Ola Shakes It Up Read online

  “What does that mean?” I asked suspiciously.

  “This is a cooperative neighborhood, Ola.” Mama opened the door and pushed me inside.

  “What does that mean?” I repeated, looking around. We walked down a long hallway into a big square room with white walls and dark wood floors. There was even a fireplace at one end of the room. Dad was standing in front of the tall, wide windows with his hands in his pockets. Everything looked new—like it had never been touched before. Our old house, with its worn-down wood floors and faded yellow-flowered wallpaper, looked more homey.

  “It means that everyone in the neighborhood does things to keep it a nice place,” Mama explained, going over to stand by Dad. I could see their faces reflected in the window.

  “Like what?” This whole cooperative thing sounded fishy to me.

  “Like cutting your lawn regularly—”

  “Hear that, Dad?” I said, and had to move before his hand reached down to swat my behind for being fresh. “What else?”

  “Little things, Ola, like keeping the house in good shape, not parking your car out in the street, not hanging clothes out in the yard—”

  “What will they do if you don't do all that stuff?” I asked, but Mama and Dad were smiling at each other, and I decided to get out of there. They were crazy, expecting us to leave our home for this strange place where they had rules that forced you to mow your own lawn. Whose house was this, anyway? The more I thought about it, the more fun I decided it would be to break one of those rules. I could see the headlines: “Nine-Year-Old Ayeola Benson Arrested by Neighborhood for Hanging Out Purple Leotard.” If this was really our house — if I thought for a moment that we were gonna stay here —I'd put something out there right now.

  I wandered around the house until I found the kitchen. Dad was right—it was much bigger than our real kitchen. It had a long counter with tall black stools, and the tile on the floor was black and green. Off to the side was a little room with our new washing machine and dryer. I went further into the kitchen and looked out the window over the sink. The backyard was even bigger than the front lawn. Someone had cemented part of it and put in a basketball hoop. Now Khatib would never want to leave. I climbed up on one of the stools and sat down.

  There were too many corners and too many white walls. Aeisha would be able to find a million places to hide and read her books without me pestering her to come out and live a little. (If it wasn't for me, Aeisha would be the world's only twelve-year-old hermit.) We wouldn't be able to sit together in the kitchen doing our homework while Dad prepared for one of his classes and Mama hummed under her breath. We wouldn't be able to lie down on Mama and Dad's bed all squashed together to watch TV. This house was so big we would never see each other. And nobody in the family was talking about how different it would be for us here. Back in the car I'd seen how Aeisha put down her book and Khatib took off his Walkman to look out the window at the town. They'd been thinking the same thing I was. Walcott was a historic old town, all right. A historic old white town. We hadn't seen a single other black or Hispanic face.

  Dad came into the kitchen, looked at my long face, and sighed. “Ola, you got to give the place a chance, now.”

  I shook my head. “It's all wrong for us, Dad. I don't think we should stay here.”

  “Well, then, what are we gonna do about Grady, huh?” Dad put his hands on his hips and cocked his head.

  “Who's Grady?” I asked, but before Dad could answer I heard the barking, and Aeisha rushed into the kitchen leading a big yellow-gold dog with a bright red bow around his neck.

  “Look, Ola!”

  “A dog!” I shouted, before I could help myself. I jumped off the stool and went to look at him. He had floppy ears and a black nose. I reached out to touch his fur. He felt really soft.

  “This is blackmail, Dad,” I said, putting my hand behind my back quickly. I looked away from Grady to Dad, who was smiling his big-teeth smile again. We couldn't have any pets in our other house because it was too small.

  “A golden retriever, too, Ola,” Aeisha added.

  I glared at Dad. He was cheating. I was the one who always asked for a dog every Christmas. Each year I asked for a different kind of dog to see if maybe that would change their mind. Last year I'd asked for a golden retriever. One year, when I was real little, I'd started crying because they gave me a stuffed dog instead. Dad had hugged me and said he was very, very sorry.

  “Now what are we gonna do if we have to go back?” Dad asked. “The pound is keeping him until we move in.”

  “You got him at the pound?” I asked, kneeling down in front of Grady. I looked into his brown dog eyes. Grady looked back at me and started whimpering. Even the dog was in cahoots with this move.

  “An old lady had left him there, Ola.” Dad had turned his lips down at the corners, so it looked like he was sad instead of happy. “She said she couldn't take care of him anymore.”

  “Poor Grady,” I said. I couldn't help myself. I had to pat him again.

  “Are you ready to give this place a chance now?” I heard Dad ask from behind me. I pulled my hand back quickly. Then I shook my head and stood up.

  “He's cute, Dad. Too bad we have to give him back.”

  But Dad started smiling again, and I left the kitchen to go think about this new development. I knew we wouldn't be able to take Grady back with us. And I knew that Khatib and Aeisha were gonna be useless from now on. They wanted a dog as much as I did.

  I started up the stairs. I would go look at the rest of the house while I tried to figure out what to do. Upstairs, there was a wider hallway with more white walls and shiny wooden floors. There were three rooms on each side and a window shaped like an arch at the end. I looked into the first room quickly and found Khatib there, checking himself out in the bathroom mirror.

  “There aren't any girls around here but me and Aeisha, you know,” I told him, looking around at the bathroom. It had ugly wallpaper with orange and brown dots on it. It also had a separate bathtub and shower.

  Khatib didn't even look at me. He took his little black comb out from his back pocket and started combing the sides of his hair. “Did you see your room yet?”

  “What room?” I asked. “Aeisha probably got the biggest one already.”

  I waited for Khatib to say something, but he ignored me and started trying out different “cool” looks in the mirror. I rolled my eyes and got out of there quick. Once I'd seen Khatib actually kiss himself in the mirror. He said he was pretending to kiss someone else, but that made me even more sick.

  I walked down the hallway and looked at the other rooms. Two were big, square, empty bedrooms. One of them had a window seat in it. Aeisha would love that. The other one smelled like paint and was freezing cold because someone had left the window open. I was starting to think about how to stage my fit when I walked into the third bedroom, which was painted white with purple borders. I stopped and looked up. There over my head was a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars. It was my room.

  “Well, what do you think?” I turned around and saw Dad in the doorway, still smiling. Grady was sitting next to him, and for a second it looked like he was smiling, too. I looked at the room for a few seconds, then back at Dad. It was the only room in the house that was decorated special.

  “Just a chance, Ola.”

  I guess Dad had been listening to me, a little.

  “Okay, Dad.” I gave him a hug and swallowed. A four-hour commute did seem a little too much. We would never see Dad. Maybe Mama and Dad were right—maybe this move wouldn't be so bad. Khatib was always saying that I should be more optimistic. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't think of anything worse than being stuck in Walcott.

  eisha? … Aeisha! … Aeisha!”

  Dad popped his head up from behind a pile of boxes and looked at me like something was hurting him bad.

  “Ola. You're killing my ears.”

  “Hmpf,” I said, kicking one of the cardboard boxes.


  “Ola.” This time Dads voice was sterner, and I looked down at my purple-and-black sneakers. I knew I was gonna get a lecture, and it was all Aeisha s fault, 'cause she was hiding away somewhere reading and I couldn't find her, 'cause there were boxes all over the house and furniture turned upside down like to say, Get out 'cause this ain't your house anymore. And after the weekend, that was just the way it would be. I'd tried to be a good sport about this move for a few days, but seeing everything packed up had brought all my doubts back. It seemed like everything I did was for the last time. My last dance class at the community center had been Thursday. My last day of school had been that day, Friday. And it was also the last time we would see Mrs. Gransby, because on Saturday she was going to New York to see her daughter Clarisse. To top it all off, Karen and Margarita were mad at me 'cause I was leaving. They said I hadn't tried hard enough to stop it.

  “You should have cried and screamed more,” Margarita had said. She had dropped her end of the jump rope right in the middle of a song. “You should have had a plan C, D, E and F, and if those didn't work, you should have had a super emergency backup plan.”

  Then Margarita slapped her hand against her forehead and moaned. She was being very dramatic, as usual, because she wants to be a famous actress someday. She's always talking about how hard it is for Puerto Rican actresses to make it big and so she has to practice, practice, practice all the time.

  I sighed and tried telling Margarita and Karen about how I had a backup plan. I had called it Operation No-Sell. I had even tried to get Aeisha and Khatib involved. But Mama and Dad had gotten to them before I could. Khatib found out that Dad had made special arrangements for him to try out for the basketball team at Walcott High School. Dad told Khatib that Walcott s team was in a better league and was undefeated, which was all Khatib needed to hear. He loved the glory of winning. Then Mama told Aeisha that our school had an advanced honors program she would be able to enter, and I knew she would be no help, either.

  I had gone on with Operation No-Sell on my own. I had put a sign that read HOUSE QUARANTINED FOR MEASLES: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK on the door whenever any real estate people came over to look at our house. When Mama had caught on to that, I started putting big cans of Raid and mousetraps all over the house so potential buyers would think we had roaches and mice. I plugged the sinks and the toilet with paper so they would think we had bad plumbing. I forgot to give Mama phone messages from the realtor who was handling the buying of the new house in Walcott. But I had underestimated Mama and Dad. They found a really old couple named the Martins to buy our house. They were so blind they didn't even see the cans of Raid or the backed-up toilet or the quarantine sign.

  “Did you try running away, like I told you?” Karen was still turning her end of the jump rope even though the other end was on the ground. I knew that meant that she was upset, too.

  “Aeisha told them before I could even get out the door,” I muttered. “Besides, that never works. They know I always go to your house, and your mom always calls them.”

  “This time she wouldn't have,” Karen insisted. She leaned closer to me, and I could see the pale brown freckles on her face. Karen's got skin the color of cinnamon, with freckles so light that you can't see them unless you look close. “I swore her to secrecy.”

  “You didn't see all the work they did on my new room. They were ready for me.” I tried to defend myself. “Aeisha and Khatib finked on me, and then there was Grady. I was outnumbered.”

  Karen and Margarita didn't say anything.

  “We're not moving 'cause we want to,” I tried to explain. “We're moving 'cause we have to. Come on, let's finish playing.”

  Margarita looked away from me, but she picked up the other end of the rope again. I was hoping that playing our favorite jump-rope game would distract them from my bad news. I jumped into the rope and Karen and Margarita started singing the jump-rope rhyme we'd made up for me last summer.

  Mama put cola in my cup

  Ola, child, don't shake it up

  Mama put braids in my hair

  Ola, child, best leave them there

  We had made one for each of us that was supposed to show parts of our personality.

  Mama made me put on a dress

  Ola, child, don't make a mess

  Mama told me not to run

  When, Mama, will I have some fun?

  Listening to the song as I jumped, I started thinking again. Karen and Margarita were right. I couldn't give up so easy. My breath started to come out in pants as they turned the rope faster for the last part.

  I wanna shake it up,

  shake it up,

  shake it up Like an earthquake….

  At the end of the song, I waved my arms and legs like crazy while I jumped. I was supposed to look like I was in an earthquake, but actually I was just excited. Karen and Margarita and our jump-rope song had helped me come up with another plan.

  When Karen and Margarita had said goodbye to me after the game, I could tell how sad they still were. I'd wanted to tell them not to give up yet. I still had one last plan to try, but I hadn't wanted to get their hopes up. This plan called for drastic measures.

  “Ola,” Dad said again now, to make me look at him.

  “Yes, Dad?” He didn't look too mad, just tired. No wonder, with all the packing we'd been doing. Something else was different about Dad's face, too.

  “You shaved your mustache off!”

  “There's delicate things in some of these boxes. If you kick one, you might break something.”

  “Don't change the subject, Dad,” I said, waving my finger at him. Dad had always had a mustache — for as long as I've been alive. It was thick and black and wavy, and I used to sit on his lap and brush it with one of my doll combs when I was real little. “Why'd you shave your mustache?”

  “Ola, I'm not changing the subject. Don't kick any more of these boxes.” Dad put his hand up to touch where his mustache used to be. “You don't like it?”

  I stared at him. Too many things were changing way too fast around here for me lately. Now Dad had changed his face. “Why'd you do it? Don't they allow mustaches in our corporation neighborhood?”

  Dad reached out and tugged one of my braids. “Cooperative. No, Ayeola, that's not it. I just needed a change. New house. New job. No more taking classes at night. This is a good change, Ola baby.”

  Ah-ha, that's it! I thought. Dad was afraid of looking like an old fogey at his new job. I'd heard him on the phone telling his twin brother, Uncle Louis, that the people at his new job were a bunch of young, hotshot kids who were fresh out of college and who probably didn't even know how to shave yet. Dad had just finished college, too. But he wasn't a kid and it took him six years to get his engineering degree 'cause he had to take classes at night and work too. I looked up at Dad again and saw that his hair was shorter. Another haircut. At this rate, Dad would be bald by the time he went off for his first day at work. He did look younger, but it still looked like something was wrong with his face.

  “You look younger, Dad,” I said, deciding to be nice. “But next time, will you consult me before you make these drastic changes?”

  Dad looked like he was trying not to smile, which was just what I wanted. “Yes, Ola.”

  “Good … Aeisha!” I screamed, darting out of the kitchen before I could get another lecture. Dad's mustache and us moving weren't the only things that were changing around here. Soon we were going to have a whole other person coming to live with us. Mama had called a family meeting the day before to tell us about it.

  Mama had made us sit down around the kitchen table before speaking. “I found someone to help us around the house.”

  “We don't need a maid, Mama.” Aeisha had spoken up, leaning forward. “Any maid we got would leave after they had to wash Khatib's funky socks, anyway”

  “Hey” Khatib dug his elbow into Aeisha's side. “What about you and your dirty feet?” Aeisha hates to wear shoes. She walks around barefoot all t
he time.

  “Come to order,” Dad boomed out. He takes these meetings very seriously. “We're not getting a maid.”

  Mama nodded, her dark brown eyes looking at us intently. “We're going to be helping out someone who can also help us. Marie-Thèrése told me about this girl.”

  Marie-Thèrése is a Haitian lady that Mama worked with on a project for a community health center last year. They spent almost a year putting together programs and advertising that would educate black women about different cancers. Marie-Thèrése and Mama became good friends after that, and she'd been over all week helping us pack.

  Mama was still talking. “… she doesn't have any family here and she's lived a very hard life —”

  “Where's she from?” I interrupted.

  “Weren't you listening, dodo head?” Aeisha raised her eyebrows. “She's from Haiti. She's one of those boat people.”

  “They let her and a few others into the country because she was sick, and she's been in the hospital for the past five months,” Dad said. “Now she's better and she has no place to go. According to Marie-Thèrése, the girl wants to stay here and make a good life for herself. She'd be helping us out at the same time.”

  “How old is she?” Aeisha asked.

  “Twenty.”

  “What's her name?”

  “Lillian.”

  “Does she speak English?” I asked, remembering Marie-Thèrése's thick accent.

  “Some. She needs more practice. She learned some English here and some in Haiti. She's supposed to be very smart.” Mama looked at me, then at Khatib and Aeisha. “She needs sponsors to stay in the United States. What do all of you think?”

  None of us said anything. I looked around at everybody's faces. Mama and Dad were watching us. I could tell they had already made up their minds to take Lillian, but they were letting us make the final decision. Aeisha looked like she was turning everything that had been said over and over in her mind, and Khatib looked bored. As for me, it was hard to imagine another person living with us. But this person sounded like she needed us more than we needed her.