Ola Shakes It Up (17 page)

River swallowed her food, took another sip of milk and pushed her tray away. “Boy, are you lucky I ran into you. You're talking to exactly the right person. I'm studying to be
a pop psychologist, you know—just like my mom. People pay her to listen to their problems and she helps them out. I've helped just about everybody in this school already—except for Anna Banana. She's beyond help. I won't even charge you, since this is a first visit.”

I looked River up and down for a few seconds. She really did seem more okay than when I'd met her. In fact, she seemed a little unusual. I liked that in a person. “It's not that kind of a problem.”

“Oh, well, that's okay. I'm sure whatever it is, we can take care of it.” River added, “That's the first rule of being a pop psychologist— sympathize with the patient.”

“My problem is you,” I confessed. “I have a proposition for you.”

River listened to me talk about the first stage of my plan for bringing down Walcott Corners and forgot all about being sympathetic. Before I could even ask if she wanted to help, she interrupted me and said, “Count me in.”

I smiled again. River wasn't so bad. Once you got used to her blunt way of speaking, she was actually kind of cool.

“You really get people to pay you to give them advice?” I stood up with River as the bell rang. Lunch period was over and we both had music class together next.

“Mm-hmm,” she replied as we walked toward the huge gray garbage cans standing in the middle of the cafeteria.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said seriously.

“Fire away.” River dumped everything into the garbage can, including her tray.

“How can I get in on that?”

“Welcome aboard, Just Ola.” Mr. Elijah was grinning so wide I could see all of his teeth. He opened the door to his house all the way. “Come on in.”

“I can't, Mr. Elijah. I just wanted to make sure it was okay to use your house to meet with all the kids in the neighborhood tonight,” I said, smiling. River and I had talked to all of the kids on the bus who lived in Walcott Corners, and we'd gotten sixteen other kids to join us. Mr. Elijah had been right. When we told them about getting all the rules changed about where to play, curfews, and riding bikes on the sidewalk, everybody had wanted to join in. This neighborhood had just been waiting for someone to come and lead them.

“Glad to oblige,” Mr. Elijah said. “Then you and I can talk, 'cause we're gonna have to coordinate our efforts.”

“Right, Mr. Elijah. See you later.” I turned and started walking toward my house. I had some work to do. I had to come up with a really good plan to shake this neighborhood up. I had to make things —

I stopped. I could hear the sound of wailing coming from somewhere. I turned to look at Otis's house. Yup. It was Davis screaming from somewhere on the second floor of the house. I turned all the way around and crossed the street. Before I started making my big plans, there was one little thing that I needed to take care of.

I knocked on Otis's door as loud as I could. Aeisha and Otis were probably in there trying one of their stupid new ideas on poor Davis. I knew I could get that baby to sleep and help poor Otis's mama. Then maybe she would start taking care of Otis. I couldn't have my sister's boyfriend going around looking like such a mess.

Mrs. Spunklemeyer opened the door. She was wearing the same long bathrobe she'd worn when she brought us the pumpkin pie. She probably hadn't changed out of it since the baby was born. “Hello. You're Ola, Aeisha's sister.”

I nodded. “I came to help them with the baby.”

Mrs. Spunklemeyer sniffed. “Come in, Ola. Otis and Aeisha are upstairs trying to get Davis to sleep now. They said something about trying to find what kind of music he liked.”

I walked in. “You go lie down, Mrs. Spunklemeyer. I'll go take care of Davis. I used to help Mrs. Gransby baby-sit all her grandchildren, you know.”

I marched up the stairs. I could hear rock music floating from somewhere upstairs, then what sounded like country music. I followed the sound of the music to the baby's room, and there were Aeisha and Otis, standing over the crib with a portable radio.

“You guys don't know what you're doing,” I said, pushing past them. I looked down into the crib. There was a fat pink baby with Otis's stick-up hair, bawling. Davis. I reached out and tickled the bottom of his feet.

Davis stopped crying long enough to look at me with surprise.

“Works every time,” I whispered to Aeisha and Otis. I picked up one of Davis's feet and started rubbing the bottom softly. Mrs. Gransby had taught me that babies love to have their feet massaged.

“What do you know?” Otis whispered in amazement as Davis's eyes started to close. “Thanks, Ola.”

Aeisha looked at me, surprised. I could tell she was impressed.
She would know this trick, too, if she'd spent less time reading when we were at Mrs. Gransby's house after school. “Yeah, thanks.”

I shrugged and put Davis's foot down. He was fast asleep. “Don't forget about the meeting later on. See ya.”

I didn't see Mrs. Spunklemeyer downstairs as I left the house, but I figured she'd gone upstairs and gone to bed. I started humming to myself as I crossed the street.

I wanna shake it up, shake it up
,

shake it up Like an earthquake.
…

I smiled when I realized that I was humming the last part to my special jump-rope song. Just thinking the words put me in a better mood than I'd been in since we moved here. I went into the house and found Grady waiting for me inside the hallway, but I just gave him a pat and called out hello to Lillian before going upstairs to my room. I had some serious planning to do. I sat down at my desk and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen. The way I figured it, what this neighborhood needed was a little bit of Roxbury—actually, a whole lot of Roxbury. I started writing a list of all the things I had loved about my old neighborhood.

stood outside the big oak door of Marias house nervously. It was the day of the big town meeting, and I had ridden my bike over to Maria's house in the middle of town to check on her before she left for the meeting. Everybody in town was gonna be at that meeting except for the kids and senior citizens from Walcott Corners. While Maria was submitting our petition and talking about all that revenue stuff, we would be back in Walcott Corners transforming the neighborhood.

Maria opened the door and pulled me inside quickly. “Keep it quiet. My mother and sisters are upstairs.”

“I thought you were supposed to dress up for this meeting,” I said, whispering.

“I did dress up.” Maria pointed to her new bandanna, which was a bright orange and blue. “What's the matter with you?”

I stopped shuffling my feet and stood still. “I'm nervous. Here are the petitions. You gonna be okay?”

“Piece of cake.” Maria nodded confidently. “I came up with some great plans to generate alternative revenue. My dad helped me put together a cost estimate, even. He promised not to tell Mom, so she's gonna be in for a big shock when I get up at the meeting.” Maria looked really pleased at the idea of upsetting her mother.

“So you'll call me when the meeting's over, right?” I asked. “And you'll come over? Don't forget to bring your bike.”

Maria smiled. “Don't worry about it, Ola. It's all under control. Are you ready?”

I grinned. “You bet.”

I biked home as fast as I could. Our house was empty except for Lillian and Grady. I had talked Mama and Dad into letting me stay home from the meeting by telling them River had invited me over to her house for lunch. They were so pleased that I was finally making friends that they couldn't say no. But Aeisha had to go with them or it would look suspicious. I parked my bike on our lawn and looked around the neighborhood. Immaculate square lawns, big houses, vacant streets. I hoped this was the last time Walcott Corners would look so empty to me.

I dashed in the house. The phone was ringing already. I knew it was Mr. Elijah calling to check with me.

“Just Ola? Are we A-OK on stage one?” Mr. Elijah's voice sounded merry.

“Roger, Mr. Elijah. Set stage one into motion,” I ordered, trying to sound serious. I had a surprise for Mr. Elijah and I didn't want to give it away. As soon as the seniors at Walcott finished stage one, I could get all the kids into action. I hung
up with Mr. Elijah and called River to tell her it was okay to come over. Then I headed into the kitchen to check on Lillian.

I could smell all the delicious food cooking before I even entered the kitchen. Lillian was at the stove minding three big kettles of food. I had asked Lillian to make some special food from her country. A lot of the seniors in the neighborhood were doing the same thing. I pulled a chair over to the stove and stood up on it so I could look into the kettles. “Whatcha making, Lillian?”

Lillian took the lid off one of the kettles and stirred a thick green stew. I could see potatoes, dumplings, and plantains in it, but then Lillian stirred some more and I saw that there were crabs in it, too. “This one
calalou.”

“What's in the other ones?”

Lillian took the lids off the other pots, and I saw that there was black rice and shrimp in one pot and pieces of braised pork in the other one.
“Du viz djon-djon. Griot.”

“Is your friend coming, too?” I inhaled deeply. The delicious odors coming from the pots made my stomach growl.

“Yes, Sonja is coming.” Lillian smiled and nodded. Sonja was her friend from English class. “She making bread. She say six loaves.”

“Wow.” I looked down at the food again. My stomach was rumbling even louder now. “Can I have some?”

“No. Is for later.” Lillian said sternly.

“But Lillian—” I was cut off by the sound of the doorbell. “That must be River. I'll be right back. It's time to let Grady out, too.” I ran into the hallway, the dog right behind me.

“You know what to do, right, Grady?” I stood in front of the door for a moment and patted his head. “It's real easy. Just be a dog.”

Grady barked, and I checked one more time to make sure he had his ID tags on his collar. Then I opened the door. “Grady's all ready, River….”

My voice trailed off. It wasn't River at the front door.