Belle Teal Read online

  I have been hard at work on my costume. I have taken four books about Christmas out of our school library, and I have been studying Mary’s clothes. Mostly her outfit looks like a blue bathrobe with a hood. I kind of wish for a more interesting costume. It would have been fun to turn those feathers into a rooster outfit, or to glue cotton balls onto a leotard to make a sheep costume, or to make spangly wings for the angel Gabriel, or even to make one of those curvy sticks the shepherds carry. Still, it is going to take some doing to get Mary’s robe just right, and now Gran, she doesn’t seem to be a lot of help about it. I guess I am on my own.

  One interesting thing is that in those Christmas books the pageant people all look different. I want to know more about the colored king, and when I go looking for him I see that in one book the Baby Jesus has black hair and in one book he has blonde hair, and those swaddling clothes never look the same. Each picture is different. Now the kings, in one book they are all definitely white. And a couple of books don’t show pictures of them, but in the fourth there is a king with brown skin and black hair. I don’t see his name anywhere, so I don’t know anything more about King Gaspar, but before I return that book to Mrs. Harvey our librarian, I write down the title and author in case there is further trouble about Darryl and his part in the pageant. I want to be able to show the picture to Chas and Vernon and Little Boss.

  One night after I have finished my homework, I pull out my costume. I have decided that I should make an attractive belt to go around the robe. One of the pictures I have seen shows a sort of rope around Mary’s middle, but I think I could make something just a little fancier. I am sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of yarn in all colors, and Gran has already asked me six times what am I doing. I don’t know how to answer her any differently to get the point across.

  Gran looks up from staring into the fire. “Why, Belle Teal,” she says. “What’s all that?”

  This time I do not answer her directly. “I am so excited about our pageant,” I say. “I still can’t believe Miss Casey picked me to play Mary. This has been the best school year of my life. I have gotten almost straight A’s, and me and Darryl got our Halloween book put right in the library for all the world to see, with an A plus on it. And now the pageant and the Christmas program. Everyone is going to love our fruitcake, Gran.”

  “We better get started on that,” says Gran, looking back into the fire.

  One Monday morning, about two weeks before Christmas, I am waiting for the bus bright and early. I am hopping from foot to foot, but I hardly notice the cold. Today is the day of our first big rehearsal for the pageant. I have brought my costume with me so’s I can show Miss Casey how it is coming along. I certainly am proud of the green and pink and orange yarn belt I braided.

  The second that bus squeaks to a stop and the door whooshes open, I leap up the steps, call hello to Bernette, and start looking for Clarice. The bus seems quiet to me, but really all I can think about is the belt.

  “Clarice! Look!” I cry as I spot her. I am pulling out the belt before I even sit down.

  “Belle Teal,” Clarice says, somber-like, and I think she doesn’t like the belt.

  “I know these might not be the right colors for Mary —” I start to say, suddenly concerned about what I have done, and that’s when someone taps me on the shoulder from behind.

  “What?” I say, turning around and stuffing the belt back in my costume bag.

  Chas and Vernon are eyeing me darkly. “I guess you haven’t heard,” says Vernon.

  “Heard what?” I reply. I glance at Clarice and I can tell that whatever it is, she already knows it too. I get a very bad feeling. Also, I am mad at the boys because they seem so eager to give me this news that I am probably not going to like.

  “About Darryl. And Little Boss,” says Vernon.

  He is really dragging this out. Even Chas looks impatient, and finally he jumps in and says, “Me and Vernon went over to Little Boss’s house yesterday and only Big Boss was there and he said Little Boss couldn’t come outside because he’s in the hospital.”

  “Because Darryl shot him,” exclaims Vernon triumphantly.

  I am stunned. Darryl shot Little Boss? The boys must have this backwards. They must mean that Little Boss shot Darryl. But no, that is not what they said. I feel my teeth begin to chatter. I think of our Halloween joke. Then I think of all that Little Boss has done to Darryl since school started. But still . . .

  Everything about this seems wrong. And at first the only thing I can think to say is, “If Little Boss is in the hospital, why wasn’t Big Boss there with him?”

  Chas and Vernon shrug. Then Chas says, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  I am not sure I do, but I say, “Okay.”

  “Well, Big Boss,” Chas begins, “he came home from a job on Saturday afternoon” (I am thinking, more likely he came home from a bar) “and he found Little Boss bleeding in front of their house. Says he saw Darryl in the woods at the edge of their yard. And that Darryl had shot Little Boss with his hunting rifle. Little Boss is going to be all right, but he has to stay in the hospital until tomorrow.”

  Once again, this just sounds plain wrong. One thing, I know that Darryl doesn’t have any hunting rifle. Two, if Darryl had shot Little Boss, why would he stick around and spy after?

  “Darryl,” I say slowly, “doesn’t have a hunting rifle. He doesn’t have any kind of gun.”

  “Then it must have been his father’s,” replies Chas.

  “Darryl doesn’t believe in killing animals,” I go on.

  “Just in killing white people,” says Vernon.

  I want to say, “Well, if that’s the truth, then the two of you will probably be next,” but I clomp my mouth closed. I don’t want to get Darryl into any more trouble. “I don’t believe it,” I say.

  “It’s what happened,” says Vernon.

  “There’s no accounting for Darryl’s kind,” adds Chas.

  I want to clobber both of them, but I look toward the front of the bus and notice Bernette glancing at us in the mirror. I swivel back and say in a loud whisper, “You mean to tell me that Darryl shot Little Boss, then hung around in the woods until Big Boss came home? Why would he want to be caught by Big Boss?”

  Chas and Vernon shrug.

  “Do you really believe Darryl went over to Little Boss’s house and tried to kill him? Come on,” I say.

  “Well, he didn’t go over there on purpose to murder him,” says Vernon.

  “Yeah, Darryl was out hunting and he was too close to the Stompers’ house and he shot at a squirrel and hit Little Boss instead,” says Chas. “I bet it made him real happy.”

  I still do not believe this. Not one word.

  Bernette pulls the bus to a stop in front of Coker Creek Elementary, and what is the first thing I set my eyes on but Darryl and his mother and a tall man who must be his father all walking through the front doors of the school.

  “Hey!” I cry. “Look! There’s Darryl. You,” I say to Chas and Vernon, “are crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Darryl couldn’t possibly have tried to kill Little Boss. If he had, he wouldn’t be at school now, would he?”

  “Darryl’s been saying he didn’t do it, says he was home the entire day,” replies Chas.

  Now that sounds more like the truth.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Clarice. We are off the bus in a flash and running to our classroom. When we reach the doorway, there is Miss Casey talking quietly in the hall with Mr. and Mrs. Craig. We run by them and find Darryl inside sitting at his desk. I grab his hand and pull him to the back of the room.

  “You hear?” he asks us.

  “Chas and Vernon told us on the bus,” I say.

  “But we don’t believe them,” adds Clarice.

  “What really happened?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” says Darryl, which is not what I expect him to say.

  “What do you mean?” asks Clarice.

  “I mean I w
asn’t anywhere near Little Boss’s house on Saturday. I would never go over there. I was just at home that evening and a knock came at the door and my father answered it and a policeman was there and started asking me all these questions. Said Big Boss phoned them from the hospital — only he didn’t say ‘Big Boss,’ he said ‘Mr. Stomper’ — to say he had come home to find his boy bleeding on the front porch and he had seen me in the woods with a hunting rifle and I must have shot Little Boss.”

  “What did your father say?” I ask.

  “He told the policeman I was home all day, and that Reverend Watts — he’s our preacher — was visiting. He stayed for hours. He knows I was at home too.”

  “So then everything is okay, right?” I say. “You’re here in school. They didn’t take you away or anything.”

  “Yeah, but it’s our word against a white man’s,” says Darryl. “And you know who people are going to believe.”

  “They might believe Reverend Watts,” says Clarice. “Everyone knows him.”

  All I say is, “Mmm.” I am thinking of the look on Big Boss’s face when he showed up at the Halloween party and saw the trick me and Darryl had played on Little Boss.

  Clarice is frowning. “Darryl,” she says, “if you didn’t do anything to Little Boss, then is he really in the hospital?”

  “The policeman said he was,” Darryl answers.

  “So what happened? Why is he in the hospital?” I ask.

  Darryl shrugs.

  “Chas and Vernon said he’d be home tomorrow,” Clarice reminds me.

  I have this horrible heavy feeling in my head. Then my stomach starts to feel all watery, and I am afraid I might throw up. I am very worried about Little Boss, and very worried about Darryl.

  Miss Casey steps back inside our classroom and calls us to order. I try to calm myself down. As I slide into my seat I notice how quiet the room is. Most of the kids are staring at Darryl. But Miss Casey, she claps her hands for attention so everyone shifts to her instead.

  The morning passes okay. At lunchtime, Miss Casey hovers around Darryl and Clarice and me in case there’s trouble, but she doesn’t need to. Nobody treats us any different than usual. At recess, we even manage to write up a City Lights Christmas episode.

  Later, when we have settled in at our desks again, Miss Casey announces that our first rehearsal is going to have to wait until the next day, as the third-graders need the auditorium this afternoon. I do not know if this is true or not. I think maybe Miss Casey wants to be sure there isn’t going to be any trouble about Darryl.

  “Bring your costumes to school tomorrow,” Miss Casey tells us. “We will have a dress rehearsal.”

  At the end of the day, Mrs. Craig appears at the door to our room to walk Darryl home. Clarice and me, we walk close behind the Craigs on our way to the bus. In the hallway a bunch of kids turn and stare at Darryl. And then I hear a loud, papery “Ssssss,” and I see HRH Vanessa hissing like a serpent at the Craigs, so I march up to her and stomp on her foot and don’t even look back when she cries out.

  Little Boss doesn’t come back to school until Wednesday. On Tuesday, we have our very first dress rehearsal. We hold it after recess, and we get to use the auditorium and the stage. A few students are hanging around in the hallway outside, curious. But Miss Casey will only allow our class in the auditorium. We are as excited and noisy as a flock of geese, and Miss Casey doesn’t want us any more riled up.

  We have one problem with the pageant, though, which is that we are missing one of our kings.

  I think Miss Casey is feeling sorry for HRH Vanessa and her teeny tiny role, because she says to her, “Vanessa, just for today, would you like to be our third king?”

  I think what a big spoily Vanessa is with even Miss Casey giving in to her whining sometimes, but HRH surprises me by answering, “No, ma’am.” She pauses. “Thank you.”

  Miss Casey looks surprised too. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, but only boys should play the kings.”

  Hmm. I think what Vanessa is saying is, “Only white boys should play the kings.”

  “All right,” says Miss Casey crisply. “Well, then, who would like to take Ray’s part for today?”

  A couple of hands go up, and Miss Casey chooses a different shepherd to be the king. She looks like she wants to choose Clarice, the only girl who raised her hand, but Clarice needs to practice her narration lines.

  The rehearsal isn’t quite a disaster, but if it had been the real thing, the audience would have been hooting and snickering at us for certain. Tinsley Ashburn’s donkey costume looks more like a cat. Vanessa has chosen pink ballet slippers as her shepherd shoes, pointing out that shepherds weren’t girls either (which I don’t know if that is true or not), so who can say what shoes they would have worn? Stephen Haines’s Joseph costume isn’t bad, but Stephen won’t stand any closer than three feet away from me, I think because I am a girl, so Miss Casey decides there will always have to be something in between us onstage — the donkey or the manger or whatever — so’s we won’t look strange standing so far apart.

  I am annoyed with Stephen. It is ridiculous for his fear of girl cooties to get in the way of our pageant, and on Wednesday morning as me and Clarice step off the bus in front of school, I say, “I am going to have a talk with Stephen today. If he thinks —”

  I stop talking when I hear brakes screeching and see Big Boss’s pickup parked sloppily in back of our bus, its engine idling. Big Boss slithers out of the driver’s side, then hustles around to the passenger door and opens it for Little Boss. Little Boss, he climbs out very, very careful-like, carrying a pair of crutches. He sticks the crutches under his arms and hops along the walk to the front door, Big Boss at his side, holding Little Boss’s lunch and notebook, a cigarette dangling from between his lips.

  Clarice and me stand back and watch in awe. We have never seen Big Boss treat Little Boss so nice.

  Big Boss walks Little Boss all the way to our classroom. He takes a long look in the room before he leaves, and I am afraid he is going to do something, although I don’t know what, but he just swaggers off.

  As soon as he’s out of sight, I run to Little Boss, who is trying to settle himself and the crutches at his desk. His lunch falls on the floor and I pick it up for him. “Here you go,” I say.

  “Thanks.” Little Boss stuffs the bag in his desk.

  “So what happened?” I ask. “Is your leg broken?”

  Little Boss looks at the bandage on his foot. “No,” he mumbles.

  “Is the bullet —”

  I am still speaking when Clarice, she pulls me away and steers me to my desk. “I don’t think he wants to talk about it,” she says.

  Darryl appears in the doorway a few minutes later. He has walked to school by himself today. When he sees Little Boss, he draws in his breath. I know he’s expecting shouting or mean words, something hurtful, but Little Boss does not look at him. He will not look at anybody.

  All day long, Little Boss is tied up inside himself. He hardly talks. At recess, he stays inside with Miss Casey, his foot propped on a chair. Me and Darryl and Clarice try to write a New Year’s Eve show for City Lights, but I am having trouble concentrating. I cannot stop remembering Big Boss as he walked Little Boss into school this morning. The more I think about it, the more I think Big Boss only looked pretend-kind.

  We have another rehearsal in the auditorium that afternoon, and Little Boss, he has to sit down the whole time. Miss Casey allows as how she might have to rethink Little Boss’s role in the pageant. But maybe his foot will be okay by Christmas.

  Little Boss is still all quiet and drawn in like he was this morning. It is while Miss Casey is walking around talking individually to kids about their costumes that I see Little Boss sitting forward, holding his head in his hands. I break away from Clarice and Darryl and guide Little Boss to the back row of the auditorium.

  “Little Boss?” I say. “What’s the matter?”

  Littl
e Boss is wiping his eyes furiously with his sleeve.

  I don’t want him to feel too embarrassed, so I say, “Maybe you got something in your eye.”

  Little Boss shakes his head. “No.”

  “Does your foot hurt?”

  He shakes his head again.

  “Is —”

  “Belle Teal, Darryl never hurt me,” Little Boss says suddenly.

  “I know.” And then I have to say what I say next. “It was your father, wasn’t it? He did this to you.”

  Little Boss jumps. “No! That isn’t it. I did it. It was my fault.”

  “What? You shot yourself?” This cannot be.

  “Not on purpose.”

  “But you did it?”

  “Yes. It was an accident.”

  “Well, why did you say Darryl did it?”

  “I didn’t.” Little Boss’s voice is trembling, and his eyes are about to spill over again. “I told my father what happened. I told him the whole truth. I told him I was fooling around with his gun, which I am not allowed to do. And it went off and shot my foot.”

  “So why —”

  “And he — he just wouldn’t stand for that,” Little Boss goes on, and the tears are running down his cheeks and any minute now someone is going to notice us. “I’m sitting there bleeding, and my father is mad at me for being stupid enough to shoot myself. ‘People are going to think this is my fault,’ he’s saying. ‘They’ll think I don’t know how to take care of my own kid. I told you and told you not to play with that thing.’ He’s calling me stupid and saying what a stupid thing I did to him. To him, Belle Teal. I’m bleeding, and he’s yelling about how I did a stupid thing to him.

  “Next thing I know he has this look in his eye and he makes up that story about Darryl and the squirrel and the hunting rifle.”

  I am seeing so much more than what Little Boss is saying. In my mind the whole autumn is falling into place. I am wishing for my journal, which is neglected, lying somewhere under my bed because I have been writing essays for Miss Casey instead of thoughts for my journal. But I know that tonight I will find it and write all this out — how Big Boss’s hatred of Darryl just grew and grew; grew bigger the more his words and shouts were ignored; swelled when he saw Little Boss fooled by Darryl at the Halloween party; and probably nearly burst when he found out Miss Casey had made Little Boss and Darryl kings together in the pageant. Then Little Boss goes and shoots himself, and suddenly Big Boss sees a way to get Darryl in trouble.