The Silents

8

CHAPTER TIMMY WOULDN'T leave it alone. He was gone by the time we came back from Charlie's, but the next morning when I walked to school with Shirley, Hannah, and Adelaide, he showed up behind us. There wasn't enough room for all four of us to walk together, so Adelaide sprinted ahead. Timmy hung back for a while, then moved close to us and shouted, "My father says your father was a gangster and a bootlegger ." "What are you talking about?" I demanded, walking straight ahead, my knees shaking. The words sounded ominous, at least the gangster part. But bootleggers had no meaning for me. I broke down the word into two parts, still shaking. I figured it must have something to do with shoes and leggings. Did Papa used to make boots? And leggings? I wondered. "That's what my father said, and everybody knows it. But you're too stupid to know it," Timmy struck again. His face met mine for an instant. All I could see were the freckles on his cheeks. I was shocked and speechless, and so were Shirley and Hannah. We kept on walking, pretending we didn't hear him. "He's just jealous," Shirley said finally. "Yeah, I know." When nobody answered him, he retreated into the street and ran the rest of the way. I didn't talk to him the whole morning and stayed away from him at recess. I couldn't concentrate on the spelling test. Mrs. Tremont glared at me when I missed a lot of the words. After school, I asked Shirley to walk Adelaide home. I turned in the other direction and made my way to Zadie's house. The front door was unlocked, so I let myself in. Zadie was gone. Shul, probably. Maybe even my house, standing nose to nose with Mama. I found Aunt Selma sitting in the kitchen. "Surprise, surprise!" she exclaimed when she saw me. "What brings you here this lovely afternoon?" She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and blew smoke rings. "Thought I'd practice 'Chopsticks' on the piano." "Sure," she said, "but let's have cocoa first." She heated it in the pot and brought it to the table. While I drank, she blew more smoke rings, then took her finger and poked through them. "So, what's the real reason?" "I'm confused." "About what?" "How come we were rich one time and now we're not?" "Who told you that?" "Papa." "What did he say?" More smoke rings. Then she drank some cocoa. "Papa said that he had a lot of money, and then it all disappeared . And he said he had a nurse for me and that's how I learned to hear the right sounds." "That's true. And when the nurse left, Mama brought you here so you could hear us talk." "Where did he get all the money?" "Had a job like everybody else." "What kind of job? I know he was a prizefighter, but Mama says she didn't know him when he was a fighter." "That's true." She was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn't bring myselfto say gangster. Instead, I looked at her stomach to see if! could see where the baby was. Mama had told me that Aunt Selma was pregnant but not to mention it until she told me herself. "What are you looking at?" she asked me. "Nuthin'." "So, Mama told you," she laughed. "Well, it's true. You can't tell right now, but it'll show soon. And when the baby kicks, I'll let you feel it." "Maybe you shouldn't smoke, Aunt Selma." "From the mouths ofbabes," she sighed, putting her cigarette out. She sounded so clever, and she liked what 1said. It made my heart beat faster. "You know all about babies? It's time you know. You're almost twelve." "Mama told me, but she didn't make any sense. She told me that even the ladies in Africa get periods, and that's all she said. Except she said, 'be careful.' 1 think she was too embarrassed to tell me everything." "Why didn't you ask me? 1 would have told you. Do you understand it now?" "Sure. Shirley told me all about it. Shirley's mother explained it to her, and Shirley told Hannah and me, right in our...