When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten

Author:Kereen Getten [Getten, Kereen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Eldorath has found costumes for all of us, even Calvin. He says he loved clothes so much, he ordered as many as he could from abroad. It became his full-time hobby, and sewing costumes for the theater in the city is his full-time job. This is enough to send Rudy over the edge. She skips through Eldorath’s garden in a purple ball gown and her rabbit hat and shoots theater questions to him.

Eldorath puts me in a black high-collared dress and Calvin in a blue tailcoat and top hat. Gaynah refuses to dress up. We all look silly—the clothes don’t fit us; they are too big and too fussy—but as we stroll through the long grass of Eldorath’s garden, we can’t help but fall under the spell.

Eldorath tells us about the party of the year he will be holding and how we must attend wearing our very best. I think he must be pretending for Rudy’s sake, because this house hasn’t held a party since I was born.

Rudy forgets about the gold we are supposed to be digging and links arms with him, agreeing that she would not miss it for the world.

Somehow, they suit each other, Rudy and Eldorath. They have the same imagination, and it’s as if they have been waiting for each other their whole lives.

I catch up with them and ask why he never comes to the village anymore, or Mama’s parties or church.

He squints at me. “Why, what is it you have heard?”

I look behind me at Gaynah shaking her head. I turn back, forcing a smile. “That you like to be by yourself.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth and he links his arm with mine. “I’m sure you heard more than that, but yes, I do like solitude. One cannot go wrong with his own company. But it was not entirely voluntary, for reasons we shall not talk about.” He winks, placing a finger to his lips.

We stop under the sycamore tree to get some shade. I want to ask him what he means, and if the rumors are true, but Rudy pulls him away to ask him if there was gold here, where would it be buried?

Later, Eldorath makes us cheese sandwiches on hard dough bread and fruit punch in large wineglasses. We sit in his dining room around a long dark wood table that still feels empty even with us all around it.

“Why do people call you the witch doctor?” Rudy blurts out, her mouth full of food. The room tenses and my heart sinks. Sometimes I wish Rudy wouldn’t say everything she thinks.

Eldorath clasps his hands in front of him. “That’s a very good question,” he says slowly. “This town never did like anything different, so they concoct stories to make people afraid.”

Calvin and I exchange looks. By “people” he means Pastor Brown. He doesn’t believe in ghosts; he thinks they’re the work of the devil. It’s hard to listen to Pastor Brown on a Sunday morning talking about the witch doctor in our midst.

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