Seth and Samona by Joanne Hyppolite

Author:Joanne Hyppolite [Hyppolite, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56821-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 1995-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

On Sunday, I woke up early cause Jean-Claude and Chantal were fighting again. It was a good thing the last of our relatives had gone home last night, ’cause they were yelling so loud they would have woken everybody up. Then I heard Manmi shouting at them and they got quiet fast. I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed ’cause there was no use going back to sleep now. We had to go to church every Sunday and I knew that soon Granmè would be knocking on the door telling me to get up and to go to my twalèt, which means “wash up!” I peeked through the blinds and saw it was raining outside. That meant we would drive to church. Manmi makes us walk when it’s nice out ’cause the church is only five blocks away. It takes us forever to get there ’cause Granmè walks so slow.

I went to the closet to take out some of my only-wear-to-church clothes and I heard Jean-Claude slam into the room and throw himself on his bed. When I turned around, I saw that he was still in his blue striped pajamas and he was beating his fist in the pillow. All of a sudden, he stopped and turned over and put his hands behind his head.

“Jerome again?” I said, not really expecting an answer. I wanted to talk to Jean-Claude about everything Chantal had said yesterday but I felt like I needed to talk to Chantal again just to make sure I had everything right. I was still having trouble understanding it all. Chantal didn’t want to be a nurse, didn’t want to do all the housework, didn’t want to marry a nice Haitian man and could be president of Haiti if she wanted to. I knew if I told Jean-Claude just like that, he would think I was as crazy as Samona Gemini.

“Chantal doesn’t know what’s good for her. I could kill Jerome for all the trouble he’s making for her,” Jean-Claude said, his lips tight together.

“Shouldn’t be too hard. He’s shorter than you,” I said, putting on my bathrobe and getting ready to go to the bathroom. “How are you gonna do it?” I didn’t believe Jean-Claude for one second. He’s always talking about how violence breeds violence and how black people need to stop beating each other up and stealing from each other. Jean-Claude would never do anything bad to another black person— even if they robbed him blind. He’d hunt them down and try to talk some sense into them. He always took the beggars on the street to get something to eat instead of giving them money so they wouldn’t spend it on drugs or spirits.

Jean-Claude was quiet for a few minutes, then he sighed. “I have to go see Reggie.”

Reggie? I frowned. “You don’t mean that, right, Jean-Claude?” Reggie was this gang member who hung around Roxbury Heights. He was only sixteen years old but he was as tall as Jean-Claude and had a big build and everybody was scared of him.

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