Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [7]
A startled bird flies up from the brush.
“If I only had a slingshot on me.” Patricia blows through closed lips, making a blubbery sound. “That was a wild turkey.”
I shrug. I don’t like hunting. I don’t have good aim.
“I know everything about birds.” Patricia turns her head sharply, tossing a braid. “They’s lots more turkey if you go north. You ever been north?”
I shake my head. “I only been south. I landed in New Orleans and spent a week there.”
“A week in New Orleans,” she breathes, impressed.
Guilt prickles my cheeks. “Well, actually, the steamship docked on Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of October 1898…” I love that date. It’s like a birth date in a way, the birth of my American life. “…but with all the inspections and questions, they wouldn’t let anyone but first class off board until Friday. So, really, I was only in the city a few days, before … what do you call it? … sneak … sneaking onto a freight train to come north. It rained the whole time.” I search for the right words. “Mud. All that mud slopped up everywhere.”
She looks at me sideways. “You done talking yet?”
My cheeks flame. “I’m done.”
“You sure? ’Cause that was some speech. Like a flock of geese, all landing at once.” She laughs. “Your ship have a name?”
“The Liguria.”
“Hmm. I’d give a lot to spend a few days in New Orleans.”
“You will someday. You’re getting an education. You’ll do whatever you want.”
“Where you from, sugar, that you think a colored girl can do whatever she want, with or without a education? That Sicily, it’s some other kind of world?” Despite her words I see a smile in her eyes.
“Don’t they teach you hope in school?” I ask. “A church school, and no hope? Baptists got it all wrong.”
“That ain’t no church school.” She skips a few steps. “Colored boys ain’t allowed in the boys’ class at the town schoolhouse, and colored girls ain’t allowed in the girls’ class. So we use the church basement. Boys and girls together. A fine public school.” She throws her shoulders back. “Course, we read Bible verses. At the opening and closing of the day. Like every public school.”
I thought it was a Baptist school. Sheriff Lucas told Francesco that Italians aren’t white according to the laws of Louisiana, so I wasn’t allowed in the town schoolhouse on South Chestnut Street, either. The sheriff said I could go to the church school—Patricia’s school. He advised against it, though. He said I’d be better off with no education. Or I could take a tutor, and he told us about Frank Raymond.
Well, Francesco couldn’t have given a dried fig for Sheriff Lucas’ opinions. And he didn’t think I needed more schooling, anyhow. Cirone didn’t have any. But, no matter what, he wasn’t about to send me to a Protestant classroom.
That sounded right to me—I would never set foot in a Baptist church, for the sake of my dead mamma’s spirit, which is as Catholic as spirits get. I had to keep up my education, though. Mamma would have wanted me to. She didn’t let me quit school even after my father disappeared, when we needed money so bad. I had to keep studying. It was paying respect.
And now it turns out that school isn’t a church school at all. Here I’ve been trading food and chores for lessons in English from Frank Raymond when I could have been spending the days with Patricia.
But Frank Raymond’s done well by me. Besides, he’s a painter, and artists know more about the world than most people.
Still, a real school is something else. With a real teacher. And Patricia.
“I think I’ll come to school with you tomorrow. To sign up.”
“Go ahead. Be dumb.” Patricia lifts her nose.
“What do you mean? Then I could study with you.”
“We get out for the summer at the end of the day on Saturday. Besides, I’m graduating lower school. And I don’t guess I’ll be going to upper school come September. I’ll get my working papers. I’m the right age now. If I can save enough money from cleaning the church to pay for piano lessons, I can sure save enough to pay for working papers.”
“What you doing, Tricia?” A boy a head taller than Patricia approaches. Two boys follow; they block our