Laugh with the Moon Read online

  It’s nice, I guess, but I certainly have better. “It’s just a red Pilot pen,” I say.

  I set down my paper and try to keep copying my words, but it’s totally impossible to focus. Agnes won’t stop talking. “Most certainly a student in Malawi does not need a magic pencil unless she is at secondary school,” she says, and holds out her hand, palm up. “I shall score highest on the Primary School Leaving Exam of the entire district. It is most certain I shall go to best secondary school in all Malawi. Therefore, you may give this magic pencil to me.”

  I try to ignore her as well as I can ignore someone who is superglued to my side. But when she keeps chattering, I decide that maybe this gift will make her leave me alone. Besides, I have plenty of pens in my bag. “Here,” I say, and hand it over.

  Agnes’s eyes go wide and she smiles. “Saidi,” she calls as he strolls back from Mrs. Tomasi’s desk. “A magic pencil! Look!” Agnes grabs my vocabulary sheet and writes her name on the bottom of the paper in big red letters. “Put my name!” Saidi says. Without even asking, Agnes tears off the bottom of my worksheet to write Saidi’s name too.

  After quizzes, it’s time for chores. Mrs. Tomasi orders Memory and Gloria to distribute the schoolbooks to the classrooms, she tells Winnie and Stella to chase the frazzled chicken outside, and she says that Agnes and Patuma must sweep the floor. As for Norman, Handlebar, Saidi, and the rest of the boys, they’re sent to chop grass. But what about me? I’m full of dread. I wonder what on earth my sentence will be. Scrubbing? Chopping? Sweeping? As it turns out, though, I’m not ready for a complete sentence. “Right now, you must study words for the quiz tomorrow,” my teacher says.

  “Words? What about chores?” I ask.

  Even though there’s no such thing as a stupid question back at my school in Massachusetts, apparently here at Mzanga Full Primary School there is. Mrs. Tomasi cups her hand over her mouth and giggles. “You are an American girl, Clare. American girls need not do chores.”

  At that news, I breathe a sigh of relief louder than the first, second, and third roosters combined. But my good feeling only lasts as long as a blink, because then Mrs. Tomasi steps out of the classroom, and a blink after that, Agnes sweeps a cloud of red dust into my face.

  Once my coughing fit passes, I glare at Agnes and follow Memory outside. All the classes are lined up in the field for the daily assembly. It’s easy to see that there are hundreds of little kids in this school and not nearly as many big ones. I ask Memory why. “Drop out due to illness, harvest, family members who need care,” she says.

  Mr. Special Kingsley calls for our attention and everyone sings the Malawi national anthem in English and Chichewa. Since I don’t know the song, I use one of Marcella’s tricks and mouth “watermelon, banana, watermelon, banana” over and over again, and it looks like I’m singing all the right words in both languages.

  Mr. Special Kingsley makes the morning announcements: “The bricks for the new teacher house have dried. Standard six students shall start building this very afternoon. Further, there is word that a stray leopard has been spotted near a village on the other side of the district. Please take care not to wander into the bush.”

  This piece of news sends everyone, teachers included, tittering with excitement. It sets me chomping on my necklace in fright. And of course, Agnes is so ferocious she makes a leopard seem tame. Back in the classroom, she and Memory lean over me to read the story of Cinderella from the book we share. Agnes points to the picture of Cinderella at the ball with the handsome prince. “This beautiful girl is me.” She flips backward a few pages to the picture of the ugly stepsisters and points to the one with the missing teeth. “You,” Agnes tells Memory. And then to the one with the wart on her nose. “Glorious Blessing,” she says to me, and giggles, “this girl is you.”

  “You are much worst than a stepsister,” Memory tells Agnes. “You … you are a—” But Memory never gets to hurl her insult, because Mrs. Tomasi interrupts. She calls on Agnes to read out loud. I don’t know how she does it, but Agnes flips right back to the page with Cinderella on it and reads two whole pages without making a single mistake. “A most magnificent performance,” Mrs. Tomasi says.

  My nostrils flare like a bloody bull’s.

  During social studies we go outside, where Mrs. Tomasi helps us paint a giant Malawian flag on an old sheet. After we leave the sheet to dry in the sun, we each gather small rocks for math. Our collections of rocks clatter onto our tables. I’m tempted to throw one at Agnes, but she’s so skinny, it would probably crack one of her bones.

  “Two-fifths is the same as what part of twenty?” Mrs. Tomasi asks. The room sounds like thunder as we all move our rocks around and try to figure out the answer. Handlebar raises his hand first. “Eight,” he says.

  “Correct,” our teacher says. She gives us the next problem.

  But I’ve got a problem all my own: this morning Dad said he wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital to drive me home in the afternoon. “Amputation,” he said. “But I’m confident you can find the way back from now on.” I have to admit it’s true. It’s kind of tough to get lost since there’s only one turn to make between the house and school, and there will be hundreds of kids walking in the same direction. I can’t explain to Dad, though, that getting lost is not what I’m worried about.

  Who I’m going to walk with this afternoon is.

  Of course, I’d like to walk with Memory, but I haven’t known her very long at all and she already has so many friends, and I’m sure I need her more than she needs me. So after math, I finally work up the guts and ask. “Chabwino!” she says, and smiles. “We shall meet on the hilltop after I gather the schoolbooks and my brother.” Even though Innocent is dismissed earlier in the day, he sticks around to play soccer, make bricks, and walk home with his sister.

  I’m still swimming in the sensation of sweet relief that I won’t be walking by myself when I meet Memory and Innocent at the top of the hill fifteen minutes after Mrs. Tomasi dismisses us for the day. “How do you do that?” I ask Memory, staring at the box on her head.

  Innocent walks between us, kicking a small rock like it’s a soccer ball.

  “Do what?” she says.

  “The box. How do you keep it up there on your head?”

  Memory laughs. “It is not much difficult.” She takes it off her head. There’s a red cloth ring beneath it. “Try,” she says.

  Memory puts the ring on my head, and then the box. I feel like I’m going to get crushed right into the ground. “Now you must walk.”

  I hold my breath. I’ve got one foot in the air when I hear laughter from the other side of the road. No sooner do I shoot a quick glance to see who’s there than the box wobbles.

  Memory and Innocent both reach out their arms. Memory catches the box before it smashes her brother.

  “Sorry!” I shout.

  Across the dirt road, three little girls imitate my spastic attempt to carry the box on my head.

  “Perhaps a bit more practice may do you well,” Memory says. “I shall carry the box for today.” She places it back on top of her head. Then the three of us continue on past the tobacco farms, the ladies with machetes, and a herd of cows busily lapping rainwater from a puddle.

  When we reach the path to my house, I take another look at her head. “Are you sure you don’t have a secret shelf up there?”

  Memory looks puzzled.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, and wish her and Innocent a good afternoon.

  I turn down the jungle path. A bunch of bright purple berries that I swear weren’t here yesterday glimmer like small grapes in the dappled light. Overhead, a fat blue monkey with a fuzzy gray face plucks a melon from a vine and chomps away.

  I’m thinking about how cute he looks when suddenly, he lifts the entire fruit over his head and chucks it to the ground beside me. Mud splatters all over my sneakers.

  “Watch it!” I scream.

  The dumb monkey ooh-ooh-oohs.

&nb
sp; I run to the house. Mrs. Bwanali’s out front unpinning clothes from the line. “Clare,” she calls, “how is my girl?”

  “Don’t ask!” I say.

  She sets Dad’s blue hospital scrubs in the wicker basket, crosses the grass, and takes my hands. “I must ask. Are you hungry, love?”

  I nod.

  “Let Mrs. Bwanali fix your meal.”

  “Zikomo,” I say, and follow her inside.

  I change out of my uniform, grab my sketchpad. Then I plunk down on the kitchen chair and draw that naughty little primate. When I cough, Mrs. Bwanali boils water for tea and sings me a tune in Chichewa.

  “You know this song, Clare?”

  I shake my head.

  “It is a special song about a hungry boy who eat and eat. Yet this food is never enough. One day the hungry child fall down and the papa hug the boy, and the boy say, ‘Now I am full.’ The boy is not full with nsima. The boy is full with love.”

  I wake up Saturday morning between the first and third rooster crow, and I can’t fall back to sleep. How could I possibly? A whole entire weekend looms before me without the prospect of a single movie, trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, or visit to the mall. And even that I could survive. But a weekend without one friend? I burrow under the sheet. I’ve got nothing to do other than think, and no one to spend time with besides my father. I’d rather hang out with Mrs. Bwanali than Dad, but she doesn’t work Saturdays or Sundays.

  Dad rocks the house with his snores while I brush my teeth with bottled water and eat a banana and some nsima that’s left in the fridge. Then I put on a T-shirt and shorts and weave tiny braids in half of my hair. I fasten the bottom of each one with elastics that are still at the bottom of my backpack from when I had my braces. I sketch for an hour out on the veranda, but then I’m bored with that. And by ten o’clock, I can feel my muscles literally itching to get out of the house, even though there’s absolutely nowhere to go. So at 10:22, when my father gets up and walks out to the covered porch in his pajamas and says, “What do you say we go see some animals?” I nod a little too eagerly.

  Dad smiles.

  I want to tell him not to get excited—it’s only because I’m so crazy bored my brain feels like it’s about to explode right inside my skull—but that would require talking.

  “I’m going to throw on some clothes, eat something quick—did you eat?”

  I nod again.

  “Super!” Dad says. “Then we’ll head out to Liwonde National Park. You’ll love it. It’s great!”

  An hour later, we’ve paid the fee at the gate. The attendant gives us a map of the park, a list of the animals we’ll see, and a paper that says we shouldn’t leave our vehicle under any circumstances. We’re winding along the Shire River. I’m thinking that I’m almost used to riding in what would be the driver’s seat in the United States when all of a sudden, I spot a six-foot-long lizard tanning on a rock and a bunch of crocodiles bathing in the lagoon. As the dirt road winds through the forest and across the savannah, seven warthogs snort their way right in front of the Land Rover. They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, but still, they take my breath away. There are vervet monkeys and antelopes too. For a while I can’t help it, I’m saying “Wow!” and “Check that one out!” every other minute. Dad stops the car so I can sketch the African fish eagle and a waterbuck grazing on the tall grass.

  I’ve just finished my drawing when Dad ruins everything. “Clare,” he says, “I thought we could talk about how you’re doing. About your mother.”

  I look at him. It’s a trick. He’s got me trapped.

  He tries to put his arms around my shoulder. “I know how painful it is,” he says.

  And that’s when I turn to him. Turn on him. He doesn’t know how painful it is. He’s over it. Over her. Obviously. He’s dancing and smiling and laughing. He’s back to normal and it hasn’t even been a whole year. Isn’t my mother worth at least a year of sadness, a year of pain? “You don’t know!” I shout. “You don’t even care anymore.” I slam my fists against the dashboard, but I don’t feel anything at all. And I don’t feel the tears pouring down my face, yet I taste them when I try to catch my breath.

  Suddenly, I don’t care if I get eaten alive. I just need to get away from him, so I throw open the Land Rover door and run and run and run. As I run, I see too far into the distance. I see my life without Mom: my prom, my wedding, my kids. It will be just me and my dad, who doesn’t even know me anymore.

  “Clare!” Dad shouts. “Get back here!”

  And then I see it. A python winding through the tree. My heart thumps in my throat. I grind to a halt. I’ll be dead in seconds anyway.

  Dad comes up behind me. I point.

  “It’s a vine,” he says, and sighs. He squeezes my wrist and pulls me back to the Land Rover. Once we’re inside, he locks the doors. Then he rests his forehead on the steering wheel and closes his eyes.

  “Dad?” I say, but he doesn’t move. Is he furious? Is he having a heart attack? What’s going on? “Dad!” I shout.

  He lifts his head. “You scared me,” he whispers.

  “Sorry.”

  “And Clare …”

  “What?” A flock of tiny blackbirds circles the air.

  “I miss your mother more than anything.” He looks out the window. His shoulders shake. I watch him like that for a long time. I don’t know what to do, what to say. I fit my molars into the dent in my pendant.

  It’s strange to be here with my dad crying. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. It’s only the second time I’ve ever seen him cry. The first time was at Mom’s funeral. I mean, everyone was crying there. It’s a funeral. You’re supposed to cry. But for some reason, I was the only person in the whole church who didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d cried so much already, I was exhausted.

  A pack of impalas leaps across the grass in front of the Land Rover. I’m tempted to get out, run away with them. Even though I didn’t want Dad to be happy without me, suddenly, I don’t want him to be sad with me either. I mean, what is a girl supposed to do when her father’s beside her melting down?

  But then, as if she has heard my very thought, my mother appears. Not in pieces or flashes, but like a picture. Whole. “Make room for me,” she says. I move over on the seat so she can fit next to the window. In an instant, I remember everything about her. About us. About how much she loves me and Dad. About how our family is supposed to work. I can’t believe she’s finally come.

  “Clare,” she says, “he needs you.”

  “You’re here,” I say.

  “Where else would I be?” she asks.

  It’s like not a day has passed, like she’s never left us.

  “Be there for your dad,” she says. Her shimmering voice sounds like a piece of sun. “Please.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Be there how?”

  “You’re smart,” Mom says, and smiles. “You’ll find a way. And one more thing.”

  She looks radiant. She looks like she should be on a television commercial for skin cream. “Grief isn’t a tunnel you walk through and you’re done,” she says. “It waxes and wanes like the moon.” She kisses me on the cheek. I smell the cold cream on her face.

  I reach over and touch Dad’s shoulder. “Grief isn’t a tunnel you walk through and you’re done,” I tell him.

  Dad looks at me, his blue-gray eyes caught in a storm. I hug him, and when I’m finished, my mother is gone.

  On Sunday, I celebrate the fact that I didn’t get torn to shreds by a lion by transforming my bedroom into a place where someone with a pulse can actually live. But what to use? I rummage through the dresser and pull out seven scarves. I collect scarves because Marcella told me that a teenager can never accessorize too much. I tie them end to end until I’ve got a bright strip of orange and gold swirls, blue stars on purple, and rainbow stripes. I drape my creation over the top of the dresser. The colors pour down each side. Next, I take a white T-shirt and stick all my earrings through it to
make a dazzling splash. I put the T-shirt with my jewels on one of the six hangers in the house. And voilà!

  Dad knocks on the door and says he wants to head over to the village and see his friends. He wants to know if I’d like to come.

  “Notice anything different?” I ask.

  But of course he doesn’t. He’s a man.

  So I give him a little tour and he pretends to be impressed. “Very nice use of color palette and contrast,” he says, although it’s clear he’s only throwing around words my mother and I always used. “And remember your hat,” he says.

  I feel warm inside. I can’t believe Dad said that. I can’t believe he told me to remember my hat. I put on a skirt, T-shirt, sandals, and of course, my Red Sox cap. It’s a relief to be wearing something other than my school uniform.

  When we get to Mkumba village, he walks with me to Memory’s hut, where an old woman missing her front teeth comes to the door. She smiles and her eyes water. Then she kneels in front of my father and says, “Moni, adokotala,” and talks to my father in Chichewa.

  “This is Memory’s grandmother,” Dad tells me.

  “Moni,” I say. Dad translates while Memory’s grandma points to the river and says that Memory is there with her friends. I glance behind the hut and see their bright-colored dresses in the distance. “Why don’t you go visit with them,” Dad says. “I’m going to find Stallard. I’ll meet you at the clearing before sundown.”

  “It’s a plan,” I say, and mosey down the path. I hope they don’t mind me crashing their party. They’ve probably known each other since they were born. And now here I am needing some company. Why should they bother with me? I’ll be flying back to the United States in two months anyway.

  When I get closer to the river, I see that it’s Sickness and Patuma there washing dishes with Memory. Sickness sees me. She smiles and says, “Visitor! Hello!”