What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris

Author:Kai Harris [Harris, Kai]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

That night, me and Nia stay up late to help Granddaddy shuck corn and clean greens. I ain’t ever done either before, but Granddaddy shows me how. I’m happy cause it helps me take my mind off what happened with Bobby and Charlotte earlier. I ain’t sure if they gon’ still wanna be my friend, now that they know I ain’t got a perfect family like they do.

“Here,” Granddaddy says, handing me an ear of corn. The corn Momma buys always comes in a can, but Granddaddy’s looks fresh from the ground, wrapped in a rough, green cover that Granddaddy calls the husk. I peel the husk and tug away the little leftover strings, then hand the corn to Nia. She breaks the cob in two, rinses it in the sink, then puts it in a glass bowl with a plastic lid.

“Do we need this?” I ask Granddaddy, pulling a big pot and lid from beneath the sink.

“No,” Granddaddy starts, “we gon’ cook that corn tomorrow, on the grill. We just gettin’ everything ready tonight.”

The greens take longer than the corn and look like giant leaves with a stem right in the middle. We start by cleaning the greens, which takes more work than I expect. First, Nia pulls the stems from the leaves. Then rips the leaves til they’re scraps of dead plant. Granddaddy fills the big kitchen sink with water and Nia dumps all the greens inside.

“Come here, Kenyatta.” Granddaddy stands right in front of the sink with Nia already on one side, so I stand on the other. “The first time I cleaned some greens, I was bout your age,” Granddaddy tells me. “My momma taught me how once, then I had to do it on my own every time after that. We ate greens every Sunday growing up, just like most of the Black folks in the South.” He begins moving his hands in the sink as he talks, making tiny chunks of greens dance and swim in the murky water.

“What do you have to do?” I ask curiously. Nia seems curious, too, as we both watch Granddaddy without blinking.

“Well, do you know where greens come from?” he asks.

“The dirt,” Nia surprises me by responding. She leans in close.

“You’re right,” Granddaddy replies, “greens grow up from the dirt just like a lot of vegetables. But greens are even different than those, cause they keep a lot of that dirt in their leaves and stems. See?” Granddaddy holds up one of the leaves that we ain’t cleaned yet. I get real close and notice patches of brown mixed in with all the green.

“Eww, it’s dirty!” I screech.

“Exactly, and that’s why we gotta clean ’em real good. Otherwise, you get you a big ol’ bowl of collard greens and it’s gon’ be nasty. Don’t matter how well you cook greens, if you don’t clean ’em well, they won’t taste right.”

Nia nods to show she understands, so I nod, too.

But then I ask, “So how do we get ’em clean?”

“Well, first we fill the sink with cold water.

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