Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant

Author:Stephanie Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

I stared at the note. To tell the truth, it was hard to comprehend. Hard to make out. As if the words themselves were a puzzle. Which in a way they were: Take the bus home with Rochelle? In what universe was that? Immediately, I glanced over my shoulder. One of our forwards, the flat-footed Polish girl, sat on a wooden bench collecting her things. Had she seen Rochelle drop the note?

Then I almost fell down under the weight of the sudden realization: Mademoiselle Eugénie wanted to see me! Me, in particular! I groped for a bench. I glanced nervously around the locker room. Ma had a Polish friend, so we were not allowed to use the word Pollack. But why was that girl so slow? Everyone else had left. I listened to the sound of my own short breath and read the note again.

It was incredibly short, only four lines, but there were too many things that did not make sense, that were beyond beyond understanding. Mademoiselle Eugénie was leaving town! Was she going back to France? The new rumor at school was that she’d set fire to her car herself, in order to get some poor Southie kids in trouble. If she went back to France, that stupid rumor would become fact, would become part of the past. Rochelle’s handwriting was tiny, neat; she’d printed in block letters, almost like a typewriter, as if the unbelievable things she’d said would make sense if she just presented them in an orderly way. Honest to God, that note made me light-headed. I mean, it was thrilling, “our friend,” it said, as if we were friends, as if we shared things in common—ideas, acquaintances, a belief in the impossible. The past. But it was also nauseating. Take the bus home with Rochelle! I didn’t know what to do, how to respond, so I gathered up my books and hustled out of the locker room after Rochelle.

When I got outdoors, she was sitting on the cold stone steps in front of the school, waiting for the late bus. I cupped my hands around my mouth to slow my breathing. It was just after four o’clock, but already the sky was getting dark. Carson Beach looked flat and uninviting. I took breath after cold breath. Rochelle sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. She wore a long wool coat, and it spread out like an open clamshell at her feet. Was it true that Blacks couldn’t swim? A solitary strand of pink light clung to a group of clouds. I wondered if Carson Beach was facing France. I watched the pink strand back its way out of the sky.

Since the busing, any Blacks who stayed after school for extracurricular activities had to take the late bus at four-thirty. They couldn’t miss it. The bus was only for Blacks. It was their last chance to get escorted safely out of Southie. Aside from Rochelle, two other Blacks, boys, ballplayers, I thought, were waiting on the steps.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.