Not a Chance by Michelle Mulder

Author:Michelle Mulder
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2013-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

Two days later, I’m standing in front of Nerick’s house. The roof is metal, the jagged wooden boards of the walls are painted turquoise, the door is wide open, and inside, a girl is sweeping out clouds of orange dust while two kids play behind her. I wave, and three young faces stare at me. The girls are all wearing their hair in two short, stiff braids sticking out from the sides of their heads, a playful hairstyle that doesn’t match their serious, unsmiling faces.

“Hola,” I call to them. They wave back but still don’t smile, like they’re not sure what to make of me. I’m used to kids here running up to me to show off the cucuyos they’ve caught in a jar, or the soccer move they’ve been practicing with a balled-up newspaper, or the mud pie they’ve made for their dolls. My little friends accompanied me halfway down the hill and only headed back home when I told them I was visiting Nerick. They’d heard about his brother’s injury and assumed my father had sent me, but no way were they going with me to a Haitian’s house. Seven years old and already they can’t stand people with dark skin. It makes me sad.

And maybe the three little girls frown at me because they’re used to people having nothing to do with them. I smile even wider at them, but their shyness makes me feel like an intruder. “Is Nerick home?” I ask.

The oldest girl whispers a barely audible no. I ask if their mother is around. They point to the cookshack a few meters away.

I step between aloe-vera plants and skirt a few pecking chickens. The walk down the hill has turned my feet and flip-flops orange, but the rest of me is presentable for once. I’m tired of Nerick seeing me in polka dots and tie-dye smeared with grease, so today I’ve chosen khaki shorts and a fluorescent pink blouse. It’s totally not my style. (Why doesn’t anyone ever donate tight capris and cute tank tops before we come here?) But at least this outfit passes for style of some sort, which is an improvement over everything else I’ve worn this summer.

The cookshack is made of poles, with potato-sack walls and a grass roof. “Hola!” I call again, and Nerick’s mother sticks her head out of the opening.

In the split second before she sees me, her face is slack and tired. She’s thin and her hair is pulled back in a hasty ponytail, but once her eyes meet mine, she grins and immediately looks ten years younger. “Dian! Bienvenida!” she welcomes me awkwardly in Spanish. She’s lived here longer than I’ve been alive, but she speaks Creole with her kids, and I guess if none of her neighbors ever talk to her, she doesn’t have much chance to practice Spanish.

“Thank you for coming,” she says, probably thinking my father has sent me to ask after her oldest son.

I smile like she’s right. I wish she were.

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