Holler of the Fireflies by David Barclay Moore

Author:David Barclay Moore [Moore, David Barclay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

“Naw, I ain’t a bit surprised that little white girl called him that!” said Poppa, rising up in his seat. “No, sir. But you can’t let them folks run you down, grandson.”

I nodded.

He glanced away from the camera phone. Shireen had left it in a holder on the dresser beside his chair. There was a stack of dirty plates behind him.

I thought back to lunch earlier.

Whenever I heard the noon bells ring at the top of Brigwood Chapel, my stomach started to growl. Because my belly knew it was time to eat. Even though I felt I’d been eating less and less.

I ate the most at lunchtime.

Today the dining hall served up pepperoni rolls, beans and corn bread. My favorite breakfast, I think, had been those buckwheat pancakes they made. Nothing like ’em.

“What have I been telling you all these years, huh?” Poppa asked me. “Didn’t I tell you the truth?”

I nodded again.

He said, “White folks have been calling us names and monkeys and all kinds of animals since before they brought us over here from Africa! In the bottom of them ships!”

“I know, Poppa….”

“That is how they got the power over us, making our own kind believe that we’re nothing. That we’re less, Javari. That’s why I always tried to teach you and your sister and even that doofus father of yours that you’re special, that you got special gifts!”

I frowned. “You used to tell my father that he’s special?”

“Uh-ruh, a’ course I did…What you mean? I was his biggest cheerleader, Javari! But some people, you can’t do nothing with them.” He shook his head and settled back down in his seat. “Some people ruin everything they touch.”

I remembered how bad Poppa had talked to and treated Daddy over the years. Couldn’t he see how that brought Daddy down?

It kinda reminded me of how Becca acted toward me. “Becca claims she didn’t know any better,” I told him.

His pale eyes grew wide. “Oh, she knew. She knew. That little girl sees you as competition. Let me tell you, if you want to keep somebody down, anybody down, then you call them out they name. Make them into an ‘animal,’ a wild creature. Something not human.”

I wondered if Becca thought I was totally equal to her. She’d said my skin didn’t look real, not human.

“If you can make somebody think they ain’t a real person,” said Poppa George, “and make everybody else think they ain’t, then you have won.”

My head hurt.

He went on, “Even your doofus father can tell you that! Next time you see that, uh, Miss Becca, you put her in her place, ya hear? Put her down. Call her a low-down, lazy dog!”

“Take it easy, Poppa.”

He squinted one of his clouded eyes at me.

The other day at the tater farm, they had horses. One of the older horses had cloudy eyes like Poppa’s. The folks at those stables kept trying to get that old horse to listen to them and get led outside but it wouldn’t budge at all.

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