-1963

Christopher Paul Curtis

THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM— 1963

a novel by

1540 Broadway

New York, New York 10036 Copyright © 1995 by Christopher Paul Curtis

Curtis, Christopher Paul.

The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963 / Christopher Paul Curtis.

PZ7.C94137Wat 1995

[Fic]—dc20

The author wishes to extend his sincere thanks to the following: the Avery Hopwood and Jules Hopwood Prize of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for much-appreciated recognition; the staff of the Windsor Public Library, especially Terry Fisher, for providing a stimulating and supportive atmosphere in which to write; Welwyn Wilton Katz, for her valuable help;Wendy Lamb, whose skill as an edi- tor is matched only by her patience; Joan Curtis Taylor, who forever will be a powerful exemplar of strength and hope; Lynn Guest, whose kindness and compassion are a restorative to a person’s faith in humankind; and particularly to my dear friend Liz Ivette Torres (Betty), who can’t possibly know how much her friendship, sugges- tions and insights have meant.

Special thanks to my daughter, Cydney, who makes me feel like a hero just for coming home from work, and to Steven, who is without doubt the best first reader, critic and son any writer could ask for.

Born 11/17/51, died 9/15/63

Carole Robertson Born 4/24/49, died 9/15/63

It was one of those super-duper-cold Saturdays. One of those days that when you breathed out your breath kind of hung frozen in the

air like a hunk of smoke and you could walk along and look exactly like a train blowing out big, fat, white puffs of smoke.

shooting bad looks at Dad. She always blamed him for bringing her all the way from Alabama to Michigan, a state she called a giant icebox. Dad was bundled up on the other side of Joey, trying to look at any- thing but Momma. Next to Dad, sitting with a little space between them, was my older brother, Byron.

Byron had just turned thirteen so he was officially a teenage juve- nile delinquent and didn’t think it was “cool” to touch anybody or let anyone touch him, even if it meant he froze to death. Byron had tucked the blanket between him and Dad down into the cushion of the couch to make sure he couldn’t be touched.

“Who?” I asked.

Dad said, “Oh Lord, not that sorry story.You’ve got to let me tell about what happened with him.”

“Daniel Watson, you stop right there. You’re the one who started that ‘Hambone’ nonsense. Before you started that everyone called him his Christian name, Moses. And he was a respectable boy too, he was- n’t a clown at all.”

“But the name stuck, didn’t it? Hambone Henderson. Me and your granddaddy called him that because the boy had a head shaped just like a hambone, had more knots and bumps on his head than a dinosaur. So as you guys sit here giving me these dirty looks because it’s a little chilly outside ask yourselves if you’d rather be a little cool or go through life being known as the Hambonettes.”

“Folks there live in these things called igloos. According to what I seen in this here movie most the folks in Flint is Chinese. Don’t believe I seen nan one colored person in the whole dang city. You a

’Bama gal, don’t believe you’d be too happy living in no igloo. Ain’t got nothing against ’em, but don’t believe you’d be too happy living ’mongst a whole slew of Chinese folks. Don’t believe you’d like the food. Only thing them Chinese folks in that movie et was whales and seals. Don’t believe you’d like no whale meat. Don’t taste a lick like chicken. Don’t taste like pork at all.”

are more honest about the way they feel”—she took her mean eyes off Dad and put them on Byron—“and folks there do know how to respect their parents.”

Byron rolled his eyes like he didn’t care. All he did was tuck the blanket farther into the couch’s cushion.

After five minutes Dad came back in huffing and puffing and slap-

ping his arms across his chest.

I went over to the Brown Bomber’s passenger side and started hack- ing away at the scab of ice that was all over the windows. I finished Momma’s window and took a break. Scraping ice off of windows when it’s that cold can kill you!

I didn’t hear any sound coming from the other side of the car so I yelled out, “I’m serious, Byron, I’m not doing that side too, and I’m only going to do half the windshield, I don’t care what you do to me.” The windshield on the Bomber wasn’t like the new 1963 cars, it had a big bar running down the middle of it, dividing it in half.

I said, “You think I’m stupid? It’s not going to work this time.” He

mumbled my name again. It sounded like his mouth was full of some- thing. I knew this was a trick, I knew this was going to be How to Survive a Blizzard, Part Two.

Byron put his hands in front of his face and said, “This is the most important thing to remember, O.K.?”

“Why?”

Blizzard warnings! Wooo! Take cover!”

Buphead counted to three and on the third swing they let me go in the air. I landed headfirst in a snowbank.

They whispered some more and started laughing again.

“O.K.,” By said,“second thing you gotta learn is how to keep your balance in a high wind. You gotta be good at this so you don’t get blowed into no polar bear dens.”

“O.K., Kenny, now the last part of Surviving a Blizzard, you ready?” “Yup!”

“You passed the wind test and did real good on the balance test but now we gotta see if you ready to graduate. You remember what we told you was the most important part about survivin’?”

“O.K.,” Buphead said, “everything’s cool, you ’member what your brother said about puttin’ your hands up?”

“Like this?” I covered my face with my gloves.

Byron caught his breath and said, “Aww, man, you flunked! You done so good, then you go and flunk the Blowin’ Snow section of How to Survive a Blizzard, you forgot to put your hands up! What you say, Buphead, F?”

“Yeah, double F-minus!”

I picked up a big, hard chunk of ice to get ready for Byron’s trick. “Keh-ee! Keh-ee! Hel’ me! Hel’ me! Go geh Momma! Go geh

Mom-ma! Huwwy uh!”

“By! What’s wrong?”

“Hel’ me! Keh-ee! Go geh hel’!”

I screamed, “Really! He’s froze to the car! Help! He’s crying!” That shook them up.You could cut Byron’s head off and he prob-

ably wouldn’t cry.

Joey, of course, started crying right along with Byron.

Dad was doing his best not to explode laughing. Big puffs of smoke were coming out of his nose and mouth as he tried to squeeze his laughs down. Finally he put his head on his arms and leaned against the car’s hood and howled.

Momma didn’t see anything funny. “Daniel Watson! What are we gonna do? What do y’all do when this happens up he-uh?” Momma started talking Southernstyle when she got worried. Instead of saying “here” she said “he-uh” and instead of saying “you all” she said “y’all.” Dad stopped laughing long enough to say, “Wilona, I’ve lived in Flint all my life, thirty-five years, and I swear this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone with their lips frozen to a mirror. Honey, I don’t

know what to do, wait till he thaws out?”

Joey told By, “Don’t worry, we’ll come right back.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave By a kiss, then she and Momma ran inside. Dad cracked up all over again.

“Well, lover boy, I guess this means no one can call you Hot Lips, can they?”

Dad tried to straighten his face out when Momma and Joey came running back with a steaming glass of hot water, but the tears were still running down his cheeks.

Momma tried to pour water on the mirror but her hands were shaking so much, she was splashing it all over the place. Dad tried too, but he couldn’t look at Byron without laughing and shaking.

It’s no wonder the neighbors called us the Weird Watsons behind our backs.There we were, all five of us standing around a car with the temperature about a million degrees below zero and each and every one of us crying!

“ ’top! ’top!” By yelled.

Dad and Joey went crying into the house. I stayed by the Brown Bomber. I figured Momma was clearing everybody out for something.

Byron did too and looked at Momma in a real nervous way.

Momma moved the scarf away and put one hand on Byron’s chin and the other one on his forehead.

“No! Hel’! Hel’ me, Keh-ee!”

The dirty dogs let Byron get away with not doing his share of the windows and I had to do the whole car myself.When we were final- ly going to Aunt Cydney’s house I decided to pay Byron back for punching me in the forehead and getting out of doing his part of the window scraping. Joey was sitting between us so I felt kind of safe. I said to her, loud, “Joetta, guess what. I’m thinking about writing my own comic book.”

“What about?”

All the Weird Watsons except Byron cracked up. Momma’s hand even covered her mouth. I was the only one who saw Byron flip me a dirty finger sign and try to whisper without smearing all the Vaseline Momma had put on his lips, “You wait, I’m gonna kick your little behind.” Then he made his eyes go crossed, which was his favorite way of teasing me, but I didn’t care, I knew who had won this time!

Give My Regards to Clark, Poindexter

Larry Dunn was the king of the kindergarten to fourth grade where I went to school at Clark Elementary. He was king because he was a lot older than anyone else and twice as strong as the rest of us.

“Kenny,” he said, “where you find this buck?”

“Outside the school, over by Kennelworth.”

Having the school’s god as my relative helped in some other ways too. I had two things wrong with me that would have gotten me beat up and teased a lot more than I did if it hadn’t been for By. The first thing was, because I loved to read, people thought I was real smart, teachers especially.

Teachers started treating me different than other kids when I was in the first grade. At first I thought it was cool for them to think I was smart but then I found out it made me enemies with some of the other kids.

Man! Some of the time I wished I was as smart as these teachers thought I was because if I had been I would have dropped that book and run all the way home. If I’d been smart enough to figure out what was going to happen next I would have never gone into that room.

I stood in the hall looking at the stuff they wanted me to read while Mr. Alums told his class,“All right, I have a special treat for you today. I’ve often told you that as Negroes the world is many times a hostile place for us.” I saw Mr. Alums walking back and forth whacking a yardstick in his hand.“I’ve pointed out time and time again how vital it is that one be able to read well. I’ve stressed on numerous occasions the importance of being familiar and comfortable with literature. Today Miss Henry and I would like to give you a demonstration of your own possibilities in this regard. I want you to carefully note how advanced this second-grade student is, and I particularly want you to be aware of the effect his skills have upon you. I want you to be aware that some of our kids read at miraculous levels.”

“Let’s see if you find this so humorous after you’ve heard how well this young man reads. And Byron Watson, if you are incapable of tak- ing some of the fire out of your eyes I assure you I will find a way to assist you.

“If, instead of trying to intimidate your young brother, you would emulate him and use that mind of yours, perhaps you’d find things much easier. Perhaps you wouldn’t be making another appearance in

“Bravo! Outstanding, Mr.Watson! Your future is unlimited! Bravo!” All I could do was try to figure out how to get home alive.

I didn’t even get out of the school yard before Byron and Buphead caught up to me. A little crowd bunched up around us, and everyone was real excited because they knew I was about to get jacked up.

When everybody saw Byron wasn’t going to do anything to me for being smart they all decided that they better not do anything either. I still got called Egghead or Poindexter or Professor some of the time but that wasn’t bad compared to what could have happened.

The other thing that people would have teased me a lot more about if it hadn’t been for Byron was my eye.

I did it. “See? You ain’t cockeyed no more, your eyes is straight as a arrow now!” I went to the bathroom, stood on the toilet and leaned over to look in the mirror sideways, and Byron was right! I couldn’t help smiling. Momma was right too, I was a kind of handsome little guy when I looked at myself sideways and both eyes were pointing in the same direction!

Even though my older brother was Clark Elementary School’s god that didn’t mean I never got teased or beat up at all. I still had to fight a lot and still got called Cockeye Kenny and I still had people stare at my eye and I still had to watch when they made their eyes go crossed when they were teasing me. It seemed like one of these things hap- pened to me every day, but if it hadn’t been for Byron I knew they’d have happened a whole lot more. That’s why I was kind of nervous about what was going to happen if Byron ever got out of sixth grade and went to junior high school before I caught up to him.That’s why I was going to send off for that book Learn Karate in Three Weeks that was in the back of my comic books.

The bus drove down into public housing and after everyone was picked up we headed toward Clark. But today the bus driver did something he’d never done before. He noticed two kids running up late . . . and he stopped to let them get on. Every other time someone was late he’d just laugh at them and tell the rest of us,“This is the only way you little punks is gonna learn to be punctual. I hope that fool has a pleasant walk to school.” Then no matter how hard the late kid banged on the side of the bus the driver would just take off, laughing out of the window.

That was part one of my miracle, that let me know something spe- cial was going to happen. As soon as the doors of the bus swung open and two strange new boys got on, part two of my miracle happened. Every once in a while, Momma would make me go to Sunday school with Joey. Even though it was just a bunch of singing and col- oring in coloring books and listening to Mrs. Davidson, I had learned one thing. I learned about getting saved. I learned how someone could come to you when you were feeling real, real bad and could take all of your problems away and make you feel better. I learned that the person who saved you, your personal saver, was sent by God to pro-

to treat him.

I knew they weren’t going to waste any time with this new guy, it was going to be real easy and real quick with him. He was like nobody we’d seen before. He was raggedy, he was country, he was skinny and he was smiling at everybody a mile a minute. The boy with him had to be his little brother, he looked like a shrunk-up version of the big one.

“You see? You see how you kids is? This boy shows some manners and some respect and y’all want to attack him, that’s why nan one of y’all’s ever gonna be nothin’!” The bus driver was really mad. “Larry Dunn, you better sit your ass down and cut this mess out. I know you don’t want to start panning on folks, do you? Not with what I know ’bout your momma.”

Someone said, “Ooh!” and Larry sat down.The bus was real quiet. We’d never seen the driver get this mad before. He pushed the two new kids into the same seat as me and told them, “Don’t you pay no mind to them little fools, they ain’t happy lest they draggin’ someone down.”Then he had to add,“Y’all just sit next to Poindexter, he don’t bother no one.”

The World’s Greatest Dinosaur War Ever

“Good. Rufus, say hello to your new classmates, please.”

He didn’t smile or wave or anything, he just looked down and said real quiet,“Hi.”

I watched the new kid sideways. He said, “Kenny? I thought they

said your name was Poindexter.” The class cracked up, part from his country style of talking and part from laughing at me. I could tell that even Mrs. Cordell was fighting not to break out laughing.

When lunchtime came he followed me outside right to the part of the playground where I sit to eat. He forgot about bringing a lunch so I gave him one of Momma’s throat-choking peanut butter sandwich- es and let him eat the last half of my apple. He really was a strange kid; he only ate half the sandwich and folded the rest up in the waxed paper and when I handed him the apple he even ate the spots where you could see my teeth had been, he didn’t even wipe the slob off first. And, man, this kid could really talk! He was yakking a mile a minute, saying stuff like “Your momma sure can make a good peanut

butter sandwich” and “How come these kids is so darn mean?”

“What?”

“You don’t see that squirrel?” he asked me, and pointed up at a tree across the street. “That sure is one fat, dumb squirrel!”

“A real, real gun?” “Just a twenty-two.”

“How’s a squirrel taste?” “It taste real good!”

“You aren’t lying?”

He raised his hand and said, “I swear for God. Ask Cody.” “Who?”

“Just a twenty-two.” “With real bullets?”

The little one looked at his big brother to see why I was asking all this stuff. It seemed like they were trying to be patient with me, like I was a real dummy or something.The older one said,“Tell him.”

The only other guy I used to play with was LJ Jones, but I quit playing with him when a lot of my dinosaurs started disappearing. I’ve got about a million of them but before LJ started coming over I had two million. It’s kind of embarrassing how LJ got them from me. At first he’d steal them one or two at a time and I asked Byron what I should do to stop him.

By said, “Don’t sweat it, punk. The way I figure it one or two of them stupid little monsters ain’t a real high price for you to pay to get someone to play with you.”

He was right. If this was going to be a famous battle we needed more fighters. “O.K., I’ll be right back,” I said.

This wasn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t allowed to take all of my dinosaurs out at once because Momma was afraid I’d lose most of them. Especially because she didn’t trust LJ. Every time he’d come over she’d tell me, “You watch out for that boy, he’s a little too sneaky for my tastes.” I had a plan, though. I’d go upstairs and drop the pillow- case I kept my dinosaurs in out of the window. I wasn’t so stupid that I’d drop them down to LJ, I’d drop them out of the other side of the house and then run around to get them.

“How’s it dangerous?”

LJ said,“Look.” He made one of his brontosauruses run by the pile of dead dinosaurs and when it got two steps past them it started shak- ing and twitching and fell over on its side, dead as a donut. LJ flipped him on the dead dinosaur pile.

“Kenny, you ever been over in Banky and Larry Dunn’s fort?” LJ knew I hadn’t. “Uh-uh.”

“I found out where it is.” “Where?”

I knew this was a worm with a hook in it but I bit anyway. “I’m not scared if you aren’t.”

“Let’s go!”

LJ said, “You gotta be in the house by seven, don’t you? “Yeah.”

“O.K., we better hurry before it gets too late.”

I never played with LJ again after that. So playing with Rufus got to be O.K. It was a lot better not to have to worry about getting stuff stolen when you were with your friends, and it was a lot better not spending half the time arguing about who’s going to be the Nazi dinosaurs.

I was wrong when I said that me and Rufus being near each other all the time would make people tease both of us twice as much. People

Of course the whole bus started laughing and hollering. Larry Dunn went back to his seat real quick before the driver had a chance to tell anybody the secret he knew about Larry’s momma. I looked over at Cody. He had the blue jeans on today and was pulling the waist out to check out his underpants.

Maybe it was because everybody else was laughing, maybe it was because Cody had such a strange look on his face while he peeked at his underpants, maybe it was because I was glad that Larry hadn’t jumped on me, but whatever the reason was I cracked up too.

“Hi, Cody.” “Just a minute.”

Cody closed the door and ran back inside. A minute later Rufus came to the door.

Rufus might as well have tied me to a tree and said, “Ready, aim, fire!” I felt like someone had pulled all my teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers. I wanted to knock on his door and tell him,“I am differ- ent,” but I was too embarrassed so I walked the dinosaurs back home.

I couldn’t believe how sad I got. It’s funny how things could change so much and you wouldn’t notice. All of a sudden I started remem- bering how much I hated riding the bus, all of a sudden I started remembering how lunchtime under the swing set alone wasn’t very much fun, all of a sudden I started remembering that before Rufus came to Flint my only friend was the world’s biggest dinosaur thief, LJ

“Where’s Rufus been? I haven’t seen him lately.”

It was real embarrassing but tears just exploded out of my face and even though I knew she was going to be disappointed in me I told Momma how I’d hurt Rufus’s feelings.

Momma and Joey were in the living room and when they heard the knock everything there got real quiet. Rufus and Cody were standing on the porch smiling a mile a minute. I said, “Rufus, I’m sorry.”

He said, “That’s O.K.”

Froze Up Southern Folks

We wore so many clothes that when we pulled our final coat on we could barely bend our arms. We wore so many clothes that when Byron wasn’t around, the other kids said stuff like “Here come some of them Weird Watsons doing their Mummy imitations.” But the worst part of this was having to take all this stuff off once we got to school. It was my job to make sure Joey got out of her coats and things O.K., so after I took all of my junk off I went down to the kinder-

garten and started working on hers.

“Kenny,” she said one time while I wiped the sweat from her fore- head and hair,“can’t you do something to stop Mommy from making us get so hot?”

“I tried, Joey. Momma thinks she’s protecting us from the cold.” I started trying to get Joey’s shoes out of her boots. Whoever invented these boots should be shot because once the boots got ahold of your shoes they wouldn’t let them go for anything. I pulled everything off Joey’s foot and gave her the boot while I reached my hand inside to tug on the shoe. We pulled and pulled but it seemed like the harder we pulled, the harder the boot sucked the shoe back in.

The next morning Momma was burying Joey in all her clothes again. Joey was doing the usual whining and complaining. “Mommy, can’t I wear just one jacket, I get too hot! And besides, when I wear all this junk I’m the laughing sock of the morning kindergarten.”

Momma’s hand came up to cover her mouth but she got serious when she said, “Joey, I don’t want you to be the laughing ‘sock,’ but I don’t want you catching a cold. You’ve got to keep bundled up out there, it’s colder than you think.This cold is very dangerous, people die

“Seems to me like you got a real bad memory.Who you think took all that stuff off your little behind all these years? What goes around goes around.”

I was surprised he’d said anything, since Byron thought it was cool not to answer stuff when someone younger than you said it. But he wasn’t being completely nice. While I was talking he kept moving around me so if I wanted to look at him sideways I’d have to move too. It must have looked like we were doing some kind of square dance with me moving around like one foot was nailed to the porch.

I knew there wasn’t much point saying a whole bunch more to him, so I said mostly to myself,“Man, I hate listening to Joey whining when I take all that junk off her at school.”

“Well, listen here,” he said, “I’ma help you out.”

Joey finally came out and the three of us walked toward the bus stop.

Byron started right in.“Baby Sis, I know you don’t like wearing all them clothes, right?”

“O.K., tell us.”

I wanted to know too. Even though I was in fourth grade I fell for a lot of the stuff Byron came up with. He made everything seem real interesting and important.

“And have you noticed how when you get up and go to school you almost never see them trucks?”

“Yeah.”

“And Joey, did you notice how Momma got kind of nervous and didn’t answer your question about not seeing people being frozed up on the street?”

“Yeah.”

I made my eyes get real big and threw my mouth open. “Not bad, but try it with some sound.”

I made my eyes get real big, threw my mouth open and said,“What the . . . ?”

Me and Joey did it three times, then Byron said, “Listen real care- ful.” He looked around to make sure the coast was clear. “There’s a good reason Momma makes you all wear all them clothes, and it’s got to do with them big doors on the back of the garbage trucks, dig?”

Me and Joey nodded our heads the best we could with all of those clothes on.

“That’s where them fake garbage trucks come in. Every morning they go round picking the froze folks off the street, and they need them big doors because someone who got froze don’t bend in the middle and they wouldn’t fit in no regular ambulance.”

Joey looked like she was hypnotized. Her mouth was open and her eyes were bugging.

Most of the other kids had to wear cheap plastic mittens that would start to crack up after two or three snowball fights or one real cold day. Some of them had to wear socks on their hands and some of them just had to scrunch their arms up in the sleeves of their jackets. But Momma made sure we got real leather gloves with real rabbit’s fur on the inside of them, and I’m not bragging, but we got to go through two pairs a year each!

At the end of every winter Momma and Dad would go downtown to Montgomery Ward’s when gloves were going on sale and buy six pairs for us kids.The only problem with having two pairs of gloves was that if you lost one pair you had to wear the next pair kindergarten- style. That meant Momma would run a string through the sleeves of your coat and tie two safety pins on the ends of the string, then she’d pin your gloves to the string and it was impossible to lose the gloves because every time you took them off they’d just hang from your coat.

Rufus had to let me borrow one of my old gloves back and we were back to scrunching one hand each up in our coat sleeves, but since Rufus was now the official owner of the gloves he got to keep the right hand one and I had to wear the left hand one.

Two days later Larry Dunn stopped wearing socks on his hands and started wearing a pair of real leather gloves with real rabbit fur on the inside of them.The only difference between my old gloves and Larry’s new ones was that mine had been brown and Larry’s were black.

cycles that a washing machine did, and even though when Larry gave you a Maytag all of the cycles were exactly the same, each part had a different name and the wash wasn’t done until you went through the final spin and had snow in every part of your face.

Ever since Larry got these new leather gloves he was giving Super Maytag Washes because he could grind a whole lot more snow in your face for a whole lot longer since his hands weren’t getting as cold.

I didn’t know what to do. Sooner or later Momma was going to notice I only had one glove, and ever since I’d found out that half of my blood was that thin Southern kind I’d started wondering if frost- bite really could do some damage to my hands. I couldn’t help myself, I sat on the curb and sniffled a couple of times, and finally cried. Rufus knew this was some real embarrassing stuff so he sat down beside me, looked the other way and acted like he didn’t see me crying.

That’s how come we didn’t see By and Buphead walk up on us, I was too busy looking down trying not to be too obvious about cry- ing and Rufus was too busy pretending he didn’t notice that I was.

Me and Rufus followed By and Buphead over to Clark. Larry Dunn was giving a Super Maytag to a fifth-grader. Byron interrupted the final rinse cycle and said, “Lemme see them gloves.”

Larry Dunn said, “I ain’t.”

All the Weird Watsons had seen that show together and the way they talked to deaf people in that movie wasn’t anything like the way Byron was talking to Larry Dunn. Byron’s style of deaf-language was just to yell real loud and slap the side of Larry’s head after each word. “Lemme!” Whack! “See!” Whack! “Them!” Whack! “Gloves!”

Whack! “Young!” Whack! “Fool!” Whackwhackwhack!

Byron threw me the gloves.“Here, Kenny.”

“Thanks, By.”That would have been fine with me but Byron was- n’t through.

“I’ma only tell you one more time. Pop him.”

I hit Larry a little harder. I hoped he’d bend over and act like I’d killed him but he stood there trying to look cool.

I knew Byron wasn’t trying to help me anymore. He was just being mean.

“Well, well, well, Mr. Dunn,” By said. “Today’s your lucky day!”

“Well, today’s your lucky day ’cause I’m about to make a new movie and guess what, you gonna be the star!”

Byron jerked Larry’s arms over his head three times. Larry Dunn was really tough! Not only because he wasn’t crying when By was going to mess him up, but also because when Byron jerked his arms over his head like that we all could see that Larry’s skinny little wind- breaker was ripped under both arms and Larry just had on a T-shirt underneath it. You’d have to be pretty tough to stand around giving people Maytags on a day as cold as this with those skimpy clothes on! “Hmmm, I guess that means you real excited about bein’ in my

Byron snatched him back to his feet.

“Look at that, you so excited ’bout being in my movie that you jumping for joy! Don’t you even want to know what the flick’s about?”

“Let’s see a little more fins this time, carp,” Byron would say, then throw Larry into the fence. Since tennis shoes don’t have a lot of grip on the ice, Larry would go into the fence hard and couldn’t control what part of him hit first. I knew it really had to hurt to catch your- self on that cold fence with nothing on your hands, not even socks, but Larry Dunn was real, real tough, he had a bloody nose and still didn’t cry.

I wished I hadn’t told Byron about what happened, I wished I just could have gone the rest of the year with one glove. I couldn’t stand to see how the movie was going to end, so me and Rufus left.

Nazi Parachutes Attack America and Get Shot Down over the Flint River by Captain

She told us that same sad old story about how when she was a lit- tle girl her house caught on fire and for two years after that she and her brothers had to wear clothes that smelled like smoke. Even though the story made Momma and Joey get all sad and sobby it was kind of funny to me and By.We’d heard it so many times that Byron even gave it a name. He called it Momma’s Smokey the Bear story.

“I won’t have you putting this family in danger. Just once more, Byron Watson, one more time and you’re burned.” Then, to show Byron how serious she was, Momma raised her right hand and said,“I swear that with God as my witness!”

I could see that he’d made a bunch of little toilet paper parachutes and when he yelled,“Action!” he set one of them on fire and dropped it over the toilet.The guy in the Nazi parachute screamed as he float- ed down in flames and landed in the water with a loud hiss. Before the parachutist was dead By would flush the toilet and the Nazi would go down the drain going, “Glub, glub, glub!”

When the water was swirling him away Byron said the only Nazi talk that he knew, “Ya hold mine fewer, off we der same!”

“Momma, I . . .”

I knew I was going to get it for not turning Byron in but before I could say anything else Momma pushed me out of the way and hit the bathroom door with her shoulder like Eliot Ness, the cop on that Untouchables TV show!

Momma’s eyes got slitty with the eyeballs shooting around from side to side. It was almost too scary to watch but I kept looking since I knew there was going to be some real big action this time! Joey grabbed ahold of my arm and said,“What’s going on, what’d he do?” She was starting to get jumpy because she’d never seen Momma so mad either.

I felt kind of sorry for Byron because Momma hadn’t let go of his neck and, even though he was a lot older, we could tell he was just as scared as me and Joetta. He kept pretending he was Daddy Cool, though, and the only way you could tell he was scared to death was by looking at his eyes.

“Joetta, do what I told you.”

“Mommy, I can’t . . .”The tears really started coming and Joey was squeezing my arm.

going to be in worse trouble then I already was with Momma, and if I did go get the matches I knew Byron would kill me as soon as he got back from the hospital.

“Momma, I—” “Move, young man!”

“Ooh, Byron, you better get out of here, go down to Buphead’s until Dad gets home, he’s probably gonna whip you, but Momma’s really gonna burn you!” I told him.

“Please, Byron, run! Get out of here.” Joey let go of my arm and ran over to Byron and tried to pull his fingers from around his throat. “Can’t you tell, she’s not playing!”

“Oh no, Mommy, let Daddy whip him, please, please!” Joey began pulling her braids and stamping her feet up and down. “Please don’t set him on fire ”

Her face was all wet and twisted up and she looked like a real nut. It was hard to do, but I kind of felt sorry for Byron, though not too sorry because I knew he deserved whatever happened, first because he had a chance to escape and didn’t take it and second because he was

Momma gently set Joey to the side but Joetta kept hopping back with her arms spread to protect Daddy Cool.

They wrestled like this a couple of times before Momma finally set all the burning equipment down and sat on the coffee table and pulled Joey into her lap.

Byron was exactly what Momma wanted to do.

After Joey didn’t say anything Momma had to answer the question herself.“No, dear, Momma doesn’t want to hurt Byron, but I don’t want you going to school smelling like smoke either, and I don’t want to see you or Kenneth or Daddy or Blackie or Tiger or Flipper or Flapper get

Joey was at the age when you’re real religious. She went to Sunday school three days a week.

“Huh, honey, should I break my word to God?”

Those were like magic words; they snapped Byron right out of the spell Momma put on him. It was like his hands said,“Fingers? Did she say she was gonna burn someone’s fingers?” Because when they found out it was them that were going to get burned they let go of Byron’s throat and joined the rest of his body in deciding to wait at Buphead’s until Dad got home.

Byron was fast. Momma was faster.

I couldn’t believe it! By’s finger popped right out! He was hypno- tized all over again!

Momma’s horrible snake-woman voice came out again and said, “If you ever, ever . . .” The match got closer and closer to Byron’s skinny brown finger. “. . . play with—no, if you ever even look at . . .” Byron’s hand was shaking and he was crying like a big baby but his finger still stayed out.“. . . another match in this house . . .”The match was getting closer and closer, and I knew Byron could feel the heat.“. . . I will per- sonally, by myself . . .” It was so close now that I thought I could hear the sweat on Byron’s finger getting turned into steam and going Pssss! “. . . I will burn not just one finger, I will burn your entire hand,

Four more times Momma lit a match and four more times Joey patoohed them out. Finally Momma got sick of having slob all over her hand and gave up.That night Byron had to deal with Dad. No pic- nic, but a lot better ending to his Nazi parachutes movie than Captain Byron Watson Gets Captured and Burned Alive by the Evil Snake Woman with His Own Flamethrower of Death.

Swedish Cremes and Welfare Cheese

M omma stuck her head into the living room and said, “Byron, I want you and Kenny to go up to Mitchell’s and get some milk, a loaf

Byron got the message and jerked up off the couch and walked over to the TV and punched the “Off ” knob. I knew this wasn’t going to be a fun walk up to Mitchell’s.We went into the kitchen.

“Gimme the money.” “Just sign for it.” “Just what?”

Whack, whack, whack.

All of a sudden Byron’s face jumped like a bell went off in his head. “Wait a minute! I know what this mean—we on welfare, ain’t we?”

“Listen here, Mr. High and Mighty, since you just got to know, food is food.You’ve eaten welfare food in this house before and if need be you’ll eat it again. Don’t come playin’ that nonsense with me. I already told you, this is not welfare food.You’ve got about five seconds to have that door hit you in the back. Kenny, move.”

By pouted and walked real fast up to Mitchell’s so I had to kind of run along to keep up with him.

“Uh-huh.” He took the groceries and rang them up on the cash register.

“That’s a dollar and twenty-three cents.” I saw By’s head come peeking around the comics.

Mr. Mitchell reached under the counter and opened up a little brown box. He pulled out a bunch of yellow cards and I could see “Watson” was written on the top one of them. He wrote “$1.23” on the first line and said, “Sign here,” then pointed to a spot next to the “$1.23.” I wrote “Kenneth Watson” and gave him back the pen.

“That’s it?”

Byron’s good mood started getting to me too. He was smiling and even put his arm around my shoulder as we walked. I couldn’t help myself, it felt so grown-up to have By walking with me like that, I started laughing right along with him.

His mood was so much better that he even took the bag of gro- ceries from me. Most of the time when Momma made us go to Mitchell’s, Byron would make me carry the bags from the store right up to the front porch. Then he’d take them from me so Momma would think he’d carried them the whole way. But now he started car-

“A peon? Didn’t you see The Magnificent Seven? Peons was them folks what was so poor that the rich folks would just as soon pee on them as anything else.”

I knew this had to be a lie.You could get yourself in a lot of trou- ble if you listened to half the stuff Byron said. But I asked my next question anyway. “What do you think the welfare food was that Momma said she gave us?” I wished I hadn’t asked ’cause this brought back his bad mood.

A week later I was walking in the alley behind Mitchell’s when a big cookie with pink frosting just about hit me in the head. It went by like a little flying saucer, then crashed in the dirt. I looked all around and didn’t see anybody so I put my hands over my face and stood still

because I knew if something weird like this happened once it usually happened again. Sure enough, another cookie hit me right in the back and a big laugh came out of the green-apple tree. Byron.

He jumped up and snatched a green apple off the tree, checked it for wormholes, then handed it to me.“You best eat some of this, them Swedish Cremes is good at first but they get kinda thick in your throat after a while.”

Byron was being too nice, so I knew something bad was about to happen. Then I noticed a crumpled-up Swedish Cremes bag on the ground next to the tree and I could figure out why he was being so generous. He’d already eaten a bag and a half.

we sat together munching. I wasn’t used to being this friendly with Byron so I guess I was kind of nervous and didn’t really know what we should talk about. By just sat there chomping down apples, so I tried to think what him and Buphead would talk about when they sat around like this. Finally I said,“So By, how about you and me doing a little cussing?”

He twisted up his face and said,“I thought I told your jive little ass to shut the hell up and enjoy the damn cookies. Now do it!”

When Byron’s fourth Swedish Creme left his hand I knew that if the bird didn’t move he was going to get whacked.The cookie popped the bird smack-jab in the chest! The bird’s wings both stuck out to the side and for a hot second with its tail hanging down and its wings sticking out like that it looked like a perfect small letter t stuck up on the telephone wire. Then, in slow motion, the bird leaned back and crashed to the dirt of the alley behind Mitchell’s.

I’d been throwing rocks and things at birds since I was born and had never even come close to hitting one, I’d seen a million people throw a million things at birds and no one had ever really hit one, not even a pigeon! But now By had knocked a bird right out of the sky with a Swedish Creme cookie!

I looked right at By and his face was all twisted up and his eyes were kind of shut. He dropped the bird, walked over to the green- apple tree and started throwing up.

I stood there with my mouth open, I couldn’t believe Byron was starting to cry. And I couldn’t believe how much vomit a bag and a half of Swedish Cremes and some green apples could make.

It was hard to understand what was going on with Byron. Some of the time if a genie came and gave you three wishes you wouldn’t mind using all three of them to wish some real bad stuff on him. Not stupid things like that woman in the fairy tale when she wished her husband had a sausage on his nose either, I mean stuff that would make Byron hurt so much that he’d have to think every day about how mean he is.

If he just had a sausage growing off of his nose people might laugh at him behind his back but no one would have nerve enough to tease him to his face and call him Weenie-Nose or something. He wouldn’t know how it feels to always have someone jumping on you, how sad that can make you get. Sometimes I hated him that much and thought he was the meanest person in the world.

Every Chihuahua in America Lines up to Take

I was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework and watching

Momma make dinner when Byron came in through the back door. He was surprised we were there ’cause as soon as he saw us he turned around and tried to walk right back out.

Byron was trapped in the doorway, with his right foot in and his left foot out.

“Come here.”

Byron’s head was covered with a blue-and-white handkerchief.

Momma sucked in a ton of air. “What have you done?” We all knew, though. She took a step back and leaned against the counter like if it wasn’t there she’d have fallen down.“Oh my God, your father will kill you!”

Me and Momma both went,“Huhhh!”

Byron had gotten a conk! A process! A do! A butter! A ton of trou- ble!

Finally Momma slammed the knife down and turned around to look at By again. Byron stood perfectly still while Momma walked around him a couple of times taking a better look at his hair. This looked like the Indians circling the wagons again, but this time it was Byron who had to be the white people!

Finally Momma stopped and said, “But before your father gets to you, let me ask you something. What do you think? What do you think now that you’ve gone and done it? Does it make you look any better? Is this straight”—Momma flicked some more of Byron’s hair back up porcupine-style—“is this straight mess more attractive than your own hair? Did those chemicals give you better-looking hair than

“Why on earth would you do this, Byron?”

“I wanted Mexican-style hair. I don’t see nothing wrong with it.” When he saw Momma just looking sad and me looking like I want-

I told Joey about what happened as soon as our next-door neigh- bor, Mrs. Davidson, brought her home from Sunday school. Me and Joey went up to see Byron.

Byron was on the top bunk with his feet dangling over the side and his hands covering his face.

When she saw his hair, Joetta’s eyes got real big and her voice got all choky. “Byron Watson, what were you thinking about? Look at your head, Daddy’s gonna kill you! Come down from there, let’s go to the bathroom and wash that stuff out of your hair before Daddy gets here!” Byron raised his slicked-down head from his hands.“Go away, Joey.” “Come on, Byron, we gotta wash your hair till that junk comes out,

hurry!” Joetta pulled on Byron’s dangling legs.

Joey turned and snapped, “Why is this so funny to you, Kenny?” Her eyes looked real mean. “Who knows what Daddy is gonna do to him?”

Byron’s hands came back up to cover his face.

“I told you to go away, Joey.”

“No, Byron, why’d you let him do this?” “ ’Cause I wanted to, that’s why.”

“But I been expecting this. This is just like that show I seen about wolves.They said that the top-dog wolf is always getting challenged by jive little wolves.They said the top-dog wolf can’t show no weakness at all, that if he do, if he gets hurt or something, if he steps on a broke bot- tle and starts limping or something, all the little jive wolves in the pack start trying to overthrow him. That’s what’s happening right now, you think I’m hurt and you and every other punk Chihuahua in America is climbing out of the woodwork to try and get a bite out of me.

“Lemme tell you something, when—”

I pretended I was holding a bugle and started playing that “Day Is Done . . .” song that they play at funerals.

“Byron, why won’t you behave? Why won’t you think about what’s going to happen to you when you do something wrong? Why do you always do stuff to get people mad at you?” Joey asked.

“Hmmm, well, I guess that depends on your point of view.”

“Let me guess, which one of the crumb-crushers is going to sur- prise Big Daddy today?”

“O.K., what’s up?”

“Let me put it this way, do you remember the line Big Daddy used to give every girl at Central High School?”

Byron took a deep breath, then jumped off the top bunk and start- ed down the stairs. I followed right behind him pretending I was a reporter. I shoved an imaginary microphone in his face.

“Any famous last words, Five Forty-one? Anything to say to all the little Chihuahuas before they start coming out of the woodwork? Do you think the governor might call before they pull the switch? Are you going to come clean and tell what led you down the road to crime?”

City, Señor Byroncito Watson!”

Joey made me quit sobbing so we could see what Dad was going to do, but for the longest time there were no sounds from the living room.

“ ‘Yes, Dad.’ So there’s really nothing I can do, is there.” “I don’t think so, Dad.”

“You don’t think so, Dad. Well, judging by the condition of your hair I wouldn’t say thinking is one of your strong suits, is it.”

“Hmmm, you know, maybe there is something that can be done about this after all.”

Suddenly Dad and Byron were in the doorway leading upstairs. Dad looked surprised to see me and Joey sitting there. He smiled at us. “Hi, Kenneth. Hi, Punkin.Why are you two crying?”

From the way Dad and By’s feet were standing I could tell that By

was sitting on the toilet and Dad was standing at the sink.

Dad kept whistling and cutting.

Choo-chicka.

“Kenneth, what are you doing?” Momma called me from down- stairs.

I ran from the door and got halfway down the steps before I said, “Nothing, Momma.”

The three of us sat on the couch for about half an hour before we heard By scream as loud as he could.

Dad hollered down to us, “Just a little aftershave.”

Momma put her hand over her mouth and said,“Lord, don’t blame that on my side of the family, someone switched this child at the hos- pital!”

Joey laughed because she was relieved Byron hadn’t been executed, Momma and Dad laughed at Byron’s ears, but none of them laughed as hard as me.

Dad whispered to Momma, “Why does she think she’s got to yell into the phone for a long-distance call?”

Momma slapped his arm and whispered back, “You leave my momma alone!”

And that was it. We thought that was the end of Byron’s Latest Adventure until a week later when Dad brought home the TT AB- 700 in the Brown Bomber.

The Ultra-Glide!

I don’t know why we didn’t catch on that something different was

We ignored him.

While Joey cleaned the windows, me and Rufus washed the seats, even the parts that were torn and worn away. But the more we washed them the worse they looked and Dad ended up going back to the Yankee Store and buying some brown-and-white seat covers for the front seat.

Like with everything else, Dad had a crazy explanation for that. He told us that right after he got the car from Uncle Bud both wings were there but that he had taken it to a special garage and had one wing “scientifically and mathematically” taken off.

When we asked him why, he told us that that way when we came back from a long trip we’d be “coming in on a wing and a prayer.” That’s the kind of junk Dad thinks is funny.

“I knew there was something I liked about that boy. All right, Wilona, what’s your guess?”

“I don’t know either,” Momma said, and rolled her eyes. “I think the car is per . . . per . . . per . . .” Momma was cutting up too.“. . . Oh my God, I can’t say it!”

“Do you know where it goes?” “Yes, Daddy.”

“O.K., time’s a-wasting, put it on.”

Momma couldn’t take any more.“For God’s sake, Daniel, what is it?” “It’s the pinnacle of Western civilization.”

“It’s the pea knuckle of Western civilization!” “Now, Joey, dazzle ’em, girl!”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Morning, Kenny, how’d you sleep?” Dad said this with his tooth- brush in his mouth.

I thought about this for a second, then said, “What does that mean?”

Dad picked up my toothbrush and said, “Look at this, not only is this instrument perfect for brushing teeth, it has other wonderful uses too.You see, Kenny, I know that in a little boy’s eyes there isn’t any- thing in the world that is better for general cleaning than a tooth- brush, and the greatest thing about it is that with a good rinse after- ward no one can tell what it was used for.

“Aww, man, I’m way too old for that. Besides, I’m starting to get a real mustache. Look.” I stuck my upper lip out for Dad to see.

“Where?” Dad leaned down and looked real hard. “I can’t see it.” “Here, look.”

“Won’t be long before you and I have to share the mirror in the morning, huh?”

I couldn’t help it. Even though I knew he might be kidding, I broke out in a real big smile and nodded my head up and down.

We walked into the living room to watch cartoons, but when we got there Dad kept going and said,“If your mother gets up before I’m back just tell her I won’t be long.”

“Where you going, Daddy?” Joey asked.

Dad made us stop at the front door and get in a line, one behind the other, Momma first, then Byron, then me, then Joey. Except for bald-headed By, we were all laughing and wondering what Dad’s sur- prise was when he opened the door.

Following Dad, we walked down the front porch steps and stood on the sidewalk like a little parade. I bet the neighbors wondered what the Weird Watsons were doing this time.

He said that last part because Momma rolled her eyes and was real close to stopping everything by turning around and going back into the house.

“All right, close ’em.”

Finally Dad said, “That’s it, open your eyes.What do you think?”

Dad had opened the driver’s side of the Brown Bomber and was standing with one arm pointing the way inside.

“Well, Kenneth, since you seem to be the only one with any curios-

ity, I guess you’ll be the one who gets to unveil the Bomber’s latest addition.”

I grabbed a corner of the towel. “Ladies and gentle—”

Byron interrupted me when he saw I was going to tease them. He said, “Awww, man, just pull the blanged towel off so I can get outta here. I ain’t got all day to listen to your mess.” He was always in a hurry to get out of someplace but never had anywhere else to go.

Even cool old Byron forgot how cool he was and screamed out, “Awww, man, this is too, too hip! No one’s got one of these. Speedy don’t even have one in his Cadillac! Too much, man, way too much!”

Joey and Byron climbed into the car on either side of me. We all said,“Turn it on, Daddy!”

“As I’m certain you are aware, the problem in the past with this new technology in automotive sound has been road vibrations inter- fering with an accurate dispersal of the phonic interpretations.”

“Huh?” Byron said.

“Oh no,” Joetta said, and pointed at Byron. “This isn’t our son, this is just a little juvenile delinquent boy that we feel sorry for and let fol- low us around some of the time. Our real son has hair!”

Even this didn’t bother Byron, who was amazed by the Brown Bomber’s latest addition.

“Yes, the vibration problem has been overcome by the exclusive Vibro-Dynamic-Lateral-Anti-Inertial Dampening system.”

Dad had memorized that word ’cause right on the arm of the record player it said “V.D.L.A.I. Dampening, Patented”!

“Before I dazzle you with the symphonic sound of this unit, let me point out some of its less-appreciated features.”

“Oh, please do.”

technician to enhance the TT AB-700’s true high-fidelity sound!” “Wow!”

Byron exploded through the front door with an armful of 45s and Momma right on his tail.

Joey loved this chance to pretend she was Momma’s mom. She pat-

ted the seat next to her and said, “Come on in, honey, this is really cool!”

Boy, did they think we were blind? Even though Dad thought he was being slick, everybody saw this.

Momma puckered up her lips to squeeze down a smile and crossed her arms over her chests, Joetta giggled and me and Byron scrunched our faces up.

Why, it doesn’t matter,

’Cause the world is getting fatter. I’m the man with the tune That’ll take you to the moon,

Momma slapped the car seat. “Daniel, start that record!”

“All right, all right.” Dad stopped his rhyming, not because Momma told him to, but because I bet he ran out of stupid poems.

My foot was tapping on the Brown Bomber’s floor a mile a minute and I couldn’t make it stop no matter what I did. I guess I was grin- ning pretty hard too.

Dad’s hand touched a knob that had “Start” written on it, but before he turned it he pulled his hand back and said, “First, however . . .”

But Dad wasn’t through yet, and you couldn’t rush him. In fact, the more you’d complain, the longer he’d take.

He put his hand up to stop the noise.“But, first, we at WAMM want to apologize to the nine other women who called in requesting love songs to be dedicated to Daniel Watson. If they stay tuned, we’ll play their songs later in the evening.”

boom bounced around in the car. A moment of silence and then . . .

And then the most beautiful notes of music I’d ever heard came from the front of the car and the back of the car at the same time.

We sat in the car for almost two hours as everybody got a chance to go in the house and get their favorite records.

Even though we had a pretty good record player in the house, it couldn’t compare with the sounds that came from the scientifically and mathematically put-in speakers that the Brown Bomber had.The Ultra-Glide cast a spell on all of the Weird Watsons.

Dad wasn’t too comfortable with things like this and said, “No, it can wait.”

“No, it can’t.”

warning and chance after chance to straighten up, but instead of improving, you’re getting worse. Do I have to remind you of the things you’ve done just this last year?”

Byron still didn’t close his mouth.

“That’s why Grandma Sands is going to look after you for a while.

You’re about to run us crazy.”

But the biggest reason Byron and Joey and me thought they’d never send him to Alabama was because we had heard so many horrible sto- ries about how strict Grandma Sands was.The thought of living with her was so terrible that your brain would throw it out as soon as it came in.

Well, Byron’s brain had better get used to it, we all knew by the way they’d gotten the Bomber ready and by the way Momma’s voice sounded that they meant it this time.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963

school.

When I got into the living room I was surprised to see the front door open. I looked outside and saw Dad sitting in the Brown Bomber. I guess he was listening to records because he had his arm across the seat and was beating his hand up and down like it was a drum.

“How’d you sleep?” “O.K., I guess.”

“Go on in and get ‘Yakety Yak’ and sit with me for a while. “That’s O.K., I’ll just listen to what you’re playing.”

Dad turned the Ultra-Glide down a little more. He looked like he was thinking whether or not he should tell me something. He was looking straight at me, and even though it was real hard, I looked right back at him.

I tried to look real intelligent and I guess it worked ’cause finally Dad said, “Kenny, we’ve put a lot of thought into this. I know you’ve seen on the news what’s happening in some parts of the South, right?” We’d seen the pictures of a bunch of really mad white people with twisted-up faces screaming and giving dirty finger signs to some little Negro kids who were trying to go to school. I’d seen the pictures but I didn’t really know how these white people could hate some kids so much.

“Momma and I are very worried because there’re so many things that can go wrong to a young person and Byron seems bound and determined to find every one of them.

“Now, do you really understand why we’re sending Byron to Birmingham?”

It’s times like this when someone is talking to you like you are a grown-up that you have to be careful not to pick your nose or dig your drawers out of your butt.

“O.K., Dad, thanks.” He smiled again, turned the Ultra-Glide back up and ran his hand over my head.

Dad turned the Ultra-Glide back down.“Kenny, do you remember when we used to go on drives and I’d put you in my lap and let you steer the car?”

I smiled. “Yeah, does that mean I get to do it on the way to Alabama?”

“And as far as you being a good parent, don’t worry. You’ll learn

from the mistakes your mother and I make, just like we learned from the mistakes our parents made. I don’t have a single doubt that you and Byron and Joey will be much better parents than your mother and I ever were.” Dad stopped talking for a second. “Besides, some of the time we don’t think we’ve done such a good job. But you’re right, Kenneth, it can be scary, and it gets a lot scarier when you see you’re responsible for three little lives. A lot scarier.”

“Is it too late to go get ‘Yakety Yak’?”

Dad laughed and sent me in to get it. I had to promise to play it only three times, though.

Me and Joey were in the living room playing when Momma and our neighbor Mrs. Davidson came in.

“Hello, Joetta. Hello, Kenneth.” “Hi, Mrs. Davidson.”

Mrs. Davidson took the present from Joey and handed it to Momma.“See,Wilona, it’s just like I told you. Look at that smile! The minute I saw it it reminded me of Joetta! Is that her smile or what? In fact, do you know what I named this angel?”

Joey pretended she was stupid and said,“No, Mrs. Davidson.” “I’ve named her after my favorite little girl, this angel’s name is

“You’re welcome, precious.” Mrs. Davidson looked like she was going to cry.We all knew she’d kidnap Joey if she had the chance. She liked her that much.

When Mrs. Davidson left, Momma went upstairs and into Joey’s room.

“Mrs. Davidson said it reminded her of me, but it didn’t look like me at all.”

Momma looked around the room. “Where’d you put it?” “It’s in my socks drawer.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t hurt Mrs. Davidson’s feelings. Keep the angel around, you might get to like it.Where do you want me to put it?”

“Back under the socks.” Momma laughed.

knock at our bedroom door. “Come in.”

It was Momma and Dad. Momma said, “Lights out, Kenneth.

Byron jumped out of the top bunk and gave me his Death Stare. I just shrugged.

I guess the grapevine had gotten back to Momma and Dad that By was going to make a prison break tonight before he got transferred to Alabama. He thought I was the snitch but it was Joey.

“Day One, today.We leave Flint and drive for three hundred miles in about five or five and a half hours, that will take us to Cincinnati.” Three hundred miles in one day! It just didn’t seem like that could be done. Me and Joey shook our heads. Byron looked out of the win-

dow.

“Day Three, Monday.This is going to be a tough day for your daddy because he’s gonna have to drive for more than six hours. After we leave Knoxville we’ve got about three hundred miles to go. If we leave early enough we’ll be pulling in to home about three in the after- noon.” Momma turned the page in her notebook.

“We’re gonna be able to stop once a day on the way down for ham- burgers and once a day on the way back.”

Me and Joey laughed again, and even Byron kind of smiled. This only encouraged Dad to say some more Southern-style stuff.

“Y’all didn’t know that, boy? Whas a mattah wit’ choo, you thank this he-uh is Uhmurica?”

Dad cracked up.“Ooh, Kenneth, I asked her the same thing and she was highly offended.”

Momma said, “That’s a bee, not a bird!”

“What can I say?” Byron answered.

“Not much. I can’t believe they gonna make you spend the whole blanged summer in hot ol’ Alabama. Shoot, I’d find somewhere else to

“Yeah, I got somethin’ that’ll mess that junk up for all of ’em!” “What’s that, Daddy-o?”

Byron remembered I was still in the lower bunk and stuck his head over the edge, then pointed at me. “You say one word about this to anyone and I’m gonna jack your little lightweight behind up, you hear?”

They slapped palms and By said, “Yeah, you know it will.”

But as soon as we got to Detroit, Byron said,“How we gonna work this record player?”

“Cool, am I first?”

“Sure, we’ll go by seniority.” Dad was in the United Auto Workers at work so seniority was real important in our house.

As the payback for giving me the dirty finger I said out loud to By, “How many cows you counted, By? How many red cars so far?”

He gave me his famous Death Stare, then leaned over Joey and whispered, “No cars, no cows, but I counted yo’ momma six times already.”

Byron used silent mouth language to say, “I’m gonna jack you up in Alabama, you punk!”

So as we drove down I-75 headed for Birmingham I felt pretty good. Even though every time I looked at By his eyes were crossed I didn’t care because this one time I bugged him more than he bugged me!

Tangled Up in God’s Beard

While Momma got the food and Dad looked under the hood of the Brown Bomber I went to the door in the little log cabin that had “Men” carved on it.

As soon as I opened the door I gagged! The toilets in Ohio weren’t anything like Michigan toilets. Instead of a white stool with a seat there was just a seat on a piece of wood with a great big, open, black hole underneath with the sound of flies coming out of it. No flusher, no water, no nothing. It looked like if you sat on the seat you might end up getting sucked down under Ohio somewhere!

When we finished eating Byron asked,“What’s the word on them toilets?”

Momma and Dad cracked up.

By said, “Wait, let me dig this, you mean if I gotta go to the bath- room I got to go outside into a little nasty thing like that? Ain’t they got no sanitation laws down there? How you gonna have a hole for a toilet and not get folks sick? Don’t them things attract flies?”

Momma and Dad laughed again. Momma said, “Your grandma Sands always says it seems a lot nastier to her to be doing that in the house.The way she looks at it a house is a whole lot nicer place if the facilities are outside.”

When you’re ten years old, like me, some of the time no matter how excited you are, or no matter how hard you try, you just can’t help falling asleep in the car. I did a lot better than Joey, though. She was out before I’d even sucked all the leftover peanut butter out of my teeth.

She stretched out across the backseat and me and By argued about who would hold her head and who would hold her feet. Joey drooled a lot and so it was the worse job to hold her head.

I couldn’t keep my head from sinking deeper and deeper into the Brown Bomber’s seat.

I woke up and got real nervous real fast. I felt something wet in my pants starting to run down my leg. I opened my eyes and said, “Whew!” It was just Joey drooling all over me. I complained and Momma made By take Joey’s head for a while.

“Really?” Momma didn’t sound too happy.

“Sure, why not? The kids are all asleep and you looked like you were about gone yourself.”

“Well, let me ask you something, Theo,” Dad had said. “Do you think she could run it to Alabama straight?”

“Hmmm.” Mr. Johnson thought for a minute.“I don’t see why not. As long as you keep your eye on the oil and the water it shouldn’t give you a lick of trouble. The question isn’t the car, the question is could you do it straight?”

and you’ll blink 436,475 times—that is, of course, unless you see something exciting, in which case you’ll inhale 123,876 times and blink 437,098 times!”

Dad and Mr. Johnson cracked up.

All four doors of the Brown Bomber opened and the Weird Watsons got out. As soon as everyone was awake enough to look around we all bunched up and hugged up around Momma and Dad, even cool Byron.

Dad laughed. “What’s wrong with you guys?”

“Mommy,” Joey asked, sounding real scared, “where did all these stars come from?”

We all looked up and instead of seeing the normal amount of stars it looked like there had been a star explosion. There were more stars in the sky than empty space.

Joey started boo-hooing right away.

After we nervously nibbled on snacks (everyone sat on the same side of the picnic table), me and By had to go to the bathroom in the woods.

“Man, they got crackers and rednecks up here that ain’t never seen no Negroes before. If they caught your ass out here like this they’d hang you now, then eat you later.

“What’s a redneck?”

“I can’t believe how this air feels!” Dad said.

He was right, everything smelled light and green. “Whose turn is it on the Ultra-Glide?”

We all did, and the air seemed slippery and cool as it blew on your hand.

“We’re so high and the air is so perfect that do you know what I think we’re doing?” Dad asked.

Whatever we were doing it was the best part of the trip so far.What could be better than driving on a mountain while “Yakety Yak” played and cool, light air blew all over you?

Bobo Brazil Meets the Sheik

The next time I woke up it was just starting to get light and some- how I was in the front seat and Momma was in the back. When my eyes got used to where they were I saw Dad holding the steering

Dad must have heard me breathe different ’cause he looked down at me and said, “Well, well, well, look who’s decided to come back to life!”

“Hi, Dad, are we there yet?”

“But let’s keep that between you and me, O.K.?” “Sure. How long before we stop?”

“We’ll be at Grandma Sands’s before you know it.”

Little tiny hairs were coming out of his face. Most of them were black but nine or ten of them were white.

Dad was looking real, real bad. He was still smiling to himself but now instead of a real smile it looked like he was gripping his teeth together to get ready to bite something.The worst thing, though, was that he had turned the radio on and was listening to country and west- ern music! He was even tapping his hand on the steering wheel like he was really enjoying it.

Dad laughed, “Now, Wilona, you know it hasn’t been that bad. In fact, I’m gonna admit to something that I probably shouldn’t.”

Momma rubbed her eyes, then put her hand on top of my head. “You gonna do this here admittin’ in front of little Homer he-uh?”

“Anyway,” Dad said,“I’ma let the cat out of the bag. I’ve been using two kinds of mind power to keep this trip going so smooth. First, after a while I started locking into the road and there was nothing to it! Just me, the road and the Brown Bomber, all tuned in to one hum, and as long as I listened to that hum everything was fine.

“My biggest worry was you,Wilona. I knew after ’while you’d fig- ure out that I wasn’t going to stop, and you gotta admit you were good and salty about it at first, right?”

“Yup,” he said, rubbing his chin until it made a scratchy, sawing sound, “eighteen big hours in a row! Nearly a thousand miles! I had a load to deliver and”—he punched the air with his fist—“I delivered it. It’s just like this great song I heard a couple of miles back, ‘Big Daddy Was a Truck-Drivin’ Man!’ I’m not gonna lie and say it was easy, uh-uh.There was many a time I wanted to stop, but when those times came I’d just think of my old pal, Joe Espinosa, driving all the

way to Texas without stopping and I’d keep my foot in that tank. “Oh yeah, there were times when your mother was giving me

I hoped Dad was going to say that I helped him by keeping him company, but, “No, some of the credit has to go to Scientific Popular.” That was the name of a magazine that came to Dad in the mail every month. It had real cool covers, there were always drawings of smiling white people on it standing next to cars with wings or sitting in pri- vate submarines or eating a whole meal in one little pill. The covers were real interesting but the insides were real boring.

“Yup, good old Scientific Popular, they had an article about sound frequencies and said that certain sounds caused certain effects in all liv- ing things, even Weird Watsons! It said the sound of one of those vac- uum cleaners can put a baby to sleep. And it works!”

blanket over you in the backseat and then even those whines and whimpers and moans you guys were making didn’t bother me.

“And you, Wilona, once I got buzzing, the only thing that was coming out of your mouth was drool!”

I raised my head out of the seat to look at what Momma was call- ing home and couldn’t believe it!

Birmingham looked a lot like Flint! There were real houses, not lit- tle log cabins, all over the place! And great big beautiful trees. Most of all, though, there was the sun.

Me and Joey had never seen Grandma Sands in our lives. Byron said he could remember that she was the meanest, ugliest person in the world but he was probably lying, he was only four the last time Momma and Dad were here. Byron said he’d had nightmares for a couple of weeks after they left Alabama ten years ago.

All the Weird Watsons had real good imaginations but none of us was ready for what came out of the door of that house.

Momma was blubbering and smiling and covering her mouth with both hands and ran right up on the porch and nearly broke that little old woman in half.

“How you doin’, Momma?” She cried on the woman’s shoulders, then held Grandma Sands out to look at her. “You look so good!”

Grandma Sands squeezed me hard and cried all over me. She wiped a bunch of tears away with a twisted-up hand and blinked a couple of times before she looked at me. She was so short she didn’t even have to look down!

She tried to say something but she couldn’t talk, she just stuck her bottom lip out some and nodded her head up and down a couple of times, then pulled me back to her and squeezed me like crazy.

Grandma Sands matched Joey tear for tear. They squeezed each other for a while, then Grandma Sands got her little, squeaky voice back and said to Momma,“Lord, ’Lona, if this child ain’t you! Look at this baby, just as pretty and sweet as you!”

Momma and Joey grinned like two nuts. Byron was next.

If Grandma Sands won the battle we’d have to hold the phone away from our ear while she shouted,“ ’Lona, you call this a bad child? This li’l saint is ready to come back North and go to Sunday school and scrub all y’all’s floors!”

But as soon as I saw Grandma Sands I knew that Byron would destroy this poor old woman. I was even afraid Momma might decide not to leave him in Alabama.

“Good, good, see, there’s lots of things you can do down here, Mr. Robert ain’t as much help as he used to be, so all them things he used to do you can do now.”

Momma said, “Who? Mr. who?”

“What?” Grandma Sands’s voice popped like one of those big brown grocery bags being snapped open.

By looked surprised and said, “I meant, ‘Huh, ma’am.’ ”

Grandma Sands laughed just like the Wicked Witch of the West and said, “Honey, we got to talk.You jus’ be patient and soon’s he gets up I want all of y’all to meet him.”

“Soon’s he gets up? Awww, Momma . . .” Momma sounded real upset and disappointed and Southern.

He knew exactly what I was thinking.

After Grandma Sands gave us directions Byron looked at me side- ways and said,“What the hell you starin’ at?”

That Dog Won’t Hunt No More

Birmingham was like an oven. That first night I couldn’t sleep at all, me and By had to share a bed and we both were sweating like two pigs. It got so hot that Byron didn’t even keep a sheet on himself to

make sure I didn’t accidentally touch him in the night. He finally slept on the floor because he said it was a little bit cooler.

Mr. Robert said, “You boys’ll get used to the heat.” Dad petted the dog and said, “He’s too old to hunt?”

“Oh yeah, that dog won’t hunt no more. He’s just like me, lost the desire. Both of us got to the point where we just couldn’t pull the trig- ger. Both of us got to be just like Joe Louis toward the end. Remember his last fights, Daniel? Remember how Joe’d just walk around the ring waving that left fist like a threat, he just couldn’t throw it, he just

“How’d you save his life?” “You ever been coon hunting?” “No, sir.”

“Well, there ain’t too many animals wilier or tougher than a old coon. Most people think you just chase ’em up a tree and pop ’em, but that ain’t half the story.

Dad said, “I’ve heard about raccoons doing that.” “Oh yeah,Toddy here’s living proof.”

Byron said, “If he drowned how come he ain’t dead?”

“Kenny, you’re the only one who hasn’t eaten already.Your mother and grandmother are in the kitchen, go on in.”

I went back inside.

“Morning, Kenneth.”

“Morning, Momma. Morning, Joey. Morning, Grandma Sands.” “You sleep O.K.?”

I must have interrupted something real important because as soon as I sat down Momma acted like I’d disappeared and started asking Grandma Sands more questions.“Well, what about Calla Lily Lincoln? I always wondered what she’s doing. ”

“ ’Lona didn’t I write to you about that? Uh, uh, uh ”

“We been good friends since right after you-all left for Flint—” Momma was being kind of rude, she interrupted and said,“Awww,

Momma, good friends? What does that mean?”

Sands didn’t yell or scream or anything, but the way she said those couple of things made everybody who heard it shut their mouths and listen real hard. Even though she only told Momma that Mr. Robert was her friend it seemed like I heard her also give my mother a real good scolding Momma pouted and kissed the top of Joey’s head.

I picked up my spoon and kept eating.This was great! I’d never seen Momma act like a little kid who just got yelled at but there she was, picking at a piece of paper towel and looking kind of embarrassed. Dad and Byron came in with Mr. Robert.

I Meet Winnie’s Evil Twin Brother, the Wool Pooh

I f y’all are going to the water you stay away from Collier’s Landing.

A couple of years ago Miss Thomas’s little boy Jimmy got caught up in some kinda whirlpool there and they didn’t find the poor soul’s body for three days.”

Daddy Cool said,“Didn’t you hear what she said, Joey? She said he got caught by the Wool Pooh.”

“Is that a fish?” Joey asked.

“Naw, Joey, the Wool Pooh don’t come on public beaches, he just grabs folks that are too stingy to let peons come on their land, like this Collier guy.”

Who could understand Byron? Here was a chance for another Fantastic Adventure and he was going in the wrong direction. Something was wrong with him. If he was in Flint and you told him not to do something he’d go right out and do it, but now he was act- ing real dull and square. Maybe it was the heat, maybe just like it had sucked all the energy out of me it had sucked all the meanness and fun out of Byron.

Byron flipped me double middle fingers and another finger sign I’d never seen before and said,“Just keep your stupid little butt out of the water.”

“Forget you, I’m going!”They kept walking. “I’m not playing!”

“You’re a couple of jive squares!” I shouted, then walked off the way the warning sign pointed.

Byron must have thought I was stupid. Whoever heard of some- thing called a Wool Pooh? I wasn’t sure what the lie was, but I knew Byron had made that junk up. Besides, if Winnie-the-Pooh had an evil twin brother it seemed like I would have read about it somewhere. Some of the time it was kind of hard to understand what Grandma Sands was saying, but I couldn’t remember her saying anything about any Wool Pooh. If there really was something that snatched kids into the water Momma and Dad wouldn’t have let us come down here, would they?

I kept waiting for By to jump out of the bushes and say something like, “Aha, you little dope, I got you! I made you look for a Wool Pooh!” but everything was real calm and quiet, the water didn’t even look like it was moving, but like it was breathing, going up and down, up and down, and it made a sound like the wind blowing through big trees in Flint.

I walked right to the edge of the water and still didn’t see anything strange so I figured if there really was anything dangerous Byron would have followed me here and stopped me from getting hurt, wouldn’t he?

Alabama fish were a lot friendlier, and a lot trickier, than Michigan ones. I bent over and stuck my hand in the water and tried to grab a couple but they kept slipping away like they were covered with soap. They were right there and I couldn’t grab them. They didn’t even act like they were afraid of me, they just kept swimming around my legs, even bumping their faces into me, like they were trying to kiss me. It seemed like they wanted me to catch them and take them back to Flint. After missing about a hundred times I stood up and saw the reason the fish wouldn’t go out in deeper water. There was a big green tur-

tle, about the size of a football, cruising back and forth in the deep water, and he looked just as slow and stupid as the fish did.

I pushed away to try to swim back and my head bobbed under the water. All the sound and light from Alabama disappeared because my eyes automatically shut and it seemed like my ears were stuffed with cotton. I got a mouthful of water but my head came right back up. I laughed because I was spitting and patoohing a mile a minute when my head popped out of the water. But the laughing stopped real quick when I tried swimming again and my head went back under.

That’s when I got really scared. I’d seen enough cartoons to know that when your head goes down three times it doesn’t ever come up again! I knew if I went down one more time I was as dead as a donut! My eyes looked at the shore, where my shoes were sitting safe on some rocks.“Awww, man,” I said to myself,“I wish I had a magic lamp so I could have the genie make me be where those shoes are and they

“O.K., Kenny,” I said to myself, “you know you’re going to be all right. Just get real calm and swim back to the land. When you count to three just go back to your shoes.” I stopped kicking for a second and said,“One, two, three . . .”Then I gave my arms one more flap to go back to shore and down I went again! My head went under for the third time and I knew I’d never come back up again. Going down three times like this is just like waking up and finding yourself tied to a tree with someone saying, “Ready, aim, fire!”

That’s when he came swimming real slow out of the deep, and even though my head was underneath the dark water I could see him com- ing right at me. He didn’t look like he was related to Winnie-the-Pooh at all, he was big and gray with hard square-looking fingers.Where he should have had a face there was nothing but dark gray. Where he should have had eyes there was nothing but a darker colder-looking color. He grabbed my leg and started pulling me down.

“Momma! Momma! Help me . . .”

But the Wool Pooh wasn’t through with me. I felt his hard, hard hand go around my ankle and I went down for the fourth time!

Byron and the Wool Pooh started duking it out. By must have hit it a hundred times in that place where its face should’ve been. Finally the Wool Pooh couldn’t take any more and I felt those hard cold fingers come off my ankle. The Wool Pooh swam back into the deep water. The last thing I noticed about him was that he had big square toes.

Byron grabbed me and put his arm around my neck and it felt like he was trying to choke me.

trocuted and crying like a baby and kissing the top of my head over and over!

This was real disgusting. He just kept saying,“Kenny, Kenny, Kenny

Every Bird and Bug in Birmingham Stops and

Sunday school. The neighbors came and got her as soon as I got out of bed. I was standing in the doorway of the bedroom doing my morning scratches when she walked by.

“Hi, Kenny. See you later.” “Bye, Joey.”

The people that came to get her saw me and one of them said, “How come you ain’t coming to Sunday school, young man?”

I smiled and said, “I forgot to get up in time.”

Momma stuck her head out of the back door and got ready to yell for me but when she saw me plopped down at the foot of the tree she smiled. “Well, Kenneth, I thought you’d wandered off. How are you this morning?”

“It was too hot to sleep.”

I started going to sleep under the tree and thought I was dreaming when the noise came.

I felt it more than heard it.The giant old magnolia tree shook one time like something had given it a hard snatch by the roots.Then there was a sound like a far-off thunderstorm coming. Except it only thun- dered one long time.

I shook my head. He looked like a bell went off in his head and said, “Oh Lord, where’s Byron?”

Byron poked his head out of the door, still in his underpants and still doing his morning scratches. “What?” he said. “I didn’t do noth- ing. I was asleep.What was that bang?”

I ran to the door and into the house and By almost knocked me over running back toward the bedroom.

“What’s wrong with Momma?” I asked.

I ran out onto the porch and into the street. It looked like some- one had set off a people magnet, it seemed like everyone in Birmingham was running down the street, it looked like a river of scared brown bodies was being jerked in the same direction that By had gone, so I followed.

I guess my ears couldn’t take it so they just stopped listening. I could see people everywhere making their mouths go like they were screaming and pointing and yelling but I didn’t hear anything. I saw Momma and Dad and Byron holding on to each other, all three of them looking like they were crazy and trying to keep each other away from the pile of rocks that used to be the front of the church. Momma was so upset that she even forgot to cover the space in her front teeth. I couldn’t hear her but I’d bet a million dollars she was shouting, “Why?” over and over like a real nut. It looked like Dad’s mouth was yelling, “Joetta!”

All the hair on my head jumped up to attention.The light flickered back on and the smoke cleared and I could see that hanging on to the other end of the shoe was a giant gray hand with cold, hard square fingers.

Oh-oh. I looked up and saw a familiar guy and before he got cov- ered with smoke he looked at me and I saw he had big square shoul- ders and nothing where his face should have been.The Wool Pooh.

I reached in my pocket and took out the shiny, shiny shoe. When me and the Wool Pooh were trying to grab it away from each other the back part had gotten ripped. Man! The shoe was ripped like it was made out of paper! The picture of the little white boy with the girl’s hairdo and the dog was torn right in half.All that was left was the dog, smiling at me like he’d just eaten a cat.

I tried to remember if I’d been mean to Joey this morning. I guessed I hadn’t. I never did tell her how she helped Byron save my life in the water. I guessed I should have.

She sat beside me on the bed. I still wouldn’t look at her. I dropped the shoe and used my knees to stop the sparrows from fluttering around.

Oh, man! This was very scary. I’d seen the two little girls on the grass in the red and blue dresses and I didn’t want to see my little sis- ter that way too.

“You better quit trying to scare me, Kenny, or I’m gonna tell Momma! This better not be my shoe or you’re in big trouble, buster.” Joey walked out of the room but I still couldn’t look at her. The

Wool Pooh was pull-whisshh-stopping her away. “Joey!”

what really surprised me was that Joey had both of her shiny, shiny black shoes in her hands. She’d taken them off at the front door.

“Kenneth Bernard Watson, you better tell me what’s going on or I’m really gonna tell! I’m not playing with you!” Joey was imitating Momma so much that she didn’t say “Bernard,” she said “Buh-Nod.”

“It was so hot in there that I went and stood on the porch and saw you.”

“Saw me? Where?”

Mommy!”

I could hear Grandma Sands moving around upstairs and she final- ly clomped down the steps and came into my room. Joey was hang- ing on her arm still screaming.

A bell went off in my head! The Wool Pooh had missed Joey! He wasn’t having much luck at all with any of the Weird Watsons! I had to go to the church to get Momma and Dad and Byron!

Grandma Sands said,“What are all them sirens doing? Lord, has the whole world gone mad today? Where’s your momma and daddy?”

The World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital

Even though none of us kids got hurt by the bomb they acted like they were worried about us. They weren’t too worried about Byron and weren’t worried at all about Joey, we’d all agreed not to tell her what happened at that church and had left Birmingham that night, before she had a chance to find anything out. I was kind of surprised because the way Momma and Dad were talking I could tell they were

most worried about me.

“He is being awfully quiet.”

“Something’s wrong. I wonder if Mr. Robert’s friend was right, I wonder if he really did see Kenny in that church afterward. Lord, who knows what that poor baby saw.”

Byron called this little area the World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital and he made me and Joey believe that magic powers, genies and angels all lived back there. I was waiting to see if that was true.

He started calling it the World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital after we noticed that if something bad happened to one of our dogs or cats they just automatically knew they had to crawl in that space and wait to see if they were going to get better.

It was kind of strange, because whatever it was that was behind the couch seemed to work best on dogs. Whenever dogs survived the World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital they always came out a lot friend- lier. When they came out, they might walk kind of funny but it seemed like all they wanted to do was lick you and wobble around after you wherever you went. Blackie had been in the hospital twice and he got along great with everyone now, even strangers. Even cats. But cats were different, if one of them survived the hospital it’d come out and give you a dirty look and be a lot meaner than it was before it went in. Most of the time after a cat visited the World- Famous Watson Pet Hospital it wouldn’t let anyone but Joetta touch it, but that was O.K., because most of the time nobody but Joetta

wanted to touch those stupid cats anyway.

I only wanted to come out of the World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital to eat and go to the bathroom. I even started going into it after Momma and Dad went to bed at night. I started sleeping there. I spent so much time there that Byron finally figured out where I was going. I looked up one day and there were his eyeballs staring

down at me. “Hi, By.”

Byron walked over and turned on the TV, then stuck his head back behind the couch. “You wanna watch some TV?”

“Uh-uh.”

Even though Byron had a reputation for not being a snitch I got the feeling he told on me. When they sat on the couch Momma and Dad quit talking like nobody was around and got real careful about what they said. They started saying stuff about how proud they were of me and what a nice kid I was and junk like that, but it sounded like they’d been practicing what to say. I turned my ears off when they came around. Momma also quit bugging me to find out where I was going. I knew they’d busted me for sure when Joetta’s snitchity little face started peeking around the couch every morning.

Byron even started sleeping on the couch at night. Right after Momma and Dad went to bed and I crawled back there he’d come out with his pillow and blanket.

“Hi, By.”

“You already eat?” “Uh-uh.”

“O.K., I will in a minute.”

Byron grabbed my arm before I could crawl behind the couch. “Naw, man, at least stay for Felix the Cat.”

As much time as Byron started spending on the couch I thought I was going to have to make room for a bed for him in the World- Famous Watson Pet Hospital. Every time I’d look up he’d be there and we’d have to go eat or watch some TV or go to Mitchell’s for some- thing or change clothes or stuff like that.

One day his head popped over the back of the couch and he said, “Come on! I got something to show you!” I knew I had to go, if I wouldn’t he’d pull me out by my legs.

I climbed up on the toilet and leaned over the sink to see.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t looked in the mirror for a long time, but as soon as I saw myself with my lazy eye still being lazy and my face looking so sad I slammed my eyes shut and started crying. I even fell off the toilet. Byron caught me and set me on the floor.

“Why would they do that, Byron?” I was sounding real bad. My throat was jumping around in my neck and making a bunch of weird noises. “Why would they hurt some little kids like that?”

He waited a long time before he answered, “I don’t know, Kenny. Momma and Dad say they can’t help themselves, they did it because they’re sick, but I don’t know. I ain’t never heard of no sickness that makes you kill little girls just because you don’t want them in your school. I don’t think they’re sick at all, I think they just let hate eat them up and turn them into monsters. But it’s O.K. now, they can’t hurt you here. It’s all right.”

“But By . . .” I tried to think how to say it.“I’m not scared, I’m just real, real ashamed of myself.”That was it. That was the main thing I’d finally found out from being a patient in the World-Famous Watson Pet Hospital.

“Kenny, you ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s what you think, By, but I know better, I’ve seen him twice.” I couldn’t believe Byron was still talking to me. Most of the time if I

started sounding weepy and whiny he’d take right off.

outta that church?”

Byron started throwing me curveballs. “If you hadn’ta been born who would have took her away from that bomb? No one. If you had- n’ta been born and she walked outta that hot church and saw some stranger waving at her from across the street you think she would have followed him? Hell no. She’da gone right back in there. If you hadn’t been born who woulda gone in that church to see if Joey really was in there? Me and Momma and Dad was all too scared, you was the only one brave enough to go in there.” Every time he made a point he twisted my ear to make me understand better.

He walked over to the mirror and scrunched his face up so he could look at his chin again, then used his thumb and finger to pull that long, skinny black hair out a little bit. He let the hair go, smiled at himself and ran his hands along his head like he was brushing his hair.“Shoot,” he said, “I sure wish someone would come clean and tell me who my real folks was, there just ain’t no way in hell two people as ugly as your momma and daddy could ever have a child as fine as me!”

He blew himself a kiss in the mirror, then left the bathroom. Before he shut the door I could see that Momma and Dad and Joey were standing there in a little knot trying not to let me know they were eavesdropping.

He was also very wrong about there not being anything like magic powers or genies or angels. Maybe those weren’t the things that could make a run-over dog walk without wobbling but they were out there. Maybe they were in the way your father smiled at you even after you’d messed something up real bad. Maybe they were in the way you understood that your mother wasn’t trying to make you the laughing “sock” of the whole school when she’d call you over in front of a bunch of your friends and use spit on her finger to wipe the sleep out of your eyes. Maybe it was magic powers that let you know she was just being Momma. Maybe they were the reason that you really didn’t care when the kids would say, “Yuck! You let your momma slob on you?” and you had to say, “Shut up. That’s my momma, we got the

same germs.”

Joetta banged on the bathroom door. “Kenny, Byron said you’re feeling much better now, if that’s right come on out, I gotta go to the bathroom real bad!” She said “real” like it had a million letters in it.

Some of the time I wondered if there really was something wrong with me.A few minutes ago I’d been crying on the floor like a kinder- garten baby and now I was looking in the mirror laughing. I blew my nose and splashed a little water on my face ’cause I wanted to go out. Besides, I had to think of a way to get at least half of my dinosaurs back from Rufus.

Epilogue

to liberate India from British rule. Sit-ins and boycotts of stores and public transportation applied economic pressure. Freedom Riders— African Americans and whites—took bus trips throughout the South to test federal laws that banned segregation in interstate transportation. Black students had enrolled in segregated schools such as Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the University of Alabama. Picketing, protest marches, and demonstrations made headlines. Civil rights work- ers carried out programs for voter education and registration. The goal was to create tension and provoke confrontations that would force the federal government to step in and enforce the laws. Often the tension exploded into gunshots, fires and bombings directed against the people who so bravely fought for change.

The characters and events in this novel are fictional. However, there were many unsolved bombings in Birmingham at the time of the story, including the one that took place at the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. Four young-teenage girls— Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley—were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday school. Addie Mae Collins’s sister, Sarah, had to have an eye removed, and another girl was blinded. In the unrest that followed the bombing, two other African American children died. Sixteen-year-old Johnny Robinson was shot to death by police, and thirteen-year-old Virgil Wade was murdered by two white boys. Although these may be noth- ing more than names in a book to you now, you must remember that these children were just as precious to their families as Joetta was to the Watsons or as your brothers and sisters are to you.

These people are the true American heroes.They are the boys and girls, the women an men who have seen that things are wrong and have not been afraid to ask “Why can’t we change this?”They are the people who believe that as long as one person is being treated unfair- ly, we all are.These are our heroes, and they still walk among us today. One of them may be sitting next to you as you read this, or standing in the next room making your dinner, or waiting for you to come out- side and play.

One of them may be you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Winner of the Newbery Medal by Christopher Paul Curtis

It’s 1936, in Flint, Michigan.Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run. But Bud’s got a few things going for him:

Bud, Not Buddy is full of laugh-out-loud humor and wonderful characters, hitting the high notes ofjazz and sounding the deeper tones of the Great Depression. Once again Christopher Paul Curtis takes readers on a heartwarming and unforgettable journey.

• “A crackerjack read-aloud.”