Old Enough

Waking up in a whole new world is the kind of dream a lot of kids have; all I can say is be careful what you wish for. I am more than lucky that my first sleepover was in the home of someone who has taken care of me and Paw-Paw since I was so small that she changed my diapers. That's a bit embarrassing now that I think about it. Pearl never talks about my mother and father, she has said on the times I have inquired, "none of my business child." If I was ornery, which I was when younger, on very rare occasions of course, she just turned on cartoons for me and walked away saying, "mmm, mmm, mmm". I love Pearl. As I have said many a time, I wish we were family.

Her niece Clara and I have become inseparable in only twenty-four hours and being that I have never had a best friend, I sure do now. In fact, we are more than best friends after she and I mixed our blood by making tiny scratches with twigs on our wrists and pressing our wounds together. We are blood sisters for life. What Clara has taught me so far is that there's a whole lot I don't know. ~

Photo by IIONA VIRGIN on Unsplash

"Good mornin' sunshine!" Clara wakes me up by hanging upside down from the upper bunk and snatching my smiley pillow from my arms. She is feisty, forthright and a bit bossy but I wouldn't change a thing about her. I think kids have a kind of radar that just knows when someone is good or bad or not worth the time of day. Clara starts chattering right away while my eyes are still full of the works of Mr. Sandman.

"First thing after we piddle is to check on Great-Granny aka Smacky Lips, open the front door and lock the screen, then I'll have to make you breakfast." Clara is hopping into a bright yellow dress faster than lightening. "Don't just lay their sleepy head, we got stuff to get to!" Clara bolts for the bathroom and I slide out of bed wondering why a slow summer day, already too hot to handle, is suddenly feeling like a school morning. Not having much time to care, much less think, I put the same clothes I came here in back on and start making my bed. When I get to the bathroom Clara is a step or ten ahead of me so I do what I have to and run to catch up.

When I find her she's already opened the front door and is sitting next to Smacky Lips feeding her applesauce. "Well look who's here, it's Miss May in dirty peddle pushers! You better go change or Aunt Pearl will be on me about not lookin' after ya right when she gets home."

It's then I realise it's just the three of us and feel a bit nervous. Smacky Lips is over a hundred most likely so she counts as an adult but she's hardly capable of taking care of us.

"May, what's wrong with you? We gotta look clean and cared for at all times in case some white snoop from yonderville comes around checking up on us. Do you wanna go to a foster home?" Clara keeps spoon feeding her great-great and I run back to my "just-in-case bag" Pearl helped me pack before we walked a thousand miles here. I put on clean bloomers and choose a button up sleeveless top with little cherries on it and matching cherry red shorts then hurry back. Of course Clara is not feeding Smacky Lips now and has moved on to her next "to do". I find her in the kitchen standing up on a stool reaching for a box of cornflakes.

I ask right away, "Where is Pearl anyway?" Clara answers but doesn't stop moving and heads to the fridge for milk. "She's working of course, every day but Sunday, remember? She's at your house, duh." Then she gives me a bowl and a spoon and slides a sugar bowl my way. "By now I'd think you'd know your own housekeeper's schedule Missy."

I stay silent as I had never felt this kind of aloneness, or had this sort of independent flare that Clara exuded. I love adventure but I always knew I could run home to Pearl or Paw-Paw and this situation felt a bit uncertain. I didn't get cereal for breakfast so I added lots of sugar like Clara did. I watched her slurp down the milk then spoon the moist sugar left over in the bottom slowly into her mouth. I followed suit.

"Clara, do you always stay with Smacky Lips when your Aunt's with me?" I tried not to sound like a snoopy white girl, although I definitely was coming across as one and am indeed white as the milk we'd been slurping and the sugar we'd been savouring. "Yep, but my Aunt and cousins come by and check up on us when they please. Why?" Clara grabbed my bowl and spoon and moved the stool over to the sink and started washing breakfast dishes. To see someone my age so capable made me think I was seriously behind despite getting good grades in school. Perhaps I had more to work on than trying not to talk too much this summer.

"May, I get that things are way different over here than at your house, but since I never been there I can't really know more than what I imagine. Maybe while I water Aunt Pearl's tomato plants, sweep the front porch, shake out all the rugs and ett-setta-rah you can just follow me around and blab. So, that's what I did, at first that is.

Clara rolled up the kitchen rugs and hauled them out the back door and threw them over an old broken fence then started beating them like she was giving them the whooping of their lifetime. Flecks of dust spewed like steam from a percolator and I jumped back.

"Well, what do you wanna know about my house? You know you can come and see it with me if you want to." Clara laughed, "May, I am Black as in not like you; black kids can't go to yonderville and by now you should at least know that! We don't even have the same schools. Please tell me you aren't this blind to the realities of the real world." She looked a bit mad.

I actually had not thought about it because Pearl was at our house everyday except Sunday of course and she was a Black lady even if she weren't actually black like the crayon color. I stared into Clara's serious dark eyes and saw a tinge of what might be sadness or maybe she just felt sorry for me being so stupid.

Next, she grabbed a broom from a corner on the front porch and started sweeping it raw, she was using so much elbow grease I thought the broom might break in two. When she was finished the tiny front yard, which was mostly scraggly grass with a few dandelions, looked ashey.

I continued a bit hesitant now, "I do know we have different schools 'cause we have different neighborhoods, but your Aunt comes over and she's very welcome. Nobody says anything bad about Pearl coming over." I knew whatever I said was not going to make a difference at this point and if Clara didn't slow down, Lord only knows how hard she was gonna be on the tomato plants.

"Aunt Pearl is working for your Paw-Paw, she ain't visiting ya'll for tea time, May. Just forget about it, hear? Before I water the tomato plants I gotta check on Smacky Lips, see if she's all slid down into the sofa and if so pull her back up and give her some sweet tea. C'mon." She put the broom back in it's place and seemed to surrender to our unfair circumstances with a sigh, her attitude swept away just like another chore complete.

I decided I could help, I wanted to deeply so I grabbed underneath one of Smacky Lip's arms and Clara took the other and then on three, we pulled the frail, bony great-great into a better position and she moaned while Clara fetched sweet tea for all of us. She held a straw up to her great grandmother's lips and I saw this soft part of Clara that so far hadn't been seen. She took a small kerchief and dabbed at the corners of Smacky Lip's mouth and smiled right at her, "Okay GranGran, you good now?" She just mumbled incoherently and stared at her hands. Next it was tomatoes. Now I know why Pearl makes me the best tomato sandwiches in the whole wide world, she grows her own.

Outside the day was heavy, humid and hotter by the minute. I watched Clara unroll a long red hose and turn on a little green spicket by the back door. She carefully placed her middle finger just slightly over the end of the hose so the water sprayed gently while explaining that if the water hit the tomato plants too hard the leaves could fall off and maybe even a tomato which would cause a whole lot of griping she didn't need. I watched as a prism of color shined through the sprinkling water.

Clara brought up a subject we had dropped at bedtime last night, "So Missy, you said you never been saved or to church, huh?" I shook my head that I had not. She kept watering carefully, her eyes on her job with extreme precision. "So, here's how it works in church. People show up all dressed up, some with hats so colorful and big you can't see the preacher up front, especially if you're a kid like us. He says some stuff about Jesus dying for our sins, the devil being eager for our souls and a bunch of people start raising their hands in the air shouting real loud Repent, Save me Lawd, and so on. Some people cry and some people yell things like Hallelujah, Amen brother, then a group of members in long white robes start singing spiritual songs like, "How Great Thou Art" while another person plays the piano. After that the preacher asks who isn't saved and who might need their spirits revived and people walk up the aisle and kneel. Everybody prays for them. After that they pass a basket around and you gotta drop money in it. Thing is, you aren't truly saved until you are completely dunked in the holy baptism pool which happens to be broken right now so everybody meets up at the lake. You must have a preacher push your head under the water and pull you up. You can't just go in your own bath tub and do it yourself." She seemed to have the whole thing down pretty good and I was inclined to ask more questions.

I thought about it a minute then added, "Hmm. So, can you take me with you so I am not a heathen anymore like you said I was yesterday?" Clara turned the hose onto the ground away from the tomatoes so she could answer me while looking me in the eyes. "Nope, I can't take you to an all black church, do you know what as stir that would cause? White people go to white churches, Black people to black churches and what the other people in between do, well, God only knows. "But", she continued with a huge emphasis on the but, "I may have a temporary solution that can save you from the fiery pits of hell until you and your Paw-Paw can get yourselves to a white preacher church, that is if you are really wanting to claim Jesus Christ as your saviour." I was so worried about Paw-Paw's procedure, Pearl walking all alone to and fro each day to help us in yonderville, and now my growling tummy craving Pearl's cooking. It made no sense whatsoever why grown-ups were keeping my best friend, my very own blood sister and me apart due to the color of our skin; of all things that existed, this had to be the worst ever. Weak in the knees, I started showing signs of repent right then and there.

I did as Clara said, "Get down on your knees and look up at heaven and close your eyes and ask in the name of Jesus for God to forgive your sins and take you into his flock of Christian soldiers. Put your hands together and and point them like a steeple toward God so he knows you mean it." Desperation overtook doubt and I did as instructed.

Just as I felt the relief of God's forgiveness begin to lighten my heart, Clara turned the hose on high and soaked me wet from head to toe. Before I could even react the unexpected happened. In a deep preacher like voice she said, "You are proclaimed saved my sister!" then turned the hose on herself and we both felt the differences between us rinse away as the water washed away our heavy hearts with laughter.