Lacey and the African Grandmothers (4 page)

“Stop it!” cried Angel. “Stop! Now!” She tried to reach for Kayden, but Kelvin held the baby tightly against his body.

“I'll give her pop if I want to. I'm the man! I get to decide things. You listen to me!” Kelvin yelled. “That's how it goes. Remember that in your thick head. Whatever I want to give her is good for her, and that's that!”

Kayden doesn't like loud voices. She started whimpering, then bawling.

“Here, you take her. I hate it when she yells like that.” Kelvin pushed the baby into Angel's arms, lifted the pop can to his lips, and drained it. He threw the can across the room and into the sink. On his way out of the kitchen, he grabbed Angel's chin. The anger was in his eyes. “You remember that I'm the boss,” he snarled.

I put the pot on the stove and glared at Kelvin, waiting to see what would happen next. I didn't know what I could do, but I was ready to try anything to help Angel. Kelvin was using his loud voice that meant he wanted to fight. The raised voices brought my little brothers running to the kitchen, and they looked ready to fight, too. Five-year-old Colton was carrying a sword made of wood and black tape, waving it over his head as if he meant to hit Kelvin with it.

“You remember that, too,” Kelvin said, staring and jabbing his finger at me. “I'm the
boss
!” I was glad to hear the door slam behind him.

Angel had tears in her eyes. “You want us to go fight him?” offered Colton, brandishing his sword.

“Hii-yah!” Seven-year-old Raine kicked his foot high in the air. Little Davis tried a kick too, and fell on his behind.

“We can do it! We can beat him. We can make him sorry,” said Joseph, who was nine.

Angel sniffled and shook her head. She gave our brothers a small crooked smile.

“Maybe you should all go outside and play,” I suggested. “You can make sure there aren't any wild dogs ready to attack, or any mountain lions. You can keep us safe that way.”

“Yah!” said Colton. “Come on, Raine. Let's save our family from wild animals.”

“I'm the oldest, so I get to be the mountain lion and chase you. Grrrr,” cried Joseph, running out the door growling.

Angel sat in the chair where Kelvin had been. I turned back to the stove, added salt to the water, and turned on the burner. “Want to talk?” I asked.

Angel shook her head, but then she said, “I don't know what to do.”

“He'll cool off. Eventually.” Too bad, though. I wished he'd keep stomping. I wished his anger would take him so far away that he couldn't get back.

“It's not that,” she said. She toyed with some crumbs on the table, using her fingers to brush them into a little pile. “He wants me to move in with his mum and sisters. He says there's more room there, and we can be together all the time.”

“But you can't do that,” I said. I felt panicky at the thought of her going to stay with Kelvin forever.

She looked at me with sad eyes. “But I'm nearly eighteen, and I have his baby. We're a family, kind of. He says he loves me, and he wants us to live like a real family, and there's no room for him here.” She spread the crumbs back across the table, then started gathering them up again. “I'd like us to be a family, too. I don't want to stay with his family, but I don't think I have a choice. There is nowhere else for us to go.”

“But Angel, we are your family too, and we love you and Kayden. Besides, Mum needs you.”

“I wouldn't be very far away. I could still come over and help.”

“But what about school? What about college? What about becoming a nurse so you can really help people?”

“Kelvin says to forget about college. He says I'm not smart enough to get in, and even if I was smart enough to finish high school and got good enough grades, I'd never survive in the city. He says people there will pick on me because I'm First Nations, and they'll treat me badly, no matter what I do. He says if I try living in the white world, I'll be destroyed, the way his father was. Sometimes I think he's right. I don't want to go to the city, especially by myself.”

Steam was rising from the boiling water and clattering the lid. I jumped up to grab it, then sat at the table again with my sister.

“Look at me, Angel, and promise. Promise me you won't do anything yet.”

“I don't think I can promise.” Her head was down, and her voice was choked. “Kelvin keeps pressuring me, and he's stronger than me, you know?”

“You're wrong. You're stronger, Angel. You're smarter, too.”

“You would say that.” She smiled her sad, crooked smile, but tears were streaming down her face. “You're my best sister and my best friend.”

“But it's true. Look at how well you do in school when you have time to study. You're a lot smarter than Kelvin, and you're loving, too. Kahasi says there's a lot of strength in loving. It's stronger than steel.”

I reached out to take her hand. Kayden slapped her tiny hand on top as if we were players on a team, getting ready to win. I hoped that Angel could win. And that I could help her. But how? How could I convince Angel that she is not powerless – that none of us is?

Chapter 4
Grannies and Babies

T
he wind blew snow across the prairie like a cloud lifting from the ground. It flung arrows of ice that pierced my eardrums as I walked from my school to Sequoia, and made my long hair dance and twist into knots that would hurt to take out. As soon as I came inside, my glasses fogged up and made me blind. My fingers and nose were so frozen that they burned as if they were on fire. I was cold and tired, and just wanted to curl up and sleep like the babies dozing on the mats and in the playpens.

The weather seemed to be a little mixed up. It was supposed to be getting warmer, not colder. I wished the snow would melt, and the prairie grasses would begin to grow. But instead, we had more snow, and winds as fierce as a hungry bear. It was a good thing my little seeds were warm and safe inside.

“Lacey, guess what?” Angel asked me. Her brown eyes were sparkling with happiness, and she looked as if she wanted to jump around. She took my cold hands in her warm ones. “Brrrr! Did you forget to use your pockets?”

“I'm OK. What did you want to tell me?”

“My math test! I passed! I passed math. Isn't that the greatest news? And I not only passed, I got 82 percent!”

“I'm so proud of you, my smart sister. I knew you could do it!” I gave her a high-five.

“I'm proud of me too. When Mrs. B. gave me back the test, I gave her a hug and a big kiss. I think
that
surprised her.”

“How about Kelvin?” I asked. I looked around the room, but he wasn't there. “Did he pass?”

Her face lost its glow. “No,” she said. “He didn't make it. I think he's mad at me because I passed and he didn't. But I studied and worked hard. He should have done that too, instead of watching TV and going to parties.”

After I watered the dirt in the little containers, I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, sat with the babies, and stayed quiet. I've learned that it's often best to be quiet, especially if I don't want to go outside. When I'm quiet, sometimes I'm also invisible, and no one gives extra work to people they can't see. I had enough work already with my dad and my older brothers gone away to sing. Mum wasn't feeling well enough to do everything herself, so for Angel and me it meant lots of cooking, cleaning, laundry, and looking after noisy little brothers. I was starting to think Mum should go have that operation.

Kayden stood in a play saucer on the floor beside Angel. I crept across the floor to her and tried to make her laugh by playing peek-a-boo and batting the toys attached to the play saucer. I like it when she laughs. She makes a happy sound deep in her throat that turns into a high-pitched squeal, and she flaps her arms and tries to jump up and down. Even her hair laughs. It's just like Angel's hair, and swings in little curls that bounce like a spring. Watching her laugh always makes me laugh, too, but I am careful to laugh quietly, without opening my mouth. If I have a big laugh, I have to make sure to cover my mouth to keep the sound inside and to hide my crooked teeth.

There was music coming from a CD – the sound of drums and the voices of men singing ancient songs. Kayden bounced to the beat of the drums. The music made me think of sitting around a fire, and it made me feel warmer. Two of the little kids were making long blue snakes out of the play clay that Lila had mixed. Some of the older kids were drawing, working on the computers, reading, and writing things in their binders. Everyone was quietly busy inside because no one wanted to go outside. The babies didn't know enough to be quiet, so some were crying or babbling. A few were banging on toys. I picked up one of the babies who was crying and jiggled him up and down as I walked around the room.

My sister was using the side of her pencil to add shading to a picture she'd drawn of an old woman sewing. The shading made the woman look real.

“That's beautiful, Angel,” I heard Mrs. Buchanan say. “She looks so loving and kind, and you've got her eyes just right. You can see her wisdom in her eyes.” Angel didn't say anything; she just kept drawing. I wondered if she was still mad at Kelvin for not making her a Valentine's Day gift yesterday. She pretended it didn't bother her, but I knew it did.

“Your portrait reminds me of the women in some photos I saw when I was in Calgary last week,” Mrs. B continued, as she watched Angel sketch. “I heard about a remarkable program that involves grandmothers in Canada helping grandmothers in Africa by sewing purses.”

“How could purses help them?” asked Angel.

“The Canadian grandmothers sell the purses here and send the money to the African grandmothers to help them raise their grandchildren. Millions and millions of people in Africa – especially in southern Africa are infected with HIV. You know, that disease connected with AIDS? Many young adults – some who are mothers and fathers with small children – are dying.”

“Why don't they just go to the clinic and take medicine?” asked Trisha, who was working at the same table as Angel. Trisha wore glasses like me, but she had short hair and a belly shaped like a big watermelon. Her baby hadn't been born yet.

“That's part of the problem. So far, the medicines for controlling HIV and AIDS are still very expensive and only easy to get in rich countries like Canada. They are very difficult to get in Africa,” said Mrs. B. “Maybe two out of a hundred Africans with these diseases get the medicines they need.”

“But what does that have to do with the grandmothers?” Angel asked.

“In some ways, Africa is like Siksika,” explained Mrs. B. “Families are close, and often large. Many communities are isolated, and it's difficult to get from place to place. At Siksika, when something happens to parents, the rest of the family steps in to help – often the aunties and uncles, who have children of their own, take in the orphaned children. But in Africa the aunties and uncles may be ill or dying, too. They can't look after anyone else's children. Maybe they can't even look after their own. So, who is going to take care of all these kids? The grandmothers – because there isn't anyone else to do it. What makes it even harder is that some of the children are also infected with HIV.”

“I don't get it,” said Trisha. She was leaning back in her chair now, stroking her round, pregnant tummy as if it were a kitten. “How can little kids get infected?”

“They get the disease from their mothers, sometimes while they are being born and sometimes from breast milk.”

“You're kidding!” said Trisha. “If I had HIV, I'd do something before the baby was born. Get tested or something.”

“Would you? What if there was no clinic? Or what if you could be tested, but there was no medicine? Would you choose not to feed your baby, just in case it got sick? Would you let your baby die of starvation, just in case it caught the disease?”

“I'd think of something.”

“Like what?” Mrs. B. challenged.

“I'd move to Canada,” Trisha announced triumphantly, and everyone laughed.

Mrs. B. smiled. “Anyway, that's where the Canadian grandmothers come in. They make purses and sell them, and send the money to the African grandmothers, who spend it on food, housing, school fees – whatever is needed. In this simple way, ordinary grandmothers here are helping to save lives there. But what's just as important is that they are giving hope to the African grandmothers, and to the children.”

“We have a lot of grandmothers. Maybe they should do something like that,” said Angel.

“Maybe so,” said Mrs. B. “Maybe so.” She left the little group and walked slowly around the classroom, talking quietly with students and checking whether they needed help.

I thought about what I'd heard. I liked the sound of people helping other people. That's the way the Sequoia Outreach School works. Sometimes the elders need help cleaning or shoveling snow, and the students help. Sometimes the people in town grow too much in their gardens, so they bring the extra food to the school for everyone to share. We make salads and maybe some cookies or cakes that we can share with them. It's a circle of everyone helping everyone. I like that kind of circle.

Kayden patted me with her little hand, wanting attention. I made a circle with my mouth and made the “oooo” sound of an owl, and she waved her arms and legs so hard that I thought she would tip the play saucer over. I grabbed the side of it to keep it upright.

I thought of how it would be if my sister or my mother passed on because of a bad disease like AIDS. How would it feel to lose people that you love? It hurt a lot when my grandfather died, but at least he had time to live a good long life. It would be even worse to die young. Everything would die with them – their dreams, their hopes, and their futures. And those poor little kids left alone, except for their grandparents. It was the saddest story I'd ever heard.