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- Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
1992, Philadelphia, USA.Kamaria Kessy is 13, independent, confident and loving life.But BIG change is coming!She's fallen out with her best friend, Odie, and she has no idea how to talk to him about it.Plus her Tanzanian aunty is about to be her new roommate - NIGHTMARE! All Kam wants to do is focus on winning big with her relay team (and best girlfriends)! But to fly down the race track she's going to need to learn what truly makes her soar.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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For Joy, Nsaba, Esperanza and Imani, our girls poised to soar!
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CONTENTS
HEARTBEATS
Baba says when I was small, I was always on the hunt for heartbeats. I’d snuggle in his arms, clamouring to hear the steady boom, boom, boom beating from somewhere deep in his chest. The story goes I would try to find the sound of a heartbeat just about everywhere. Anywhere. Baba also likes to say that if I’d been born in Tanzania, like him, he would have taken me to the family farm with its millions of goats and chickens and cows, and I would have found way more heartbeats than I knew what to do with.
But that’s just Baba being Baba!
Instead of chasing farm animals, I used to cup my hand behind my ear and press it against tree trunks. Flower petals. My dolls and my trucks. Even the dirt-caked soles of Odie’s feet. That was before we grew up and grew out of that kind of stuff. And obviously before I truly understood what a heart was. Or where to find one.
Truth be told, I don’t actually remember hunting for heartbeats. 2
My memories don’t reach that far back.
What I do remember is what happened when I started running. That’s when I became a hurricane of arms and feet and one gigantic heartbeat.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
It’s also when Alexis, Neeka, Luce and I started flying around the track, smack, smack, smack, smacking a baton into the palms of each other’s hands.
When we forgot everything, except our rhythm and flow.
When we found freedom … and the thrill of soaring across the finish line.
Thinking back on it now, though, I wonder. When I was small and searching everywhere and anywhere, in every little thing, for that steady boom, boom, boom, what exactly did I think I was looking for?
4
1. SOMETHING EXTRA
‘We don’t need something extra,’ Neeka said with her chest puffed up. ‘We’re fast … remember? Plus, we’re thirteen.’ She tilted her head towards the sun, which was just starting to slant down low. Bronze shadows cut lines across the red-brick wall behind her.
It was a Friday afternoon in April, and we were the last girls on the track. Since practice was done for the day, I thought Neeka would be easier to convince. But her hands stayed glued to her hips. Her face wouldn’t give either.
Level ten hard-headedness.
‘Trust me,’ I said, squaring my shoulders. ‘We do.’
Being fast wasn’t enough.
And even though we’d been counting down the days until Luce finally turned thirteen – she was the last one in the group – that wouldn’t cut it either.
If we wanted to win our relay race at the two biggest track meets of the season – our last two races together – something extra was a must. 6
‘What about our race day nicknames?’ Luce asked, smacking her lips like her bubble gum was lunch. ‘Those gotta count?’ She was sitting down in front of us on the thick white line that split lanes four and five. Her tube socks, hiked up all the way to her kneecaps, made her look even tinier than she already was.
‘Nope. Don’t count,’ I said. ‘First, we’ve had those nicknames since fifth grade. If they held any drop of extra luck, we’d be state champions by now. Second, we need something with more flair. Something with rhythm and a beat to it. Something supersonic!’
Luce looked at me. Her right eyebrow rose.
She shimmied her pint-sized shoulders, I slid my steps and we shouted out in unison just like the J.J. Fad song.
Luce loved that old song even more than I did.
We could dance all day every day to it.
One Saturday last year we did dance all day to it.
I could hardly bear to think about Luce moving away at the end of summer.
Who else had clown antics to keep me in stitches?
No one.
Alexis was too Alexis.
And Neeka? She was only silly when the Holy Spirit moved her.
Which was never.
Luckily, when we ran the 4 x 100 relay, none of that mattered.
On the track, we moved like rhythm and beat rolled into one. 7
And with Luce leaving, this championship season would be our last time to flow together.
So, losing wasn’t an option. We had to win.
And we had to win BIG.
That’s why we really needed something special!
While Luce cracked a million more Bazooka bubbles, Alexis jogged over, cool as a breeze. She was the last of us to finish. But she must’ve caught snatches of our conversation on her last loop because here she was, slipping in her two cents.
‘What we need,’ Alexis said, the words gliding right out of her mouth, ‘is some majestic flyness.’ She reached her hand up and pushed a bobby pin deeper into the bun coiled tightly on top of her head. Then she licked her fingers and smoothed down her baby hairs. ‘That’s how we win the 4 x 100 relay this year.’
And winning was everything!
2. MAJESTIC FLYNESS
Technically, the four of us – me, Neeka, Alexis and Luce – had placed before.
Lots of second places.
I thought about the picture of Flo-Jo I had tacked up on my bedroom wall.
The fastest woman on earth.
Her 4 x 100 relay team had won first place. And not just any first place.
They’d struck gold four years ago at the 1988 Olympics, half-way across the world in Seoul. Flo-Jo had her ‘something extra’ in spades.
Six-inch gold nails that turned into mini-magic wands.
They helped her cut through the wind.
And her one-legged track suits sent her flying like a blazing comet.
She was majestic flyness in motion. She had to be.
Because nobody remembered who came in second. 9
And I wanted the four of us to remember each other forever.
‘Majestic flyness,’ Neeka said, repeating Alexis but staring straight at me. She finally dropped her hands from her hips and nodded her head. ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about.’ The gold specks in her green eyes jumped around like fireflies, which meant she’d finally turned the corner from hard-headed.
I frowned. ‘Isn’t that what I said?’
‘No,’ Neeka answered back. ‘You said something extra, which is like a soggy side of fries.’ Luce stifled a laugh.
I shook my head. ‘No, it’s—’
‘Can you two stop and let me finish?’ Alexis said, speaking over me. Her eyes brightened. ‘Here’s my idea. We need a song.’ Then she leaned back and spread her hands wide, like her grand idea had been written in the sky.
‘A rap?’ Luce asked, from down below. All three of us put our hands on our hips and made the same exact slow roll in her direction.
‘A song, not a rap, Luce,’ Alexis corrected in her teacher’s voice.
‘Maybe a chant,’ I said, slowly nodding my head.
We grabbed our gear and started walking towards the school.
‘That’s it,’ Alexis said to me, shoving my shoulder. ‘A chant. You could write it, too. The way you map everything out … and go on and on ad nauseam about rhythm.’
‘Ad who?’ Luce asked, her eyes ballooning. 10
Alexis smirked, at me or Luce I didn’t know, but I knew she was right. I had blueprints in my mind for a world of things. I guess because I liked knowing exactly how things were going to begin and how they were going to end.
I loved things that flowed, too.
Songs flowed. But chants?
They had a special kind of rhythm all their own.
Momma spoke chants sometimes with her women’s circle.
But those weren’t the right kind.
My mind flashed to the only other time I’d heard one live.
It happened when Baba took me to a high school basketball game.
I was sitting on the edge of the bleachers with my head buried in my knees. My fingers were reaching for the laces of my high-tops, making a special loop so they stayed tied tight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the away team march in. Only thing is, they started spelling out their team’s name in unison, eyes straight ahead, clapping and stomping to their own beat as they made their way to the bench.
H – clap, clap, stomp, clap
A – clap, clap, stomp, clap
W – clap, clap, stomp, clap
K – clap, clap, stomp, clap11
H – clap, clap, stomp, clap
O – clap, clap, stomp, clap
U – clap, clap, stomp, clap
S – clap, clap, stomp, clap
E – clap, clap, stomp, clap
They filled the whole gym with their sound.
It floated high above the hardwood floors all the way to the rafters.
This wasn’t some ordinary cheer. It was like their very own battle cry.
They’d put a stamp on it.
I swear even the fluorescent lights shone brighter. I’m pretty sure the home team got the message too. Because they quit passing balls back and forth and stood awestruck.
Hawk House had conjured up something really special.
And when they won, you think anyone was surprised?
Of course not.
The chant was that extra magic touch that pulled their team together and kept them focused. It was so powerful I still remembered it vibrating through my entire body. It was maybe even so powerful it would keep Hawk House bonded for life. I snaked my arm around Luce’s neck as we reached the double doors. A cool blast of air hit my face as I walked in and tried to keep the wheels in my head from spinning too fast. By the time I hefted my 12backpack over my shoulder and we walked out of the locker room, I was sure.
I’d write something like that for us.
Something that would help us steady our steps and stay in sync.
Something that would guarantee our greatness and send us straight across the state championship finish line in first place …
Something none of us would ever forget!
3. T MINUS TWO WEEKS
After practice, I made a mad dash home. The regional championship meet was only two weeks away. The big state meet would follow soon after. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to conjure up something solid gold. Especially from scratch.
The plan was simple.
When I got home, I’d dodge Momma, tear up the stairs to my desk, and wait for the magic to pour from my mind like a fountain of wisdom.
We’d be ready for the championship meets in no time.
That was the plan.
But as soon as I thundered through the front door and started to unlace my sneakers, I saw problem number one: Momma wasn’t there to dodge. She should’ve been standing in the front hall, tap-tap-tappity-tapping her foot and snapping at me for the mess I was just about to make. 14
I walked to the kitchen door and poked my head around. That’s when I saw problem number two: no snack waiting for me on the table. No kettle on the stove. In this house, there was always a kettle screaming at five p.m. Five-thirty at the latest on the days Momma had a straggling client.
Today, though?
Nothing.
I followed the sound of hushed voices to Baba’s study.
That’s when I saw problem number three. The real problem: three adults talking super sly.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Aunt Darien said.
Aunt Darien and Momma had been best friends since forever. Long before I was born. Aunt Darien’s son, Odie, was my best friend, too. Or at least he was until our friendship suddenly screeched to a halt earlier this year. I still hadn’t figured out exactly how to fix it.
‘Us, too,’ Momma said in a serious voice. ‘It’s very sad. And she’s such a lovely girl. Well, she’s a woman now, really, with her own kids.’ Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. ‘This must be so hard on the kids.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Aunt Darien said. ‘How many does she have?’
‘Three,’ Momma answered back.
‘But the kids are in boarding school so they will stay in Tanzania. Only Rose is coming.’ That was Baba piping in. He leaned over from his desk, where he was sitting, and clasped his hands just as I slunk in.
‘Coming?’ I asked, extra quiet. 15
Three heads turned towards me.
Momma glanced down at her watch and then looked back at me like I’d beamed down straight from Mars.
A thick silence hung in the air while everyone stayed still.
It was the kind of stillness that shook and the kind of silence that screamed.
Aunt Darien spoke first. ‘Such a lovely surprise to see you, Kam.’ She looked from Momma to Baba, pressed her hands into her knees, and stood up from the couch. She walked over and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘You need to come over more. I haven’t heard you and Odie and your ear-splitting music in a while.’
I guess she didn’t know how much things had changed.
How out of step Odie and I were now.
I looked down at my feet. ‘Yeah … I guess we aren’t hanging out as much.’
Aunt Darien slung her purse around her shoulder and smiled. ‘I never thought I’d say this but … I’d love more of your loudness. I know you’re busy, but make sure I see you … or at least hear you soon.’ She turned to Baba and Momma. ‘And if you guys need any help with your visitor, just shout. You know where to find me. Hopefully her visit will be the end of the family trouble.’ She gave me a tight squeeze before she walked out, while I chewed my lip.
Trouble?
4. CLASSIC
I just knew it. That stillness had screamed. As soon as I heard the heavy thud of the front door shutting, I turned to Momma and Baba and cut to the chase. ‘What trouble?’
Baba loosened the knot in his tie.
He rolled his leather chair away from his desk and stood to face me.
It was almost like looking in the mirror.
Same long face. Same almond eyes. Same long fingers.
Only difference was Baba’s brown ran deeper.
And he was a tall I wished never to be.
‘Lucky you,’ Momma had whispered in my ear once. We were taking a long Sunday walk along the river. It was dark, and the path in front of us twinkled from the lights that lined Boathouse Row. I remember the crunching of our steps moving over a bed of dead leaves. When I asked Momma why I was so lucky, she pointed at Baba, who was footsteps ahead, and said, ‘Because you look like 17your Baba.’ Through the eyes of Momma’s thick love, no one was more handsome than Baba.
And it was true. People often looked twice when he passed by. I didn’t feel so lucky, though. The only thing I saw when I looked in the mirror was a stick.
‘Well,’ Momma said now, pulling me down onto the sofa. ‘Maybe Baba should start.’ Baba came over from his desk and sat down on my other side. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together tight.
He took one of my hands into his. Momma took my other hand and squeezed it. I glanced down at Baba’s smooth, dark hand and Momma’s milky white, blue-veined one.
Outside of meals, the three of us hadn’t sat together like this in a while. Mostly because Baba’s head was buried in a big case. He barely had time to talk these days. I guess today was an exception.
Baba started. ‘Your Aunt Rose is going through a hard time right now and she needs a break. We’ve invited her to come stay with us for a while.’
‘Oh,’ I squeaked out, sinking back further into the couch. I started to hunt through my mind, searching for the few files I had on Baba’s family back in Tanzania.
Aunt Rose.
I knew she was Baba’s younger sister.
I had a hard time conjuring up her image, though.
I’m sure I’d seen her picture in the family album, but we’d never met before. 18
I’d spoken to her exactly one time on the phone. That was a few years ago. The line kept cutting out and her accent was as thick as the ugali Baba always tried (and failed) to get me to eat.
I knew she had three kids. One girl and twin boys.
And, apparently, she was in some kind of trouble.
I sighed, the chant niggling at the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t scratch.
My leg started to bounce, bounce, bounce up and down.
Faster and faster.
Momma patted my thigh. ‘I know. It’s terrible.’
I nodded, feeling a little uneasy. I’d been thinking about myself and not Aunt Rose.
‘But don’t worry,’ Momma said way too chipper. ‘She’ll be fine.’ She smiled. ‘As for you, we know you don’t like change. I still remember when you were at Bright Star Montessori and I had to—’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t let you leave on the first day of school or the days after that, and Ms Delinah was nice enough to let you do your paperwork from her office for two whole months until I got “acclimated”.’
‘And then you adjusted beautifully. You always do.’
Not really, I thought. I was still the girl who liked things that were familiar and who needed a minute to adjust to sudden change.
OK. Maybe more than a minute.
Way more.
‘So …’ I started. ‘What kind of trouble is she in?’ 19
Baba closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He inhaled so deep I was afraid he was going to suck up all the oxygen in the room. ‘It’s a very delicate situation.’
Momma and Baba went on to explain that Aunt Rose had called them up and told them her husband had left her a month ago. Momma said he’d been causing her all kinds of trouble.
Bad-to-the-bone kind of trouble. He’d gone to work one morning and never came back.
Vanished like a ghost, leaving her with three kids. She needed some time to figure out her next steps. Baba, forever the lawyer, called it an open-and-shut case. She was family. Of course, they’d help her out.
I shifted nervously in my seat. ‘That sounds bad. Really bad.’ I paused for a second. Drummed my fingers on my thighs. ‘So how long is she staying with us?’
I couldn’t help but ask. A lot was riding on the last few weeks of school.
The girls and I had to win the state track championship. And I had to write a winning chant to make sure it happened.
Fixing things with Odie nagged at me, too.
It felt like a huge weight, bringing me down.
My thoughts started to swarm.
How would I be able to focus on winning the biggest races of the season – our last shot before Luce moved away – with a new person in the house suddenly changing my rhythm? 20
I couldn’t let anything stand in the way of our winning.
Not when it mattered this much.
After a long while, Baba finally spoke. ‘You don’t ask guests how long they are staying, Kamaria. Especially family. And most especially family in need.’
I drew in a deep breath, thinking about what I really needed to know, and then spit it out. ‘Can you at least tell me where she’s going to sleep?’
Baba scratched the crook of his elbow and looked at me like I’d temporarily lost my mind. ‘We’ve just told you that your aunt’s family has fallen apart and you’re worried about sharing a room?’
Yeah … well, technically, I didn’t know her. So … I thought it was a fair question.
‘Not exactly,’ I said, finding a crumb of sense before the thoughts in my head tumbled out. ‘I just wanted to know what to expect. You know, the implications.’
Baba’s word of the year.
Consider the implications of not telling the whole story, Kamaria.
Kamaria, there are implications for others when you don’t show up on time.
Well, I wanted to know what the implications of Aunt Rose’s visit were. Baba, the lawyer, master of logic, should have been able to connect all the dots, like I was doing right now.
Wasn’t it obvious?
If Aunt Rose moved into my room, she could ruin my focus. 21
She could be loud and bossy or messy and fussy.
Wait … She could hijack everything.
The chant. Our winning. That moment we would never forget.
Aunt Rose was DEFINITELY going to turn my whole world upside down.
I sighed deeply.
Instead of working out the math like I did, Baba said, ‘The implications are far greater for her than they are for you.’
Classic Baba vagueness.
‘Flexibility, Kam. Think flexible,’ Momma chimed, giving my hand another hard squeeze.
Classic Momma smoothness.
I nodded and kept my mouth shut. I knew what flexible meant.
It was code for get ready to share a room.
And there was more.
The trouble just kept stacking up.
She was coming on Sunday.
In two days!
5. THINGS THAT GO BOOM
A few hours later I was freshly showered and my thoughts were still swarming. I sank deeper into my bed and stared at the five Olympic rings on my bedroom ceiling. When I first started running, Momma stencilled them and Odie helped me paint them in hot pink and baby blue.
Looking at them usually got me jazzed … or kept me focused.
Not tonight.
All I could see was Aunt Rose on a plane to Philly, her flight path headed straight for my life. I got a knot in the pit of my stomach, hoping she wouldn’t crash land into me … or my big plans.
My mind leaped to Odie and the way things were before we fell out of step.
Friday night marathon phone calls.
Saturday night TV shows, our limbs splayed out on my living room floor. 23
Sunday afternoon pit stops at our favorite ice cream parlour, Carmichael’s Creamery.
Monday morning school pick-ups, when he would tap on the stained-glass part of the front door three times at 7:15 a.m. on the dot, then wait for me on the stoop. Five minutes later, he’d still be waiting and would shout, ‘Come on, slow poke. I can hear you. Hurry up!’ I’d smile from the other side of the door and shout back, ‘Coming!’ and when I slid out, he’d be pacing. Sometimes I took so long we’d have to book it to school, our backpacks whacking hard against our backs.
Talking and laughing and cone crunching.
Tapping and shouting and dashing and whacking.
The sound of us … until things went boom.
The more I waded into the memories, the more I realized it wasn’t helping.
Thinking about the good only reminded me of the bad.
Things were so bad now that when I saw Odie in the hallways at school, he usually turned around and started scrambling in the other direction. Any chance I had to talk to him about how to handle the Aunt Rose situation before she landed on our doorstep was out of the question, too.
My leg started twitching under the bedsheet.
Turns out wishing I could talk to Odie was even worse than thinking about Aunt Rose’s visit.
I changed gear completely and tried looking at what my eyes could actually see. 24
My bookshelf carefully lined with track ribbons and school awards.
Momma’s old globe sitting on my desk, tilted like the actual earth. It was even raised a little higher where the mountains were so you could trace the ridges with your fingers. My eyes passed over my CDs, neatly stacked, before eventually landing above my desk, on the framed magazine cover with Flo-Jo and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Six Olympic medals between them.
Flo-Jo wasn’t running in this year’s games, but it didn’t matter.
She was already a first-rate champion.
A legend.
A magic-maker.
I tried picturing myself standing right beside her, holding up a gold medal of my own. But the image fizzled away too soon.
Time was creeping by and sleep still wasn’t coming easy so I hiked the covers up high over my head like I’d done a million times before and tried listening for the one thing that might actually make me feel better.
The one thing I could hear crystal clear.
The one thing that always sounded right.
The sound of the four of us winning!
It helped that I’d been repeating the words in my mind for a whole year:
Alexis Evans shoots out of the block in the lead. There is nothing to stand in her way. A perfect pass to Kamaria Kessy who doesn’t give an inch and widens the gap. Luce25Vidal kicks up dust as she takes the curve. And Daneeka Davenport brings it all the way home! She raises her arms as she crosses the finish line. The River Park Middle School girls’ 4 x 100 relay team wins first place. And it only gets better.
They broke their own record.
And the state record!
The girls fall to the ground.
The crowd stomps their feet!
The metal bleachers go BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
6. PLAN A
I woke up on Saturday morning with a fresh bout of dread.
‘Momma?’ I shouted out, dragging myself downstairs.
Nothing.
I called for her again as I walked through the hallway into the living room.
She wasn’t there, but the house was spotless.
I looked around at the crisp set of tracks in the carpet. A sign Momma had vacuumed it to death. Bright yellow tulips nodded happily in their vases. I walked back to Momma’s office and almost bowled her over on the way.
She’d been walking with her head down, muttering to herself and not paying any attention whatsoever. She was wearing her signature cleaning get-up: highwater jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, pink flip-flops, and floppy yellow rubber gloves that hit her elbows. A black bandana held her bouncy hair back.
When she finally looked up, the gaze in her eyes was intense. 27
‘What were you doing?’ I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
‘Finishing touches,’ she said.
‘For what?’ I asked, half-jokingly.
She looked at me with exasperation. ‘Aunt Rose is coming tomorrow night!’
How could I forget?
I was the one who was going to be sleeping next to her.
A relative I’d never met.
A relative whose strange habits or moods could distract me from getting in the zone and cranking out a champion-level chant.
And this time I didn’t have jokey Odie to lighten things up and help me focus.
He usually helped me see past whatever my problem was so I could find a fix.
At least I’d made another plan.
A plan B.
Or, really, a plan A …
A for Alexis.
I sighed and gave Momma a weak smile. ‘But Alexis can still spend the night tonight and help me get my room ready right?’
My head, too.
‘Of course,’ she said putting her rubber-gloved hands on my shoulders and marching me into the kitchen. ‘But first, I need your help with a little something.’ Momma had a smooth way of enrolling you in things you never 28had any mind to do and before you knew it, the sun was sliding from the sky and your own plans were in the toilet. Even worse, I was right about Aunt Rose. She wasn’t even here yet and she was already side-tracking things and slowing me down.
7. NO PRIVACY NO PEACE
‘Look at what I found!’ Baba said as he waltzed through the kitchen door a few hours later. His eyes were gleaming, even though he was coming in from a long day of work. He dropped a huge, spiky green blob on the table.
‘Oh, yum!’ Alexis said excitedly. ‘Jackfruit.’
Alexis and I were sitting at the kitchen table watching Momma at the stove and hoping she wouldn’t burn the plantain. Or set the house on fire.
‘I knew you’d appreciate my surprise,’ Baba said to Alexis, with a satisfied look. Anytime Alexis spent the night, he always tried to bring home something ‘African’. Her family was from Barbados and ate a lot of the same foods we did. ‘We’ll eat some and save a bit for Rose.’
He took off his blue blazer and carefully draped it on a chair. Then he walked over to the fridge and poured a glass of water. 30
I sank down low into my seat.
Plan A hadn’t quite worked out yet. It was already dinner time and Alexis and I had done exactly zero work on my room. I still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of an Aunt Rose, either. We had watched about eight hours of music videos non-stop, though.
Alexis had tried to wave away my worries while we clicked back and forth between VH1 and MTV. ‘Aunt Rose is gonna be dope, not distracting,’ she said, her cheeks bulging with chips.
I tilted my head suspiciously at her. ‘And you know this how?’
But the ‘My Lovin’’ video from En Vogue whipped across the screen and she was too busy moving in her seat and licking salt from her fingers to answer.
Odie would have come back with something silly.
The perfect thing to distract me from myself.
He was always there when I needed him.
At least, that’s how it used to be.
I didn’t have a big family like Alexis or Luce or Neeka with siblings and legions of cousins. It had always just been the three of us: Me, Momma and Baba.
Plus Odie.
He was a big part of us too.
Baba took Odie and me skiing in Vermont every winter and camping in the Poconos every summer. For sleepovers, I had my own lumpy pillow at his house. He had his own set of chores at mine.
I guess it wasn’t just the thought of having no privacy 31and no peace to write the chant that worried me. I was also nervous about having someone else around the house all the time. Of course, I always made an exception for my friends.
Like Alexis tonight.
Normally, though, the fourth seat at the kitchen table was for Odie. So was the spare bed and every other extra thing in the house.
How would Aunt Rose fit into this picture?
My gut tightened.
I looked up from the table and asked, ‘Do you think jackfruit from Tanzania and jackfruit from Barbados taste the same?’ I’d never tasted it before and from the look of it, I wasn’t sure I was ready to try.
‘I don’t know if the varieties from Tanzania and Barbados are the same,’ Baba answered. ‘But I found this one at the Haitian store, so I guess we’re going to find out how it tastes there.’
Momma, looking worn out, swiped a lock of hair out of her face. Then she reached over the kitchen island and handed Baba the plate of fried plantain. They were resting on top of a grease-soaked paper towel. They were burnt.
Momma couldn’t cook to save her life. When Odie and I were little, we used to call her hard-boiled eggs ‘char-boiled’ eggs. Then we’d wait for Baba to serve us something safe to eat. He’d still be the one cooking our meals now if it wasn’t for his big case. Momma only started stepping up to the plate this year. I just hoped our brownstone didn’t burn down in the meantime. 32
Baba carried the plate of scorched plantain to the table and placed it next to the rest of the sketchy-looking food. He took his seat and pulled Momma’s away from the table. ‘Let’s dive in,’ he said, smiling.
Momma thumped down in her seat. ‘Yes, let’s,’ she mumbled.
I gave her a thumbs up and braced myself.
Baba handed Alexis a plate and went to town, lecturing us on how food is culture.
‘Thank you, Mr Kessy,’ Alexis said, looking Baba straight in the eye and nodding respectfully at his every word. I knew Alexis would eat all her food no matter how singed it was because she was a fanatic about having good manners. And good manners were first on the long list of things about Tanzania that Baba was always hollering about. It was always a big show.
Tonight, it was even worse.
It went something like this …
Back home in Tanzania, we raise our kids to be well-mannered.
Back home in Tanzania, we eat real food, not from packets.
Back home in Tanzania, students wear school uniforms, not sweat suits.
Back home in Tanzania, there’s no such thing as a ‘nerd’ – doing well makes you popular!
Normally, I’d just tune Baba out when he was on a roll.
But listening to the deep in his voice tonight, I could 33hear something different. It was like he was even more proud. Probably because Aunt Rose was coming.
Wait?
Was this what I had to look forward to?
Two adults tag-teaming lectures …
And talking in parables …
And giving life lessons …
And spreading the Back home in Tanzania gospel …
Baba was still rambling, and I tried to tune back in, but when I swallowed, I nearly choked on a clump of charred rice. I put my hand to my throat and looked around to see if anyone was checking for me.
They weren’t.
Not even Alexis, who was still shovelling food into her mouth.
I hoped Aunt Rose wasn’t planning to slip into a spot at this table all easy breezy.
Even if she was family.
As far as I was concerned, every seat was already taken.
8. FORMERLY KNOWN AS …
‘Do you think I should move my bed the long way?’ I asked Alexis. ‘That way we won’t be side to side.’ We had just narrowly escaped another boring Baba story in the kitchen and were upstairs in my bedroom, plotting.
I sat on my bed with my legs crossed.
Alexis sat on the bed across from me.
Aunt Rose’s bed now.
‘If you move the bed that way …’ Alexis got up and walked around the room, measuring the space with her arm span. ‘Then you won’t have any space in the middle.’
I sighed.
‘Just move that overrrrr,’ she sang, mimicking the Sybil song. She jerked her thumb in the direction of my bookshelf.
I started to pick at a loose thread on my comforter. ‘Since when do you sing?’ 35
‘Since you’re gonna need some help with our chant.’
‘And why do you think that?’
‘Because your “Aunt Rose this and Aunt Rose that” is already taking up all your headspace and she hasn’t even landed.’ She started grinning slyly. ‘But you’ll tell me the minute you have something written down right? I can’t wait to jam. And I definitely can’t wait for us to finally snatch that first-place win.’ She came over to me with her hand raised high and waited for me to smack it back.
‘Well,’ I said, wiggling around and ignoring her question and her high five because I had absolutely nothing good to show. ‘If you did your job and distracted me, I’d be able to forget about Aunt Rose and focus on writing something perfect.’
She shooed me away like I was a fly. Then she walked over to the bookshelf and picked up a framed picture of me and Odie in kindergarten. She turned back around towards me. ‘I’m here to help you not distract you. Who do you think I am? Your best friend, Odie?’ She smiled, holding the picture to her heart.
