Authors: Nikki Grimes
“The Lincolns have two little boys of their own,” the caseworker rattled on. “They also have a foster daughter who’s a few years older than you.”
The taxicab left Spring Street and wound its way to the final destination. Up they climbed along a hill that was nearly vertical, past two-story houses with sunporches and children’s bikes strewn across the front walks.
The hill dead-ended right before a Con Edison power plant, but just below it stood a sweet old house. It was a two-story with brown shingles, and a whitewashed front porch wide enough for a bike, a tricycle, and the two-person rocker that faced the street. The dingy white fence that surrounded the house sagged in places, giving the house a relaxed and comfortable look, like an old slipper that was broken in and soft. But Paris knew better than to trust first impressions.
The caseworker paid the cabby. Paris followed her onto the porch and waited while she pressed the bell. Suddenly, the screen door swung open. A stout woman, near as pale as Paris’ daddy, filled the doorway. She was black enough,
though, and Paris would learn that hers was one of just three black families on the block, and the Lincolns were the only ones with kids.
“Well hello. You must be Paris,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “Miss Liberty, yes?” she said to the caseworker. “We spoke on the phone. Please come in.”
Paris entered the tiny hall, where she was quickly surrounded by several strangers.
“This is Mr. Lincoln, David, and Jordan, and that’s Earletta,” said Mrs. Lincoln in her clipped, all-business manner.
Before Paris could ask about Earletta’s unusual name, the girl shrugged and said, “My mother wanted a boy. Guess that’s why she didn’t fight to keep me.”
Mrs. Lincoln made no comment, but Paris noticed her give the girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Welcome, Paris,” said Mr. Lincoln. “We’re glad you’re here.” His voice was warm as hot chocolate, and just as sweet. Paris almost believed him. But when he reached out to give her a welcome hug, she jumped back. A look of understanding passed between Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln.
“All right, boys,” said Mrs. Lincoln. “Give the girl some space to breathe. But first, why don’t you show her to her room.”
My room? How can I have a room?
“Okay. This way,” said David, bouncing up the narrow staircase. Paris felt her suitcase slip from her fingers.
“I’ll bring that up for you later,” said Mr. Lincoln. Paris wasn’t so sure about leaving her possessions with this stranger.
“That’s okay,” she said, grabbing her suitcase back. “I’ll take it myself.”
Mr. Lincoln nodded. “Suit yourself.”
Reluctantly, Paris followed the boys into the belly of the house. At the top of the landing, she looked around, wondering which room was going to be hers. She’d never had a room all to herself. Why were they giving her her own room? “Girls and boys should sleep separately,” her grandmother had said. But what about Earletta? Why wasn’t she bunking with Earletta? Did Earletta have her own room, too? The house sure didn’t look that big to Paris.
“Here it is,” said David.
The older boy waved her over to the smallest room she had ever seen. It was hardly bigger than a closet. The thought made Paris shiver.
At least there’s a window
, she thought. A twin bed hugged the wall. A rag rug lay in front of the bed, and a few feet away stood a desk and chair. There was a musty old wardrobe to hang clothing in, and, squeezed in next to it, an ancient dresser with peeling paint.
Now I get it
, thought Paris. They were sticking her here in this little room to keep her out of sight, to hide her away so they could forget about her as soon as the caseworker left.
Paris looked dejected and the boys couldn’t figure out why.
“You’re lucky,” said Jordan. “You get your own room!”
“Wish I had
my
own room,” added David. “Then maybe I could get away from this squirt for more than a minute.” Jordan punched his big brother in the arm, but Paris ignored them both. She swung her suitcase up on the bed and got busy unpacking. Bored, the boys headed back downstairs.
Paris sat on the bed, letting her eyes sweep every corner of the drafty room, wondering what the place would be like at night, wondering how bad it would be.
Fear was not something Paris needed to rehearse. “Frightened girl” was a role she already knew by heart. The question was, how often would she have to play the part here?
M
iss Liberty, the caseworker, said good-bye, assuring Paris that she was in good hands.
The rest of the evening was a blur. There was dinner, a litany of rules for Paris to memorize, then a brief tour of the house. Earletta gave her the tour, but only because Mrs. Lincoln told her to.
“This is the laundry room. That’s the downstairs bathroom. Front porch. Backyard. Mom and Dad’s room. The linen closet. The zoo, otherwise known as the boys’ room. That’s it! You’ve already seen the kitchen, dining room, and living room. And here’s
your
room. But you already knew that. Don’t get too comfortable, though.”
“Huh?”
“You probably won’t be here that long,” said Earletta.
Paris turned around.
“What do you mean?” she asked. But Earletta was already halfway down the stairs.
Paris filed Earletta’s comment away and crawled into bed, fully dressed except for shoes.
Gotta be ready in case I need to run. But where? Malcolm, I need you to tell me what to do, where to go.
Like a favorite blanket, or a teddy bear, Paris clung to thoughts of her brother. They were all the comfort she had.
The room was dark as a cave, even with the bedside lamp on. Paris strained her eyes in the direction of the dresser. Her suitcase stood right beside it. She’d left it nearby so she could repack in a hurry, if she needed to.
All in the house slept, except for Paris, who willed the hours to move faster toward dawn.
What will happen to me here? What if they lock me up in here? What if, this time, no one ever finds me?
Paris walked the tightrope of her fears for hours. Eventually, she missed a step and started falling, falling, falling to the ground. She flailed her arms, crying, screaming as she plummeted through the unending abyss. And when she finally hit the ground, it was morning, and she found herself in a tangle of blankets on the bedroom floor.
P
aris slipped downstairs and out the back door to explore the grounds while everyone else was still asleep. Quiet escapes were getting to be her specialty.
Wow!
This was no postage-stamp backyard. It was a green and floral field to run in. The right was edged with hydrangea bushes, bursting with giant pink and blue blossoms. Towering above them were a smattering of trees rooted in the next yard over, and through the trees Paris could make out a silver snake, glistening in the morning sunlight, moving north to south. Of course, it wasn’t a snake at all. It was the Hudson River slithering by.
The river the train followed to bring me here
, thought Paris.
The river that could take me home.
But where was home? Not with the Boones. Not with Grandma. Not even with Viola, because she never seemed to belong anywhere, in particular.
Home
was such a funny word. For most kids, home was where your mom and dad lived, where you felt safe, where the bogeyman was merely make-believe. Home was where you knew every square inch of the place by heart, where you could wake up in the middle of the night and know exactly where you were without even opening your eyes. Paris didn’t have a place like that. She didn’t even have an address she’d lived at long enough to memorize, no single place that felt familiar as all that. Except maybe the city itself.
For Paris, home was more a person, and that person was Malcolm.
I could follow that river back to Malcolm. But how do I know Malcolm is even there anymore?
Paris kicked the ground and shook off the question. She had no answer and there was no way to find out the truth. At least, not yet. Paris turned her attention back to the yard.
Whitewashed arbors framed a small grapevine in the center of the yard. Here and there a few blue-black grape globes still held on tenaciously. Otherwise, Paris would
have no idea what she was looking at. There were no grapevines on Lenox Avenue! The left side of the yard was enclosed by a picket fence, and in the back corner stood an old toolshed. There’d been one in the yard in Queens.
Wonder what’s in there.
Paris crossed the yard to find out. Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard a snarling sound behind her. Legs suddenly paralyzed, Paris slowly turned her head. There stood the scariest-looking dog she’d ever seen.
What was it Malcolm had taught her to do if she ever had to face a strange dog? “Never let the dog know that you’re scared of him,” Malcolm had told her. “Speak softly to him, and back away very, very carefully.”
“Nice doggy,” said Paris, inching away from the shed, trying to move past the long-toothed beast. “Nice doggy. Nice—ah!”
The dog knocked Paris to the ground and stood over her. Paris was too frightened to scream. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for dog fangs to sink into her and rip her to pieces.
One. Two. Three.
Paris felt a mess of sloppy, wet licks on her cheek. “Oh, yuck!”
“That’s Jet,” said Jordan, slamming the screen door behind him. “We call him that ’cause he’s fast. Did he scare ya?”
“Course not,” said Paris, wondering if her heart rate would ever return to normal. “He’s just a big ole fluffy dog.”
Jordan came over and scratched the collie behind the ears. “Seems to like you,” said Jordan.
Paris stood up and brushed herself off. “Nice doggy,” she whispered, tentatively reaching out to pet him.
Maybe I’ll be here long enough to get to know you, huh? What do you think about that?
Jet barked excitedly, as if in answer.
Paris stroked the collie’s back, smiling for the first time in days.
T
he second night, Paris experienced the Lincolns’ nightly routine. When all the children were in bed, Mrs. Lincoln made the rounds, stopping in each room to say good night, switch off the lights, and close the door.
Paris was snuggled under the covers when Mrs. Lincoln suddenly filled the doorway of her tiny alcove.
“Good night, Paris,” she said, hitting the wall switch and closing the door in one deft motion, leaving Paris to drown in a sea of darkness. The moon was no friend. The sliver of light that found its way through the window hardly made a dent in the darkness. Paris clung to her bedspread, her heart galloping inside her chest.
Just close your eyes
, Paris told herself, like Malcolm had told her to do a thousand times. Paris pulled down the
shades of her eyes and pretended all the darkness was behind her lids, that the room beyond them was really streaming with light. This trick worked for a while, and her heartbeat slowed a bit. Then she could swear she felt rough wool scrape her cheek. She flailed out, hitting nothing but air.
Ouch!
Paris felt something sharp digging into the flesh behind her knees, but the sharpest things in the bed were her own fingernails.
Paris cringed.
What was that?
She heard a skeleton key turning in the lock of the bedroom door. Or did she? Real or imagined, that was the sound that undid her.
David was already snoring in the next room, but little Jordan was awake enough to hear Paris cry herself to sleep.
• • •
The next night was no better, though at least this time Paris knew what was coming. She dragged out her bedtime routine for as long as she could. She undressed, moving in slow motion. She slipped out of her skirt and hung it neatly in the wardrobe. She buttoned and rebuttoned her pajama top twice.
“You all better be in bed by the time I get there!” Mrs. Lincoln called upstairs. Paris bit her lip, wondering how on earth Mrs. Lincoln knew she was stalling. Reluctantly, Paris scrambled up onto the bed and waited.
When she heard the woman climbing the stairs, Paris felt her throat constrict. When Mrs. Lincoln reached the boys’ room next door, Paris felt her skin crawl. By the time the woman approached her doorway, Paris could scarcely breathe. As the door closed, sealing off all light from the hallway, Paris gulped, longing for that scrap of light the way the hungry long for scraps of bread.
Once again, as much as she hated herself for it, Paris cried herself to sleep. This time, it was David who heard her. But fear finally drove Paris into a deep sleep where ugly memories stomped into her dreams.
• • •
“Let me out! Let me out!”
Paris pounds the bedroom door with her puny fists, but the door is locked.
“Hush up!” a voice hisses through the keyhole. “If you even think about crying to your caseworker about this, I’ll come back and beat the black off ya!”
Paris and Malcolm huddle together in the middle of the closet, rocking each other back and forth, back and forth.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Paris says this over and over and over again.
Tweedy jacket pockets scratch her tender cheek. She slaps away at the rough wool, whimpering in the cramped and stuffy space.
She and Malcolm take turns perching atop a rigid Samsonite cosmetic case. The cool brass fittings dig into the flesh behind her knees. A roach makes his way along her calves and up her thigh. She slaps her thigh to get it off her, but even after she knocks it to the floor, her skin still crawls. Her cheeks are streaked with tears, but no one is there to wipe them away except her brother, who has tears of his own.
Paris squeezes her legs together as hard as she can. She bounces up and down, she rocks, but it is no use. She has to go to the bathroom. Except there is no bathroom inside that closet, and she can’t get out. Big girls don’t wet their pants, but she can’t help it. When she can’t hold it in anymore, she cries anew and lets it go.