No Laughter Here by Rita Williams-Garcia

Author:Rita Williams-Garcia
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061975752
Publisher: HarperCollins

Vow

Victoria wasn’t in the library. She was sitting out by the hopscotches like she did during recess.

“Here you are,” I said as if I had just discovered her. In reality I stood and watched her for a while before I came out into the school yard. “I went to the library looking for you.”

She didn’t answer me, but I felt her willing me to sit next to her, so I did. We sat for a long time. Two or three minutes. Then she turned to me and said, “I don’t look like that.”

I didn’t understand what she meant, but I knew she’d explain. As I sat waiting, a happiness ran through me. Like Christmas morning at six A.M. I was finally getting what I wanted. Today Victoria would return to me from wherever she had been.

Looking at me directly and not staring off, she said, “Akilah. What I am going to tell you is a secret.”

We were already practically breath to breath, but I managed to move in closer.

“You cannot tell anyone.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Not okay,” she said. “Okay isn’t good enough. You must take a vow. Repeat after me: If I should tell, I will die.”

I was stunned.

“Say it.” She sounded like the real Victoria. I took her seriously.

“If I should tell, I will die.”

“I will not tell my mother.”

“I will not tell my mother.”

“Even if she beats me.”

“My mother wouldn’t—”

“Say it.”

“Even if she beats me.” I laughed to myself. Auntie Cass wouldn’t hesitate to draw her belt, but my mother would never, ever hit me.

“I will not tell a soul. Dead or alive.”

I wanted to giggle when she said “dead.” She raised her eyebrows. I repeated after her, “Dead or alive.”

“Now show me your hands,” she said. “I don’t want you to cross your fingers.”

I placed my hands on my lap where she could see them.

“Say I will not tell God, not even in my prayers.”

My mother would have said, “God already knows,” but I didn’t dare. I said, “I will not tell God, not even in my prayers.”

“Or I will die in Victoria’s eyes, for she will no longer be my true friend.”

I repeated all of it. A few minutes of silence passed before she said, “They showed the picture of the baby girl in class.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t look like that.”

I didn’t know what she meant. A chubby, white, baby girl with her legs open, showing her privates.

“Of course you don’t look like her. I don’t either.” In fact, before Victoria left for Africa we compared our soft, fuzzy hair growing down below. Mine was more visible than hers.

“I don’t have what girls have,” she told me.

I still didn’t know what she meant.

“They took it while I was sleeping.”

“Took it?” She made no sense.

“My mother. My Auntie Omodara and Auntie Olefemi. My Grandmother Iyapo. They took me to see Doctor Ajala. I thought for more shots or to look at my teeth.

“First my mother inspected Doctor Ajala’s knife, and then she told him to put me to sleep first. My aunties started yelling at my mother.

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