Tallahassee Higgins (8 page)

"You shut up and stay out of this," Dawn said to Jane, her face red with anger.

"We didn't do anything, Mrs. Duffy." Terri looked very prim.

Dawn nodded. "Tallahassee threw the paint at me for no reason at all."

"You liar!" I was about to throw another jar of paint when Mrs. Duffy grasped me by the shoulders and sat me down. "Get the table cleaned up, Tallahassee," she said. "And you'll have to see me after school."

"How about her?" I pointed at Dawn, but seeing the look on Mrs. Duffy's face, I went to the sink and got the sponge.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh," David Spinks giggled as I passed his desk. "You're in trouble now, Tallahassee Higgins!"

Jane picked up my picture. "Maybe after it dries, you can fix it," she said.

Yanking it away from her, I crumpled it up and tossed it into the trash can. "I never want to see it again," I muttered as I wiped the blue paint and water from the table.

***

When the three-thirty bell rang, Jane told me she'd wait outside on the steps, and Dawn tossed me a nasty sneer over her shoulder as she left the classroom. Reluctantly, I sat down in a chair beside Mrs. Duffy's desk and prepared myself for a long lecture.

"Well, Tallahassee," Mrs. Duffy began, "would you like to tell me why you threw the paint at Dawn?"

I shrugged and looked down at my ratty running shoes. "She ruined my picture," I mumbled.

"Surely it was an accident," Mrs. Duffy said quietly.

"It was the best picture I ever painted."

"That's no reason to throw a jar of paint in someone's face." She paused, waiting, I suppose, for me to say something. When I just sat there, staring at the hole in my shoe, she straightened a pile of papers on her desk.

"I think it's time I called your aunt and uncle in for a conference," Mrs. Duffy said.

I looked at her once, then returned to contemplating my shoes. I would have liked to have told her everything, but how could she understand about Liz? Or what it was like to wonder all your life who your father was and then find out he was dead.

Mrs. Duffy sighed. "Well, since you don't have anything to tell me, you might as well take out a piece of paper, and we'll review this week's math."

When I had finished doing twenty math problems, I ran outside and found Jane sitting on the steps waiting for me. We ran across the playground, racing each other to the swings.

I pumped hard, trying to get as far off the ground as I could, but I slowed down when I noticed that Jane had coasted to a stop. "What's the matter?" I asked her.

"Talley, is Liz really going to be in that movie?" The wind swirled Jane's hair in front of her eyes, and she tossed it back, frowning.

I scuffed my feet in the trough a hundred kids' shoes had scooped out under the swing. Without looking at Jane, I said, "What if she isn't? Would you stop being my friend?"

"I'll always be your friend, Talley, no matter what." Jane's swing creaked as she rocked back and forth. "I was just wondering, that's all."

"Well, she's not," I said, knowing I sounded grumpy and mad. "She isn't going to be in any movie, I don't think, and she doesn't know Richard Gere or anybody else. All she's doing is working in some restaurant called the Big Carrot." I started swinging really hard again so Jane wouldn't see me crying.

Jane didn't say anything, but she got her swing going too. Soon the two of us were flying back and forth, Jane up when I was down, me up when she was down. Then we started singing this dumb song we'd learned in music, "Little Red Caboose," until we were laughing too hard to pump our swings.

On the way home we walked up and down Forty-first Avenue so many times that I got a blister on my heel, but we didn't see Mrs. Russell. Not once did she come to the window to observe her own granddaughter wearing out her shoes in front of her house.

***

That night Aunt Thelma got two phone calls. The first one was from Mrs. Duffy, and Aunt Thelma was very angry when she hung up. She couldn't understand why I was doing so badly in school. "It's not as if you were stupid," she said. "You're lazy, that's what's wrong with you. Just like Liz, you think the world owes you a living."

Then the phone rang again, right in the middle of the scene we were having. This time it was Dawn's mother.

"You ruined a twenty-five-dollar blouse," Aunt Thelma said as she hung up, "and Mrs. Harper expects me to pay for it!"

"She wrecked the picture I was painting!"

"A picture?" Aunt Thelma stared at me. "You ruined an expensive blouse because of a worthless picture?"

"It wasn't worthless! It was the best picture I ever painted!" Tears filled my eyes as I remembered the red-haired girl coasting down the perfect wave on her surfboard. "You know I get A's in art," I added, thinking of the value she placed on grades.

"Art and P.E.," she said scornfully. "The only subjects you're passing, and they're not even important."

"They are to me!" I glared at her and she glared back.

"You go to your room," Aunt Thelma said. "I've heard enough from you for one night!"

As I walked past the living room, Uncle Dan looked up. "What's the matter now?" He'd been so absorbed in the basketball game on TV that he'd missed the whole scene.

"Nothing," I muttered, "nothing at all, except I hate living here!" My voice rose, triggering another outburst of barking from Fritzi. "Shut up!" I yelled at the dog. "Just shut up!"

"Oh, Talley." Uncle Dan stood up and started toward me, but I ran upstairs to my room, leaving Fritzi barking at the bottom of the steps.

Hurling myself down on my bed, I pressed my face against Melanie. "We've got to get out of here," I told her. "Every day it gets worse and worse."

"You could run away," Melanie said. "Just like Liz."

"Maybe I will," I muttered. "They think I'm exactly like her, don't they? So maybe I should do just what she did. It would serve Aunt Thelma right."

A
COUPLE OF DAYS
later Aunt Thelma, Uncle Dan, and I were sitting in my classroom. Mrs. Duffy began our conference by explaining that my math skills were at least two years behind my grade placement.

"What does that mean?" Aunt Thelma frowned at Mrs. Duffy.

"Well, it means that Tallahassee is working on a low fourth-grade level. She doesn't know her multiplication tables, she doesn't grasp the fundamentals of long division, and her fractions are very shaky. She should have mastered these skills before entering sixth grade."

Mrs. Duffy sounded apologetic, as if she herself had something to do with my inadequacies.

"It may be that the Florida schools have a different curriculum," she added uncertainly, rustling some papers on her desk.

"It's more likely," said Aunt Thelma, "that Tallahassee was never made to do her homework. You do realize that she has attended at least half a dozen elementary schools before coming here?"

Mrs. Duffy nodded. "I looked at her record." Smiling at me, she added, "Her language skills are excellent. She reads on a twelfth-grade level, and her book reports are a real treat. Very original and entertaining, and usually beautifully illustrated. She has a great deal of artistic talent."

Uncle Dan smiled. "She gets that from her mother. Liz could draw anything, especially horses."

"We're not here to talk about her mother," Aunt Thelma said. Turning back to Mrs. Duffy, she went on, "But you indicated there were problems with her language arts, too."

Mrs. Duffy nodded. "Tallahassee fails to hand in many of her assignments. And the ones she does give me are often incomplete or poorly done. Take her foreign-country report, fifty percent of her social studies grade this quarter."

I squirmed uncomfortably at the sight of the report she passed to Aunt Thelma. It was only a few paragraphs copied hastily out of an encyclopedia; my pencil had smudged, making my sloppy handwriting even harder to read. My map was half-finished.

The only good thing about it was the cover. I had drawn a little boy in lederhosen walking his German shepherd. It was definitely one of my best pictures, and I was proud of it. It wasn't enough to save my report, though, and I didn't blame Mrs. Duffy for giving me an F.

"When Tallahassee first came to Magruder, I thought she was going to be with us for a short time," Mrs. Duffy said to Aunt Thelma. "I didn't push her as hard as I should have. I realize that she misses her mother, but she'll have to work harder if she wants to go on to the seventh grade next year."

I lowered my head, feeling my cheeks turn red. My stomach knotted up and my mouth got dry. "I can do sixth grade all over again in California," I mumbled.

"Instead of falling back on that hope, Tallahassee," Aunt Thelma said, "I think we'd better see what you can do to improve."

"Yes," Uncle Dan agreed. "What can we do to help?"

Staring at the blocks of linoleum on the floor, I listened to them discuss setting up a contract. It sounded pretty awful—sitting down with either my aunt or uncle every night while they supervised my schoolwork—but to pass, I had to do it.

When we left the school, Aunt Thelma told me how embarrassing it was to hear so many awful things about me. "I simply do not understand you," she said. "Mrs. Duffy says you're smart, that you could do all the work easily if you'd put your mind to it. As far as I can see, you just don't care about anything!"

I played with the zipper on my sweatshirt, running it up and down the track. It was a beautiful day, and I wished I were in the park with Jane instead of trapped in Aunt Thelma's car.

"Now, Thelma." Uncle Dan looked at me in the rearview mirror and smiled. "You heard Talley. She signed the contract. She doesn't want to fail any more than we want her to."

Turning my head, I gazed out the window as the Hyattstown houses drifted sadly past, softened now by a mist of tiny, green buds. It was April. Where was Liz?

***

The next day was Saturday, and Jane and I went to the park. We were sure we'd see Mrs. Russell there with her dog.

"I'll go right up to her," I told Jane as we walked down Forty-first Avenue past Mrs. Russell's house, "and tell her who I am."

"Really?" Jane was impressed, I could tell. "Or you could ring her doorbell right now." She stopped, one hand on Mrs. Russell's gate.

I looked at the brick sidewalk marching straight across the lawn to the big, white house, at the neatly trimmed bushes flanking the front steps, at the door painted dark green, brass knob and knocker gleaming in the morning sunlight. Except for a few birds fluttering around a feeder hanging from a dogwood tree, nothing stirred.

"I don't think she's home," I said, hoping Jane wouldn't guess that I was scared to set foot beyond the wrought-iron gate.

"Her car's there." Jane pointed at a shiny Buick in the driveway.

"Yes, but she's probably at the park." I edged away up the hill, suddenly afraid that Mrs. Russell would notice me loitering in front of her house. Suppose she didn't recognize me?

The park was crowded with families. It was the first really nice day I had experienced in the state of Maryland, and I guess everybody was anxious to be outside. Jane and I walked around for a while, then we swung and played on the monkey bars.

While I was hanging upside down, Jane yelled, "There she is, Talley!"

I was so startled, I almost fell right off on my head, but I managed to twist around like a cat and save myself. "Where?"

"Right over there with her dog. See?" Jane pointed to the other side of the tot lot. Sure enough, there she was, looking the other way while her dog relieved himself on the grass.

"Come on." Jane jumped down from the monkey bars and ran toward Mrs. Russell. I followed her, my heart pumping, my mouth dry.

"What are you going to do?" I yelled at Jane, but she ignored me as she skidded to a stop in front of Mrs. Russell.

"Hi, Mrs. Russell." Jane smiled her best smile. "Have you met Tallahassee Higgins?"

Mrs. Russell shook her head. "I don't believe I have." She glanced at me with no more interest than a person might show in an ant crossing the sidewalk.

"You probably knew her mother," Jane said helpfully. "Liz Higgins."

"Liz Higgins?" My mother's name certainly got a reaction. First Mrs. Russell's eyes widened like a camera lens when there isn't much light, then they narrowed down again as her forehead creased. "I didn't know Liz had a child."

To my chagrin, Mrs. Russell did not embrace me. In fact, she did not even smile at me. If anything, she frowned.

"Talley's staying with her Uncle Dan," Jane went on despite the uncertainty creeping into her voice. "Liz is in California, trying to be a movie star."

"Is that right?" Mrs. Russell tugged her dog away from me. "Sit, Bo."

Bo sat, but he kept his tail going a mile a minute. His head tipped to one side, his tongue hung out, and he grinned at me. Unlike Fritzi, Bo liked me.

"You sure have a nice dog," I said, finding it a little hard to talk past the lump of disappointment in my throat. Why hadn't she noticed how much I looked like Johnny?

"Yes, he's very nice." Mrs. Russell smiled for the first time. "A little rambunctious sometimes, but he's only a year old. He'll settle down as he gets older."

"Does he like to chase sticks?" I was remembering Roger's dog and the great games we used to play on the beach. Bo reminded me a little bit of him.

"I'm sure he'd enjoy it if he had the chance." Mrs. Russell scratched Bo behind his ears. "But the leash laws are so strict in the park, I don't dare let him loose."

"Maybe I could come over to your house sometime and throw some sticks for him," I heard myself saying. "You have a real big yard."

Mrs. Russell looked at me hard then, and I smiled, hoping she'd notice my big old rabbit teeth. "I'm sure Bo would enjoy that," she said slowly. Twitching the dog's leash, she started walking toward the street. "Come on, Bo. Time to go home."

I trotted by her side. "Could I hold his leash for a little while? Me and Jane are going home, too."

She handed me the leash. "Don't let him pull ahead," she said. "I'm training him to heel."

We walked along silently for a while. A cool breeze tugged at our clothes and hair, making us all shiver a little. I guessed winter wasn't quite gone, but at least the birds were singing instead of wheezing and the leaves were getting bigger and greener.