©R M
‘Bob’ Leahy
DRAFT:
Last edited 12 May 2008
Approximate
word count: 4,500
Comments: drbobleahy@msn.com
For Diane—I hope I
did your idea justice
Eight-year-old
Mandy Jenkins cried softly into her pillow.
She often did. Especially lately,
as she recalled the way her classmates teased her.
She
felt Joan hovering near her bed. Don’t cry.
“I
can’t help it,” she said, without lifting her head from the pillow. “Everybody hates me. Everybody teases me. Nobody likes me.”
Nobody?
“Nobody,”
Mandy cried. She lifted her head from
the pillow, brushing her reddish brown hair from her wet cheeks. “Nobody but Toby.” She allowed her head to fall heavily back
against the tear-dampened pillow. “Nobody
but Toby,” she said again.
Toby’s a good friend. Remember what he said the other day?
Joan
was a good guardian. Mandy thought back
to the walk home from school the other day.
“Of
course I like you,” Toby Crutchfield told her, his blue eyes staring into her
eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?” He gave her a big smile that revealed his
chipped front tooth. D’Nae had made fun
of that when they were all in the same class back in first grade.
“Nobody
else does,” Mandy said, fighting back tears.
“They
just act that way ‘cause D’Nae does,” Toby said. He brushed a shock of his curly hair from him
forehead. “And I don’t know why D’Nae does
that stuff.”
“She’s
mean,” Mandy said fiercely. “And she
hates me.”
“If
she hates you, then that’s her problem,” Toby said. “You hafta return hate with love. You hafta return meanness with kindness. That’s what Pastor Collins says. You’ve heard him say it a hunnerd times.”
“But
it hurts,” Mandy said. “And it makes me
mad.”
“I
know,” Toby replied. “I get mad, too.”
“And
I want to hit D’Nae. I want to pull her
hair and scratch her.”
“But
you never do.”
“No,
I never do,” Mandy sighed. “Joan tells
me not to.”
“Joan’s
right.”
Hearing
the echo of Toby’s pronouncement in her head, Mandy was comforted. As the nightly freight train whistled, she
was able to calm down and began to drift toward sleep.
“Sit
still, Amanda,” Gramma Grayson leaned over and told her. “It will be just a little longer.”
Mandy
tried to mind her grandmother. She
fiddled with the new, stiffly starched
collar of the white blouse she wore under the navy blue jumper her dad had picked
out for her to wear. She looked up at
her dad, who sat on the other side of her.
His eyes were puffy and red. He stared in the direction of Pastor
Collins, but Mandy was pretty sure he didn’t see him. She didn’t think he could hear him either.
Mandy
smoothed the jumper across her lap before looking back as the minister
continued to talk about her mother. He
seemed to be looking at her now, so she tried especially hard to listen to
him. Pastor Collins smiled at her. “Mandy, I hope you will always remember your
mother was an earthly angel. And now she
is an angel in God’s army of angels. She
now flies over the shoulder of a newborn babe to watch over her and help her to
be a good girl.”
The
image of her white-robed, winged mother over the shoulder of some lucky little
girl was the picture Mandy tried to keep in her mind. It was such a pretty picture. A much prettier picture than the last one Mandy
had of her mother lying on the hospital bed that had been moved into the den
the last time her mom came home. Mandy
hated that bed and the memory of how her mother looked lying there with the
plastic bag hanging over her head and the big machine nearby that beeped. Her mom was almost always asleep. She seemed to frown all the time. Her face was so thin. Her hair so dull. Mandy didn’t really recognize her. She wasn’t really her mom. Not then.
“We
need to listen to our own angels,” Pastor Collins was saying. “Our angels are our links to God. If we listen, they will tell us what to
do. They will help us do what is
right. They will help us be pleasing in
the sight of the Lord.” The minister’s
gaze fell back on Mandy. He smiled down
at her. “Will you remember that,
Mandy? Will you remember to trust in
your angel the way your mother did?”
Mandy
nodded, meaning it. Pastor Collins sat
down, and Mrs. Cochrane started playing something on the organ. Mandy looked up at her dad. His body was shaking slightly. He was crying again. Mandy stood up and moved
in front of him, reached up, and gave him a great big hug. He pulled her up onto his lap and wrapped her
in his strong arms and kissed her on the forehead.
Mandy
fell asleep feeling the warmth of her father’s embrace.
* * * * * *
D’Nae
Solomon was the biggest girl in the second grade at Cleveland Elementary. She was the biggest kid. And she was strong. She could throw a punch if she needed
to. So even the boys did what she told
them to. At least, they did since she
beat up Jeremy Coates when he tried to be captain of her red rover team.
Every
now and again, Jeremy or one of the other boys would complain that it wasn’t
fair that D’Nae was always captain. But
none of them ever said it loud enough for D’Nae to hear. And while almost everyone that heard the
complaint would silently agree, no one ever outwardly agreed. And everyone remembered the bloody lip and
swollen eye Jeremy received the last time D’Nae was challenged for her
position.
For
a few weeks at the beginning of the spring term, D’Nae had teased Greg Gantry—a
new kid in the class who moved from Alabama.
He was smaller than most of his classmates. And he talked with a drawl that D’Nae
disliked. Even though Mandy kind of
liked the drawl, she was afraid to say so.
D’Nae liked to exaggerate the drawl, making all her words have extra
syllables as she spoke really slowly.
Mandy never did that. But she
never spoke up and told D’Nae not to do it.
Joan
pestered her for weeks to go over and talk to Greg. But she didn’t. She felt guilty. But she steered clear of both D’Nae and Greg
during recess.
At
least she did until her teacher, Miss Crane, put Greg into Mandy’s reading
group. Next, she paired the two up to
recite a poem together. For a week, part
of each reading session was spent practicing their poem. Mandy did the title. Greg gave the name of the poet. Mandy did the first line, and Greg did the
second. Back and forth they went until
the last line, which they recited together.
Mandy grew to like her short, blond-haired classmate.
“You
have to talk faster,” Mandy told him as they worked on the poem. She always finished the line before he did.
“Why
don’t y’all go slower,” Greg replied.
“All y’all talk too fast up here.”
“Does
everybody talk as slow as you do in Alabama?” Mandy asked him.
“It
ain’t slow,” Greg told her, while he tugged on his ear. “It just ain’t fast like there’s a
fi-are. There ain’t no reason to get to
the end of somethin’ without takin’ a breath.
That’s what my momma says, least wha-ays.”
Over
and over, they practiced that last line: “My angel will cheer me up when I’m
sad.” By the end of the week, they
started and finished at the same time.
The following Monday, Miss Crane called on them to be the first pair to
read their poem:
My
Angel
By Jessica Bousfield
My angel is the one who looks over me
My angel is the who cares for me
My angel is the one who loves me
My angel has beautiful brown eyes
My angel has beautiful black hair
My angel will be there when I get hurt
My angel will be the one that is always on my mind
He is the angel that keeps me breathing
[She] is the angel of my dreams
He is the angel that keeps me alive
My angel will cheer me up when I’m sad
The
class clapped when they were done, and Miss Crane told them they did a very
good job. “Do you believe in angels,”
she asked them.
“I
do,” Mandy replied. “My angel helps me
be good—just like it says in the poem. Greg
barely nodded, reddened a bit and tugged on his ear.
Starting
that very Monday at lunch, D’Nae started to pick on her. “How’s your angel, Mandy?” the larger girl asked
her as she walked into the cafeteria behind Mandy.
Mandy
turned and began to answer, “My angel is fine.
Why wouldn’t she be?”
But
D’Nae’s laughter cut her off.
Mandy
looked at her in surprise. She started
to survey the large, green lunchroom.
Many of the students around her were staring at her. Some of them
started to laugh, too. She felt the room
shrink around her, as she continued to look around. She did notice Greg Gantry, sitting off to
one side by himself. He stared down at
his lunch, tugging on his ear. Mandy
thought he was ignoring her. Mandy felt
heat flush across her face. Her hands
tightened into balls at her sides.
“Maybe
your angel can cheer you up now,” D’Nae said.
Walk away, Mandy.
Mandy
could feel tears welling up in her eyes.
Everyone she could see seemed to be laughing. She wondered why D’Nae was picking on her. She wanted to hit D’Nae, to scratch her, and make her stop
laughing. But she couldn’t move.
Walk away. Walk away. Walk away.
“Leave
me alone!”
“What’s
going on here?” Miss Crane asked, as she came closer to the circle of children
standing in the corner of the cafeteria.
“You need to get in line and get your food.”
“Yes,
Miss Crane,” D’Nae said. She turned
quickly and half-walked, half-ran to the end of the serving line. Most of the other kids turned and scampered
after her. D’Nae and several of the
other girls giggled once they were in line waiting to receive their trays of
food.
A
couple of the girls gave Mandy a sympathetic look before turning and walking
slowly to the end of the line.
“Do
you need to tell me anything?” Miss Crane asked.
Although
Miss Crane did not seem to be upset with Mandy, Mandy did not have anything to
say to her. She ducked her head and
walked slowly out of the cafeteria.
“Mandy?”
Miss Crane called after her.
But
Mandy did not turn around.
* * * * * *
A
few days later, walking home with Toby Crutchfield, Mandy stopped under the
chain-link fencing that arced over the Clark Street overpass. She often stopped in the middle of the bridge
over the railway tracks. She hung her
arms over the rail and stared down through the diamonds of wire.
Toby,
who had walked on a few more steps, stopped and studied his friend. He came back to her, turned and stared down
at the tracks, too. “What’s the matter? You been actin’ funny since Monday.”
“Nothin’.”
“I
know it’s somethin’,” Toby said.
Mandy
sighed. “It’s D’Nae,” she said.
Brushing
her hair back from her forehead, the young girl looked down at the tracks. Bits of glass sparkled like gems along the rails. She sighed as the distant whistle of the
afternoon train sounded. Mandy waited for
the train to pass under the overpass.
The metal bridge started to shake as the train approached.
The
engineer waved at the pair as he neared the bridge. Toby waved back. Mandy only half-waved. Toby put his fingers in his ears as the rails
screeched under the weight of the engine.
She
could feel the power of the train as it rolled beneath her. She could smell the oil in the air as the
train roared below. Mandy’s reddish
brown hair blew across her face in the breeze caused by the racing train.
As
the last of the metal squeals and rattles of the passing train echoed across
the bridge, Toby unplugged his ears and asked, “What’s D’Nae doing now?”
“She’s
teasing me about angels ever since Greg and me recited our poem in class.”
“Why’s
she teasing you about angels?”
“I
don’t know. I don’t think she believes
in them.”
“That’s
pretty stupid. She’s heard the same
stories in Sunday school me and you been told.
There’s angels at Christmas.
There’s angels at Easter. Angels
are always comin’ down to tell people what God wants them to do. Angels are everywhere. They are there to help us do right.”
Mandy
nodded. She thought for a moment, then said, “But I still don’t think she
believes in them. Why else would she
tease me?”
“D’Nae
has to be teasing somebody,” Toby said.
“I’m just glad she’s not in my class this year.”
“I
wish she wasn’t in mine.”
“She’ll
find someone else to tease,” Toby told her, giving her a big, chipped-tooth
smile. “She always does.”
Mandy
half-smiled back. “Sometimes I wish I
was an angel.”
Toby
smiled again.
“Don’t
you think being an angel would be great?”
“I
don’t know,” Toby said after a moment of thought. “Sounds like it would be a lot of work. And what if you got someone like D’Nae? Do you think you could make her be good? Do you think her angel gets in trouble with
God when D’Nae teases people like she does?”
Mandy
stared down the tracks. “Maybe D’Nae
doesn’t have an angel,” she said. “Maybe
that’s D’Nae’s problem.”
“I
bet her angel quit. I know I would if I
had to try and make her be good,” Toby said.
“Do
you think an angel can quit?” Mandy asked.
“I
don’t know,” Toby said. “Maybe her angel
got fired ‘cause it wasn’t gettin’ the job done.”
“Wouldn’t
God give her another angel?” Mandy wondered.
“Maybe
nobody volunteered,” Toby said. “Maybe
there ain’t any extras right now.”
“You
think God ran out of angels?”
“Maybe. Mrs. Harper says there are more people now
than there ever was before.”
The
two friends headed for home. A block
later, they came upon Mrs. Cochrane. She
was sitting on the bench at the bus stop with several bags of groceries by her
feet. Mrs. Cochrane lived a few doors
down from Toby on the opposite side of the block from Mandy’s house. She was an old woman, older than Mandy’s
Gramma Grayson. Her hair was thin and
white under a dark blue scarf.
“Am
I glad to see you,” she said as the pair neared her.
“Hello,
Mrs. Cochrane,” Mandy said, coming closer to her elderly neighbor. “How are you today?”
“I’m
all right, Miss Mandy,” she replied with a slight laugh. But I bought too many groceries. And I am getting tired trying to get them all
back home.”
“We
can help,” Toby volunteered.
“Sure,”
Mandy agreed. And she reached down and
grabbed two of the bags.
Toby
picked up the rest of them.
“I
can carry some,” Mrs. Cochrane said.
“It’s
okay,” Toby said. “We got all of them.”
“You
know, your mother used to help me out with my groceries, Mandy. I’d see her at the store, and she would offer
to take the sacks of groceries back to my house and leave them on the porch for
me. Then I could walk home and not have
to try and carry them. She was an angel
that way—kept me from having a stroke while taking the walk my doctor tells me
I have to take.” Mrs. Cochrane laughed
at her own little joke.
Mandy
just nodded.
While
Mrs. Cochrane thanked them and they walked and talked the few blocks to the small white house on
the corner where the elderly woman lived, part of Mandy’s thought remained
focused on the angel shortage. She
wondered if she should ask her neighbor about it, but she didn’t. She thought about it while she ate
dinner. Her dad asked her about school
like he always did, and then there was nothing but silence as they ate some
chicken and salad he had picked up on the way home. She thought about angels while she did her
homework. She thought about them that
night as she went to bed. She almost
asked her dad about the angels when he came in to tuck her in. But she didn’t. And then, after he kissed her on the
forehead, he turned out the light and closed the door.
In
the darkness, Mandy felt the reassuring presence of her angel. “D’Nae needs an
angel,” she told her.
D’Nae has an angel.
“Are
you sure?” Mandy asked Joan.
There
was no answer.
“D’Nae
needs a better angel.”
“D’Nae needs to listen.”
The
nightly freight train sounded its whistle as it started through town. “I’m
going to pray for a better angel,” Mandy said at last. Then she rolled over and went to sleep.
* * * * * *
At
lunch on Friday, D’Nae Solomon was standing with three other girls near the end
of the serving line. None of them had
picked up the meals. Mandy could hear
them giggling as she approached carrying her tray of spaghetti, fruit and
salad. She tried to swing around the
small group.
The
next thing Mandy knew, she was spread-eagled on the floor. D’Nae stood over her, laughing. The whole lunchroom was laughing. “Didn’t your angel catch you?” D’Nae asked.
“That
was me-un, D’Nae. Even for y’all.” Mandy was surprised to her Greg Gantry speak
up behind her.
“And
what are you goin’ to do about it?” D’Nae asked, turning and glaring at the
small, blond-headed boy.
“Leave
him alone,” Mandy said, getting to her knees.
“He didn’t do anything to you.”
She balled her fists and stared at the larger girl.
This is not the way.
Mandy
clenched her teeth. She watched as Greg
retreated to the other side of the cafeteria.
Still on her knees, she glared at D’Nae.
Take a deep breath. Getting mad doesn’t help.
“Run,
you big baby,” D’Nae called after him.
“You
need a better angel watching over you,” Mandy said, getting to her feet. A couple of other girls helped her pick up
her spilled tray. “If I was your angel,
you wouldn’t be such a bully.”
“What?”
D’Nae asked.
“I
just wish there were some way for me to be your angel. Maybe I could make you be nice,” Mandy
said. Then, before D’Nae could reply,
she turned and left the cafeteria.
Greg
Gantry, his head ducked down, tugged on his ear and watched Mandy go. He gave a backward glance toward D’Nae, but
quickly turned back to stare down at his tray of food when he caught her
staring right at him.
“What’s
going on here?” asked Miss Crane, as she came from the other side of the
cafeteria.
“Nothin’,
Ma’am.” D’Nae said. “Mandy just spilled
her tray, and then she ran out of the lunchroom.”
Miss
Crane gave D’Nae a strange look. “If you
girls have already eaten, you need to go out to the playground.”
Two
of the girls who were standing near D’Nae ran to the end of the serving
line. D’Nae and the two others slowly
walked across the lunchroom and down the hallway through which Mandy had
disappeared. The cafeteria was very
quiet until D’Nae was no longer in sight.
Then there was a soft buzz of conversation all across the room.
Mandy
usually waited for Toby Crutchfield by the flagpole in front of Cleveland
Elementary school. They walked the six
blocks home together. Most of the
students lived further away, and they took the buses that waited in a long line
of yellow on the south side of the old, brown school building.
But
Mandy didn’t wait for Toby today. The
second she was out the door, she half-walked, half-ran down Forster Avenue
toward the Clark Street overpass.
Greg
Gantry noticed that Mandy had skipped past the flagpole and was hurrying down
the street. He usually took the bus to
and from school; but today, he followed Mandy.
He only lived a few blocks further away from school than Mandy and Toby. He had to run to keep her in sight.
Mandy
left the sidewalk as she approached the overpass.
Where are you going?
There
was just enough room for her to squeeze between the fence that arced over the
walkway and the metal bumper guard that ran along the top of the hill along the
edge of the street, after she took off her backpack and slid it through the
opening. She put the pack back on before
she headed down the hill. There was a
well-worn footpath that led down the embankment to the railway tracks that ran
under the bridge. It was a steep path,
and a little slippery. And, despite
being as careful as she could be, Mandy slid the last several feet down the
path to the rocky, flat ground of the rail bed.
What are you doing down here?
The
smells of stale beer and urine assaulted her.
She sneezed once, and then again, as the pungent odors engulfed
her. Beer cans, broken beer and whiskey
bottles were everywhere along the tall grass that ran at the base of the hill.
You shouldn’t be here.
Once
she recovered her balance, Mandy tried breathing through her mouth, hoping to
be rid of the strong smells, but she found she could taste the odors when she
did. Deciding the taste was worse than
just the smell, she closed her mouth.
She looked down the tracks and listened.
She did not hear the train. She
could hear the cars passing overhead.
She thought she heard someone calling to her, but she didn’t look
around. No one knew she was here. She didn’t want anyone to find her. She moved
under the bridge, feeling the concrete wall with her hand as she slid into the
shadows.
You need to go home.
Mandy
jumped when Toby grabbed her.
“What
are you doin’ down here?” he asked.
She
turned, and saw her curly-haired friend standing just under the edge of the
overpass. And, just beyond him, she saw
Greg Gantry, too. As he was stared in
the opposite direction down the track, he pulled on her ear.
“What
are you doing here?” Mandy asked Toby.
“Greg
told me you came down here. He said he
saw you climb through the fence.”
“Why
did he follow me?” Mandy asked. Then,
moving away from the wall a bit and looking past Toby, she asked her
blond-haired classmate, “Why did you follow me?”
Greg is helping me watch over
you.
“Y’all
didn’t wait for Toby like you always do.”
“That’s
because I have something I hafta’ do,” Mandy yelled.
“What
do you hafta do down here?” Toby asked.
“It’s
none of your business.”
Amanda Marie Jenkins—this isn’t
like you.
“D’Nae
tripped her at lunch and spilled her tray all over the cafeteria,” Greg said,
taking a tentative step toward Toby and Mandy.
“Did
you get hurt?” Toby asked.
“Mandy
said she wished she was D’Nae’s angel.
She would make her act nice,” Greg said.
“I bet she needs more than one angel to make her nice,” he added.
Toby
studied Mandy’s face for a minute. “What
were you gonna do?”
“I
don’t know,” Mandy said. “I wanted to do
something. Maybe I can be D’Nae’s
angel.”
“How?”
Greg asked, now just a step behind Toby.
“Yeah,
how?” Toby echoed.
Mandy
didn’t say anything. She just looked out
across the tracks.
“You
think God will let you be an angel if you did that?” Toby asked a moment later.
Listen to Toby.
The
whistle of the approaching train could be heard in the distance.
“We
gotta get out of here,” Toby said, grabbing Mandy’s hand and turning back
toward the footpath. Greg turned and ran
toward the hill and started up without waiting for the other two.
Mandy
resisted Toby’s tug on her.
Go with Toby.
“Come
on,” Toby said. “It don’t work that
way.”
“But?”
“No. You can’t kill yourself and then expect to be
somebody else’s angel,” Toby said. “Now
come on.”
The
rattle of the train grew louder. Greg’s
yell to hurry was almost drowning out by the growing screech of the engine on
the rails.
At
the bottom of the hill, Toby pushed Mandy in front of him up the footpath. They were only part way up the embankment
when the train whistled and started to rattle past them and under the bridge. The pair continued up the hill. Greg waited for them at the top. The last cars of the train were just passing
into the shadows of the overpass when Mandy and Toby reached the very top.
There
were tears in Mandy’s eyes when she stopped near Greg.
He
looked at her, then ducked his head and tugged on his ear.
“What’s
the matter now?” Toby asked, when he came up beside her.
“It’s
just…D’Nae’s so mean.”
“I
know,” Toby said. He brushed a brown
curl from his forehead and gave her his chipped-tooth smile.
Mandy
felt no better.
“Remember
how I got this?” Toby asked, pointing to the chipped tooth.
Mandy
shook her head.
“D’Nae
tripped me out at recess when I was trying to catch a ball.”
“I
don’t remember,” Mandy said.
“Maybe
you missed school that day. With your
mom sick, you were gone a lot.”
“D’Nae
tripped y’all, too?” Greg asked.
“Sure
did.”
“What
did y’all do?”
“Tried
not to cry,” Toby said.
“I
don’t think you told me,” Mandy said.
“You
know what Pastor Collins says—if you can’t say somethin’ nice….”
“We
best be gettin’ home, y’all,” Greg said, turning toward the gap between the
chain-linked fence and the bumper guard.
He reached down and picked up his Scooby Doo pack as Toby followed him
to the sidewalk. Toby’s Spiderman pack
was at Greg’s feet. Mandy took off her
pack and pushed it through the opening before sidling through herself.
The
trio walked in silence for a block.
“You
need help again, Mrs. Cochrane?” Toby asked.
Mandy
looked up, and there on the bench where they had seen her the other day was
Mrs. Cochrane and another load of groceries.
“I
sure do,” the white-haired woman said. “You’re
just the angels I was praying for. I couldn’t
walk any further than the bus stop with these heavy sacks.” She shifted her gaze from Toby to Greg. “And who is this fine young man?” she asked,
with a nod to the small, blond-headed boy.
“This
is Greg Gantry,” Mandy said. “He’s new
in my class. He’s from Alabama.”
“So
they have angels all the way down in Alabama, too,” Mrs. Cochrane said, taking
Greg’s hand.
“I’m
not an angel,” Greg said, turning red.
‘Of
course you are. Mandy wouldn’t have
anything less than an angel for a friend.”
(END)