 1954

Diary Book,

Yolanda visited today after school. She had her domino box under one arm. “Dawnie, wanna do dominoes?”

“Can’t,” I said. “I gotta study. I’m taking History in Context and Algebraic Reasoning and Biology now.”

I showed Yolanda the paper that listed my class lessons, and I let her see my science book. “Wanna touch it? It’s different from what we had at Bethune — it’s new.”

Yolanda gave me the stink eye. She looked at me like I smelled bad.

She said, “You’re different from what we had at Bethune.”

Sunday, October 17, 1954

Diary Book,

After church today, Daddy spent much of the afternoon buried in the want ads, looking for jobs. I heard him tell Mama, “All this man wants to do is support his family.”

Tuesday, October 19, 1954

Diary Book,

The best part of this day was seeing Waddle, my raccoon friend, when Daddy and I walked to school. She seemed to be waiting for us when we got to Mrs. Thompson’s garden. I think that raccoon’s smarter than most. Her eye rings are sure beautiful.

At school, I put up with more not being called on in Math class, being picked on in English class, and being stared at everyplace else.

By the time I got home, my tree mop had never looked so good. As soon as I was done with my homework, I got my bat and swung! The mop did a wild dance on its rope. I batted righty, then lefty. Then righty again, twice as fast. I didn’t think that mop could get any more raggedy. But I beat the strings out of that thing.

Saturday, October 23, 1954

Diary Book,

Goober disappeared today. I was helping Mama hang the wash. Goober had been hitting at the tree mop, but then he was gone. Just like that.

Mama noticed first. “Where’d your brother get to?”

She called out, but there was no answer. “Goober—come, child!”

I helped. “Goob!”

When Mama called a second time and there was no answer, she dropped her laundry basket. There was worry yanking at Mama’s face. “Goober!”

Daddy hurried from inside, calling Goober through cupped hands.

“He was playing over there, by the tree,” I told Daddy.

The tree mop swung slowly.

“Our front gate is still closed, so Goober can’t be far off,” Daddy said. But he didn’t look so sure.

All three of us called after Goober. We looked for him in the cellar and underneath the porch, and behind Mama’s porch rocker.

My pogo stick was where I’d last left it at the fence post, so I knew Goober had not been playing with it.

Mama’s hand was pressed to her cheek. She was praying, “Lord, God … Lord, God …”

Daddy told us to all be quiet for a moment. “Stay on the porch,” he said to Mama and me.

Daddy stood very still, like when he watches a cardinal or a bullfinch settle at the top of our yard’s tree.

Mama sat at the edge of the porch steps. She was rocking and praying silently.

I stood by the porch post, holding on.

A ladybug could have whispered then, and we would have heard every word. That’s why the rustle pushing out from the pile of leaves in the corner of our yard drew each of us to it.

And that’s why I was the first to spot Goober hiding in the bundle of brown. He’d buried himself in the leaf pile!

“Goob!” I shouted. “Oh, Goob!”

Goober flung himself free of the leaves. “Surprise!”

There were crisp patches of brown and yellow hanging on to Goober’s sweater by their stems. Dirt spots marked his elbows. He was blowing leaf pieces from his lips, and he was all full of giggles. His arms stretched high above his head. “I’m a tree!”

Mama rushed to Goober. Daddy was right behind. Me, too.

To Goober, this was all so funny.

But not to us.

Tuesday, October 26, 1954

Diary Book,

Sometimes when a special news story catches Daddy’s eye, he likes to read it out loud. This morning was one of those times. He’d plunged himself into the Hadley Register.

He said to Mama, “Loretta, listen to this mess.”

Mama filled Daddy’s coffee cup before he continued. He gulped once, then he read.

First came the headline.

“‘State Corporation Commission Certifies Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties.’” Daddy took in more coffee.

He read the article next.

“‘The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, a grassroots political organization dedicated to preserving strict racial segregation in Virginia’s public schools, has been formed in Petersburg. Robert B. Crawford, of Farmville, has been named president of the organization.

“‘Several prominent Southside Virginia leaders, including state senators Charles Moses and Garland Gray, U.S. congressmen Watkins Abbitt and William Tuck, and newspaper editor J. Barrye Wall of the Farmville Herald, have begun to hold meetings at a Petersburg firehouse to devise ways of fighting the threat of public school integration.’”

Mama brought Daddy more cream for his coffee. She stirred it in while he read.

“‘It is the hope of these men to build a segregationist organization that will advocate for whites the way the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has advocated for blacks.

“‘The formation of this group comes just months after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case, citing segregated schools as unconstitutional.’”

Daddy set down his newspaper. He asked Mama, “What about our individual liberties?”

Saturday, October 30, 1954

Diary Book,

I helped Mama shell peas all morning. We sat on our porch. Our street was quiet for a Saturday. With the weather cooling, less folks stroll on weekends. Mama’s raw-skinned fingers worked quickly.

Separating peas from their pods is harder than working open a shoelace knot. Peas can be stubborn. They like to hang on. I stuck with it, alongside Mama, till every pea was free. Mama hummed quietly. It was a song I knew. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”

Sunday, October 31, 1954

Diary Book,

You can’t see clouds in the dark, but you can sure feel them. I knew from the heavy smell in the air that it would rain this Halloween night. There was no moon.

Mama made Goober and me wear our raincoats. That messed up our costumes.

I was dressed as Jackie Robinson. Mama had sewn Jackie’s number — 42 — onto one of Daddy’s old work shirts. But you couldn’t see Jackie’s number underneath my raincoat. Thankfully, Mama had embroidered “Brooklyn Dodgers” on my baseball cap.

Goober was dressed as a peanut, a costume Mama and I had built with chicken wire, brown butcher paper, and lots of flour–water paste. Mama had even made peanut shoes for Goober from old bedroom slippers she’d shined with shoe polish. Before tonight, I had never seen a peanut wearing a raincoat and slippers. Somehow Goober managed to get his slicker onto his arms. It pulled tight across the back of his costume, but had no chance of buttoning up around his front.

Yolanda was dressed as Lena Horne. In every picture I’ve ever seen of Lena Horne, not one of them shows her in a dress made from a bedsheet like the one Yolanda’s mother had decorated with buttons, made to look like rhinestones. Each of us carried a pillowcase for collecting candy.

“You scared of haints?” Yolanda asked as we set out down Marietta Street.

“Heck, no!” I said. “I don’t believe in haints, spooks, goblins, or ghosts even.” The only ghoul that scares me is the Panic Monster. I didn’t tell this to Yolanda.

Mama and Daddy had told us not to go past Crossland Avenue for trick-or-treating, and to make sure we went no place near Ivoryton.

When we got to the corner near Crossland, I told Yolanda it was time to turn back, time to head home. Ivoryton was right up ahead.

“I got two pennies in my treats bag,” Goober said. “Two shiny pennies.”

From behind us, we heard somebody making fun of Goober, repeating after him in a baby voice. “Two shiny pennies.”

It was the Hatch brothers, Bobby, Cecil, and Jeb. They came up on all sides of us. Bobby was dressed as a cowboy. Cecil was a scarecrow. Jeb’s Dracula cape stopped at his knees.

“What in the Sam Hill kind of costume is that?” Jeb was talking to Goober.

We tried to walk past the boys, but only got a few steps. They blocked us from going farther.

Bobby and Cecil bumped shoulders. They laughed. “Hey, Negro retard, what are you supposed to be?”

I prayed Goober would just not answer and keep walking, but of course he had to say something. “I’m not Sam Hill, I’m a peanut.”

The brothers laughed harder. “You’re a what?” they teased.

“A peanut,” Goober said simply.

“You mean a blackie nut,” said Bobby.

Yolanda surprised me then. She dropped her pillowcase, hooked arms with me and Goober, and shoved us past the Hatches.

“Run!” she hollered, holding tight. Lena Horne sure can move! Yolanda’s dress flickered against the circles of light set down by the streetlamps.

Goober slowed us up. Peanuts made from butcher paper and wire can’t go fast.

The boys came after us, hurling eggs.

Me and Yolanda held firm on to Goober, who was between us. “Run, Goob, run!” I encouraged.

Jeb mimicked me. “Run, poop, run!”

The Panic Monster was out on Halloween, dressed as himself, shaboodle-shaking me all over.

Eggs flew, some just missing our feet, some smacking at our backs. Thunder came. Yolanda tripped on the hem of her sheet-dress, but kept going.

When we turned onto Maycomb Street, the Hatches stopped. “That’s the heart of Crow’s Nest,” I heard one of them say. “Pa says to never ever go there.”

At the steps of our porch, Goober fell forward, hard. He was nowhere near to being hurt. His peanut’s shell had protected him. His feet wiggled out the bottom of his costume. He’d lost a slipper.

Lena Horne checked the hem on her sheet.

Then it rained.

Monday, November 1, 1954

Diary Book,

I’m still shook up from what happened last night. I’m scared to tell Mama and Daddy about it. And scared not to tell Mama and Daddy. If I tell them, they’ll ask what we were doing so close to Ivoryton, and I’ll get the skin tanned off my behind. If I don’t tell them, and they find out, I’ll get the skin tanned off all of me.

This is why it’s good to write things down. You can see what’s in front of you and decide which way to go. I will not be telling Mama and Daddy about Halloween, or what happened last summer with the Hatch brothers at the drinking fountain.

I’ll need to hide this diary good. From now on, it’ll be tucked to the back of my closet shelf, behind my dictionary.

Because if Daddy or Mama reads this, I am a skinned possum!

Tuesday, November 2, 1954

Diary Book,

Last summer when Yolanda and I first set eyes on Prettyman’s baseball field, I was convinced that field was heaven’s front yard. I suppose heaven is a big place, ’cause today I stepped foot into heaven’s parlor — the Prettyman Science lab.

The first thing I learned from Mrs. Elmer, our Science teacher, is that the word lab is short for laboratory. It sounds so official, like where you can really learn important stuff.

The Prettyman Science laboratory has bottles and goggles and tubes and clips and counter-tops — and microscopes.

And there are four sinks for washing things, and for making sure our hands are clean. Sinks in a classroom! And microscopes!

THIS is why I will put up with kids staring at me like I’m some purple-headed carnival creature, and clucking after me like they’re the stupidest chickens in Lee County.

I’d bet every cent of my Christmas money that anyone who is a real doctor started out by learning science in a laboratory.

Today our teacher assigned lab partners. My partner is a girl named Theresa Ludlow.

When Mrs. Elmer put Theresa’s name next to mine on the blackboard, Theresa was not happy. To squirm her way out of being partners with me, she told a tale taller than Paul Bunyan. Something about having a stomachache and needing to go to the school nurse’s office. Mrs. Elmer dismissed Theresa, but I later saw Theresa in the cafeteria eating a hotdog covered with enough sauerkraut to stuff a bed pillow. When I get to doctor school, I hope they teach me how to cure stomachaches with sauerkraut.

I really don’t care who my partner is in the Prettyman Science laboratory. And I don’t give a toe bone about Theresa Ludlow not wanting to work with me. What I care about most is learning how those bottles and goggles and tubes and clips can teach me.

Next to the names of Science lab partners, Mrs. Elmer wrote a list of study topics we’ll be learning this term — cells, germs, organs. And, just before Thanksgiving, we’ll be dissecting frogs.

But first, there is lots of reading to do to prepare for what Mrs. Elmer wrote on the blackboard before the class bell rang.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 —
MIDTERM TEST