The Sound of Life and Everything (5 page)

Auntie Mildred shrugged.
You didn't bring Robby back,
her thin shoulders seemed to say,
so I don't care anymore.

Once we were safely in the elevator, I tugged on Mama's hand. “I take it we're not comin' back?”

“Oh, we're comin' back,” Mama said, patting Auntie Mildred's hand. “Someone's got to teach that man that he can't treat folks like cattle.” Under her breath, she added, “Not even Japanese ones.”

7

Dr. Franks wasn't the only one who treated folks
like cattle. Miss Fightmaster, my teacher, was fond of teaching boring lessons, then jabbing people with her ruler if they dared to interrupt.

I really didn't like that ruler, but when she stuffed our heads with fractions and more useless mumbo jumbo, I couldn't help but misbehave. At least Monday morning's lesson looked more promising than most. She scratched it on the board as soon as we walked through the door: “How the Mighty Oak Tree Grows from a Single Acorn.”

“It might not look like it,” she said as she handed out acorns (and hammers), “but this tiny seed is one of God's greatest creations. Add a little water and sunlight, and it will grow into a giant.”

I held up my acorn. “Sounds like oak trees are a lot like people.”

“Ella Mae, don't hold that acorn right in front of your nose! You'll make yourself go cross-eyed!” She whacked my desk with her ruler. “And you
must
raise your hand if you want my attention.”

Grudgingly, I lowered my acorn, then stuck my hand in the air.

She let me stew for five whole seconds. “Yes, Ella Mae?”

I held up my acorn. “Sounds like oak trees are a lot like people.”

This time, she ignored my deliberate attempt to make myself go cross-eyed. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Well, you know how we come from eggs.”

Behind me, someone laughed. “We're not chickens, Ella Mae!” It sounded suspiciously like Walter.

“I never said we were chickens.” I flipped a braid over my shoulder. “I was just talkin' to this scientist, and
he
said that people—”

“Where did you meet a scientist, on a funny farm?”

Red-hot shame crept up my neck and set my ears on fire, but before I could whip around and introduce Walter to my fist, Miss Fightmaster intervened.

“Why don't we move on?” she asked, though it sounded less like a suggestion and more like a command.

“But I have a question,” I said.

Miss Fightmaster smoothed her eyebrows. “All right, then, let's have it.”

“Do these acorns have DNA?”

Now, I wasn't above dragging out a conversation to waste time, but in the case of these acorns, I genuinely wanted to know.

Miss Fightmaster pressed her lips into a line. “I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that term.”

“I'm not familiar with it, either,” I said, “but I think it stands for deoxyribo-something-or-other. Dr. Franks said it's in everything, which is what made me wonder if it's in these acorns, too.”

Her nostrils shriveled into slits. “There will be no more talk of scientists.” She jabbed me with her ruler. “And there will be no more talk of DNA, either.”

Miss Fightmaster continued, but I was no longer listening. How
did
these acorns know how to grow into oak trees? Why didn't they ever grow into beech trees instead?

“I think these little acorns must have DNA,” I said. “God probably invented it to keep everything straight.”

This time, Miss Fightmaster's entire face shriveled. She swept my acorn onto the floor and ground it to dust with her heel. “This class will not abide any more of your outbursts!” She aimed her ruler at the door. “Go to the office this instant!”

Slowly, very slowly, I dragged myself out of my desk. It wasn't that I'd never been to the office before; I was just disappointed I hadn't gotten to use my hammer.

I didn't even glance at Robby's trophy or Daniel's prize-winning sketches on my way to the office. Robby was the only quarterback who'd led our team to a state championship, and Daniel's artwork was so good that they'd put it on display. Normally, I liked looking at these friendly reminders, but today, they just emphasized that Robby and Daniel were dead.

I'd barely trudged through the door when Gracie burst to her feet. It took all my willpower not to turn right around. If I'd remembered that Monday was Gracie's day in the office, I might have made more of an effort to stay on Miss Fightmaster's good side.

“Where's Miss Shepherd?” I asked. She was the
real
secretary. Gracie was just a lowly student aide.

She waved my question away. “What happened this time, Ella Mae?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Really. I just asked a question.”

“You never just ask a question.”

I shrugged. She had a point.

Gracie bit her lip. “So what happened?”

“Oh, Miss Fightmaster was just sayin' something silly about acorns, and I simply asked if they had DNA.”

“What's DNA?” Gracie asked.

“Deoxyribo-something-or-other.”

I expected Gracie to gasp or at least press me for details, but she only sat there smiling, like I had meat loaf for brains. So Auntie Mildred hadn't told them. Somehow, I wasn't surprised.

• • •

Gracie wasn't authorized to administer judgment, so we had to wait for Mr. Lloyd (who was holed up in his office, doing whatever principals did when they weren't tormenting their students). The sunburst clock struck noon before he finally came out, but since the lunch bell had just rung, he only took one look at me before he waved me out the door.

I dashed out of the office, eager to catch back up to Theo. Since our mamas packed our lunches, we always headed to the playground as soon as the bell rang (and since I often got sent to the office, he was used to bringing mine).

“We spent the morning dissecting acorns,” he said, swinging his lunch box exuberantly. “Walter smashed his to smithereens as soon as Miss Fightmaster turned her back, but I pried off my cupule—that's the little cap thing on top—without damaging the inside.”

I tightened my grip on my lunch pail. “It figures.” I'd asked for a lunch box the same as Theo's, but Mama had decided the lunch pail still worked fine.

“You can't let her bait you,” he said as he pulled open the door. “If you just kept your mouth shut, she wouldn't know you exist.”

“Is that your goal in life, to fade into the background?”

“Yes,” Theo said. “At least as far as Miss Fightmaster's concerned.”

I couldn't argue with that logic. I raised a hand to shield my eyes as I led the way across the blacktop. For once, the sun had burned off the clouds that drifted ashore every night, so the playground almost sparkled. It was a sight to see.

We didn't waste any words as we unpacked our lunches and made our usual trades: one of Mama's snickerdoodles for Auntie Mildred's store-bought pudding and a handful of green grapes for one or two Keebler crackers. Other folks might have liked having scores of fair-weather friends, but I just needed Theo, and he just needed me.

We were halfway through our lunches when a scuffle caught my eye (or, more precisely, the wall of shoulders that had formed around the scuffle).

“You see that?” I asked Theo, scrambling onto a tree stump.

“Of course I see it,” Theo said. “It's twenty feet away.”

I chucked a grape at his forehead. “That wasn't what I meant.”

Theo polished off the last of his bologna sandwich. “If you were askin' if I wanted to leave the shelter of this shade tree and stick my nose in where it doesn't belong, then the answer is—”

I didn't wait for him to finish, just launched myself off the tree stump. I was still a few feet away when I heard Walter shout, “I said, get off!”

While the object of Walter's bullying fumbled for a reply, I pushed through the wall of shoulders. Walter had a fistful of the Dent boy's collar and was trying to drag him off the seesaw, but the boy refused to budge. He couldn't have been more than six, but he'd wrapped his arms around the handle and his legs around the seat.

“What's the matter, Walter?” I asked. “Can't handle that little kid?”

Walter didn't let go of the boy, but he did set him down as he scanned the nervous crowd. When his eyes settled on me, I stuck out my chin.

Walter instantly brightened. “Oh, look, it's the escapee from the funny farm!” He flung the boy to the side.

The boy hit the ground hard, though he managed to hang on to the seesaw. Once he dusted himself off, he stuck out his tongue, then carefully fixed his collar. I grinned despite myself. Walter might have had his back turned, but the boy was a warrior, no doubt about it.

“What's the food like?” Walter asked. “I hope they at least had Jell-O. You must have been in there for weeks!”

“We were only there for an hour. And it wasn't a funny farm, it was a lab.”

“Ooh, a lab!” Walter said as he slithered closer. “Did they treat you like a rat, make you run through the mazes?”

“No,” I replied without giving up ground. “They brought a man back to life.”

“They brought a man back to
life
? Was it a zombie or something?”

While the crowd giggled like lamebrains, my hands clenched into fists. “I'm not makin' this up. I saw him with my own two eyes.”

“Quiet, Ella Mae!” a familiar voice growled, though I was surprised to hear it here. I hadn't thought that Theo would leave the shelter of our shade tree. “He's just tryin' to get you to say things you'll regret.”

It was awfully sporting of Theo to stick his nose in where it didn't belong, but I still pretended that I hadn't heard. Daddy might have brushed me off, and Mama might have shushed me, but now I had a chance to tell the whole world what I'd seen. They would have to believe me.

“They looked like grown-ups, but they weren't. They walked and talked like babies.”

The crowd couldn't even hear. They were too busy laughing like a pack of wild hyenas.

I jumped onto the seesaw. “One of them was Japanese.”

At least that shut them up. A shock wave rippled through the crowd, knocking everyone back. It was so far-fetched, so unbelievable, that it had to be true.

Walter jumped onto the seesaw, too. “If there's a Jap, I say we stone him!”

The crowd cheered, but I clenched my teeth. The thought of watching Walter do something to the Japanese man was enough to make me sick. It would be like watching Auntie Mildred get jabbed with that needle.

I locked my wrist, then lined it up with my elbow. Daddy had once spent a day teaching me how to punch, since he'd boxed back in college and hadn't wanted to see his expertise go to waste. It had been a few years since the lesson, but there were some things that you never forgot.

I didn't waste any movement, just went straight for his stomach. I was about to make contact when a pair of rough hands captured me from behind.

Mrs. Temple's plump face reminded me of a tomato. “Ella Mae, what were you thinking?”

I tried—and failed—to get away. “I was thinkin' my knuckles might not hurt so much if I hit him in the stomach.”

“That wasn't what I meant,” she said, sighing, as she dragged me back inside. And that was how I wound up in the office for the second time in one day.

The sunburst clock ticked off the minutes while I waited for the bigwigs to determine my fate. They'd probably left me out here so I could think about my choices, but I wasn't thinking about my choices so much as imagining what it would have felt like to connect with Walter's solar plexus.

Finally, the inner door squeaked open, and Gracie reappeared (though she refused to meet my gaze). “I'm going to have to call your mama.”

“Go ahead,” I replied, nodding toward the telephone. Mama would straighten this out.

Not surprisingly, their conversation only lasted a second. No sooner had the words “Japanese man” left her lips than Gracie blinked and said good-bye.

I leaned forward. “What'd she say?”

“She's on her way,” Gracie said as she hung up the receiver. “She wants to have a talk. In person.”

I couldn't help but smile smugly.