A Sky Full of Stars Read online

  Hallelujah gave me a sideways stare. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  My forehead creased. “You’re worried about me?”

  Hallelujah dropped his hands to his sides and heaved a sigh. “Why would you have anything to do with a boy like Shorty? You heard the nonsense he was spewing out in Miss Hill’s class. You know how bad he could make you look?”

  “He is my cousin,” I said. “I have a right to talk to my own cousin, don’t I?”

  “He’s a troublemaker,” Hallelujah said sharply.

  “And just what were you doing Thursday morning when Miss Hill ran weeping out of the classroom?”

  “Informing my peers,” Hallelujah answered.

  I couldn’t argue with him, because information was certainly not what Shorty was interested in. He wanted a revolution. A fight. He wanted to kill white people. I shuddered at the thought.

  “You shouldn’t be seen with him,” Hallelujah said. “Teachers don’t think too highly of him.”

  I gave him a sideways glance. “From what I can tell, Miss Hill doesn’t think too highly of you, either. But that doesn’t stop me from being your friend. Besides, Shorty asked me to meet him after school. He said it was time for change and he needed my help. So I met him. What else was I supposed to do? And why the devil do you even care?”

  Hallelujah gripped my shoulders as if to shake me. “Because you’re my friend,” he said.

  “For the record, Shorty wanted to talk about the same thing your daddy was talking about tonight,” I said. “He said it was time for change.”

  “It is. But not like he wants to.”

  “How do you know what he wants?”

  Hallelujah mimicked Shorty. “‘You can march all you want, but I’m picking up my grandaddy’s shotgun. I ain’t go’n march on the street and git gunned out.’ I know what he wants. He wants the white man’s blood running in the street instead of the colored man’s feet marching in it.”

  “What about your daddy? And you? What do you want?”

  “Change,” Hallelujah answered briskly. “But it won’t come by killing white people. It’ll come by getting them to recognize that we’re all equal. That one race isn’t superior to another.”

  When he sat on the top step, I motioned for him to scoot over. I sat beside him. “Quit sounding so grown-up all the time.”

  He scoffed and said, “One of us has to.”

  I nudged him in the side. “I forgot. You’re a man who’s going places.”

  He grinned and nudged me back. “Yep. And I’m taking you with me.”

  “Where are we going, Hallelujah Jenkins?” I teased him.

  He nodded and said, “Columbus, Ohio.”

  “For the man who discovered this great country,” we both said together.

  We laughed quietly for a moment, then Hallelujah’s expression turned serious again. “Shorty sounds like Nat Turner.”

  Turner. Because the name sounded familiar, my first thought was that it was one of Ricky Turner’s evil relatives. I scrunched up my face. I couldn’t recall whether I’d heard of any of them with a name that sounded like an insect—​gnat.

  Noticing my puzzled expression, Hallelujah continued. “He was a slave who thought he would one day be like Moses and lead his people to freedom.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding. “I remember hearing something about him.”

  “The only problem was, instead of letting the good Lord do the punishing the way he punished Pharaoh and the Egyptians when they wouldn’t let his people go, Nat Turner took matters into his own hands. He led a slave revolt, taking a band of slaves with him from plantation to plantation, killing off white folks.”

  I shivered. “A revolt does sound like something Shorty would do. He said something about randomly killing a white person to show them what it feels like to be scared.”

  Hallelujah groaned. “The story goes that Nat Turner and his army killed about sixty white folks. But to bring down the rebellion, the authorities killed more than a hundred of Nat Turner’s folks.”

  I swallowed. “Didn’t they hang Nat Turner?”

  Hallelujah nodded. “He got away for a minute. But they found him later and executed him.”

  Goose bumps covered my arms. “If Shorty tried something like that, he’d eventually be killed, just like Nat Turner.”

  “He’s right about defending ourselves, but we can’t go after people with guns on purpose.”

  “Is that why Reverend Jenkins said we need a Joshua and not a Moses?”

  Hallelujah frowned. “Nat Turner was no Moses. He didn’t lead any slaves to freedom. He led them to their deaths. Harriet Tubman was our Moses. She successfully led three hundred slaves to freedom without even one of them getting killed. And she didn’t leave a bloody trail of white folks in her path either.”

  “Miss Johnson told us about her,” I said. “But she never mentioned Nat Turner.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to give people like Shorty any ideas.”

  “So what did Reverend Jenkins mean about needing a Joshua, not a Moses?”

  “I think he was referring to them marching around the walls of Jericho.”

  I nodded. “Like people are marching now.”

  We were silent for a moment before I asked what good marching would do.

  “It’s a start,” said Hallelujah. “But we’ve got to do something more. Instead of marching, we need to stand.”

  I questioned him with raised brows.

  “Stand up for our rights,” said Hallelujah. “March right into some of these places where they say we can’t go and stand there. Or sit. Or whatever it takes to make them see that we are people too.”

  I crossed my arms and said, “Oh, you mean like my cousin Mule, so we can get thrown in jail and beat up?”

  Hallelujah shrugged. “If that’s what it takes. Besides, I didn’t say anything about punching someone in the face.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do when they ask you to leave?”

  “Stay.”

  “What if they hit you?”

  “Stay.”

  “You won’t hit back?”

  “No.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I’m fed up.”

  “Like Mule, huh?”

  “Well, yeah. But I won’t hit anyone.”

  “This all sounds good—​all this big talk about standing up for rights—​but I think it’s crazy to just go sit in a restaurant and demand to be served.”

  Hallelujah pointed at himself. “Then I’m crazy. And so is Dr. Howard, in Mound Bayou. He’s holding meetings now. In churches. In large cities like New York. Encouraging people to take a stand. Especially for Emmett Till.”

  “Has he gone into any white restaurants and demanded to be served?”

  The air went out of Hallelujah like a deflated balloon.

  “You ever hear Dr. Howard give one of his speeches?” I asked, trying to make up for badgering him.

  Hallelujah shook his head. “Not yet. But I sure would like to. Preacher’s gotten word that his next speech might be in Montgomery, Alabama, soon.”

  Just the mention of Montgomery reminded me of Aunt Belle’s fiancé, Monty, or Aaron Montgomery Ward Harris. He had stood up for me when Ma Pearl wanted me to quit school, and he had welcomed me to join him and Aunt Belle in Saint Louis. But I had chosen to stay because I thought I wanted to be a part of all this. This war, that might actually involve fighting.

  “I would love to go hear Dr. Howard speak,” Hallelujah said. “I wish more colored people could be like him. He’s a surgeon, a farmer, a businessman, and a fighter for the rights of our people. Can you imagine what we could accomplish if more of our people believed in themselves the way he does?”

  All I could do was sigh. I was not one of those people. I knew I was smart enough to go to college, but doubts once again had begun to creep up on me. I wanted so badly to be brave like Hallelujah. Like Reverend Jenkins. Like Dr. Howard. Even like Shorty, thou
gh I didn’t want to kill anyone. And I had been brave once. I was brave back in September, while Aunt Belle and Monty were here. Perhaps their presence somehow gave me strength. But Reverend Jenkins had said that we had to find our own strength. That we shouldn’t depend solely on the Negro from the North to save us. We had to save ourselves. Maybe I was depending too much on the North, or going north, rather. I had chosen to stay. I had chosen the South. I had made that clear in my letter to Aunt Belle. And she had applauded me in her return letter. “You are such a brave girl, Rosa Lee!” she had written.

  When I laughed to myself and at myself, Hallelujah wrinkled his forehead and stared at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking about something my aunt wrote me, and it made me laugh. She said I was brave.”

  “You are,” Hallelujah replied.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m scared.”

  Hallelujah put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to be.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “You won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ll die trying to keep you alive.”

  Warmth spread over me. “Greater love hath no man than this,” I said.

  “That a man lay down his life for his friends,” Hallelujah said.

  “Friends again?” I asked.

  Hallelujah smiled. “Forever.”

  When the church door creaked open and voices spilled out, we ended our conversation. Fellowship time was over. It was time to go home.

  Chapter Ten

  Friday, November 18

  WHEN I SAW HALLELUJAH THAT MORNING BEFORE school started, his smile seemed to stretch from one side of his face to the other. With Reverend Jenkins being a teacher, Hallelujah got to school before I did, and he was usually waiting for me outside the eighth grade classroom.

  “What you so happy for this morning, besides the day being Friday?” I asked him.

  “Guess where I might get to go.”

  With raised brows, I teased him. “Hunting?”

  Hallelujah rolled his eyes. Many of the boys we knew went hunting during the winter months, and some of them even hunted with white boys. The most I could do was shake my head at any colored boy who was foolish enough to enter the woods with a white boy carrying a loaded shotgun.

  “So, where might you get to go?” I asked him.

  Hallelujah’s eyes shone brighter, and his grin stretched broader. “Alabama.”

  Both my eyebrows shot up. “Montgomery? You’re going to hear Dr. Howard speak?”

  “Well, it’s not confirmed. But Preacher’s almost certain Montgomery will be his next stop. Next Sunday, right after Thanksgiving. And if it is, he says we can go.”

  I groaned and said, “I’m jealous.” But I couldn’t contain my smile.

  “Jealous people don’t smile,” said Hallelujah.

  “Okay, then. I’m happy and I’m jealous. Wish I could do stuff like that.”

  I was surprised to see Hallelujah’s smile fade. It was no secret to him that I had never set foot outside Stillwater. I had never even been to Greenwood, though my own mama had once lived there. I could tell he felt sorry for me.

  “I wish you could go too,” he said.

  I playfully punched his arm and said, “This will be something you can tell your grandchildren one day.”

  “Yeah,” Hallelujah said, his tone sarcastic. “I can tell them I had to go halfway across the state of Mississippi and travel down the whole state of Alabama, just to hear a man from my own backyard make a speech.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of crazy. Why all the way in Alabama? Why not here, in Mississippi?”

  “There’s a young preacher there, named Martin Luther King. He invited Dr. Howard to speak at his church. Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It’s the church where a lot of the NAACP folks in Montgomery attend.”

  I smiled and said, “And you, Hallelujah Jenkins, will be right there among them.”

  Hallelujah beamed. “Yep. Hearing Dr. Howard speak will be a dream come true. I’ve been wanting to go to one of his rallies ever since that racist jury declared Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam not guilty.”

  I groaned again. “Don’t remind me,” I said, even though that trial was always fresh in my mind.

  As students streamed into the building, Hallelujah and I said our goodbyes; he headed toward the ninth grade homeroom while I entered Miss Hill’s class.

  Shorty hadn’t been to school the whole week. But that Friday there he was, sitting in his seat by the window, staring out.

  Miss Hill, who had worn a smile all week, now wore a frown.

  Since class hadn’t started, I seized the opportunity to have a word with Shorty. When I reached his desk, the reek of his cigarettes caught me off guard and made me gag. Without thinking, I covered my nose with my sleeve. And just as I did, Shorty looked toward me. If he was offended by my action, he didn’t let it show. “Hey,” he said.

  “Where you been all week?” I asked.

  He shrugged, then began picking at his nails. “Takin’ care o’ bizness.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Personal.” He grinned and said, “Don’t worry. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with killin’ white folks, if that’s what you wond’rin’ ’bout.”

  “You working?” I asked.

  Shorty shook his head. “Nah. Ain’t no work for a field hand this time o’ year.”

  “Then what you been doing all week?” I asked, my forehead creased.

  Shorty chuckled. “You sho’ is nosy this moan’n, ain’t you?”

  Seeing that he wasn’t going to tell me why he hadn’t been in school, I jumped straight to the real reason I wanted to talk to him. “Are we cousins?” I asked.

  “Yo’ daddy and my daddy brothers.” Shorty smiled and rubbed his chin. “Don’t I look like a Banks?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Other than my brother and me, I’ve never seen any of the Bankses.”

  “You—” Shorty cocked his head. “You ain’t never see’d none o’ yo’ folks?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “I’on see my daddy much, but I see yo’ daddy all the time.”

  “Really?”

  Shorty nodded.

  “My—” I had a million questions. But before I could ask one, Miss Hill ordered us all to our seats.

  “Maybe I’ll ketch up with you in the lunchroom,” Shorty suggested.

  I nodded. It was all I could do to keep from shouting.

  I barely heard a word any teacher said before lunchtime. My mind was on nothing except talking to Shorty about my daddy. All this time I had pretended I didn’t care that he wasn’t involved in my life. But truthfully, every time I saw Mr. Pete with Sugar and Lil’ Man, I wanted a daddy in my life too. I knew it was too late to have that kind of relationship, and I had sense enough not to expect it, seeing I was already thirteen. But it would be nice during my teenage years if I could have a daddy to talk to sometimes, the way Hallelujah had Reverend Jenkins.

  Seven minutes after I sat at my usual table in the back corner of the lunchroom, Shorty still hadn’t shown up. I normally saved a spot for Hallelujah, who would come in fifteen minutes after us, with the ninth-graders. I was hoping to have gleaned all the information I needed from Shorty before then.

  Instead of eating, I glanced back and forth between the doorway and the clock on the lunchroom wall, hoping Shorty would appear soon. Finally he did. But only after nine whole minutes had passed.

  He strolled over and dropped down onto the bench next to me.

  “Where were you?” I demanded.

  He patted his shirt pocket. “Smoke.”

  I figured as much when the stench reached my nose. “It takes that long to smoke a cigarette?”

  “I smoked two.” Shorty clasped his long fingers together and placed his hands before him on the table. His hands were callused and ashy. If nothing else, they indica
ted he was a hard worker. Noticing me staring at his hands, he stared at them too. He held up his right hand, turning it back and forth, observing it as if for the first time. “That cotton field sho’ is rough, ain’t it?”

  I glanced at my own rough hands and nodded.

  “So, what was you ’bout to say in Hill’s room this moan’n?

  My daddy ever ask about me? That’s what I wanted to ask Shorty. Instead, I found myself asking, “What’s he like?”

  Shorty shrugged. “He a good man.”

  “What’s makes him good?”

  “He help a lotta peoples.”

  He a good man. He help a lotta peoples. I had to let those words sink in. That wasn’t the picture I had of my daddy. He had never done anything for me and Fred Lee. He had never bothered coming out to Mr. Robinson’s place to see us except that one time he came to see whether Fred Lee looked like him—​as if that was the most important thing in the world.

  “Who does he help?” I asked. I felt an edge coming into my voice. I didn’t want to appear angry. But the thought of my daddy helping other people while having done nothing for my brother and me made something dark rise in me.

  “He help me, for one,” said Shorty. “And Papa Ray and Mama Vee. We cain’t make it on what we makes in the field.”

  A grunt slipped out of me.

  Shorty shook his head. “I’on know what we’d do without Johnny Lee. He bought me that truck.” He nodded toward the lunchroom window.

  Shorty’s truck was such a piece of junk that it was obvious Johnny Lee couldn’t have bought it when it was new. Otherwise, that would mean he’d bought it for Shorty when he was a baby. But whether he bought it new or as the bucket of bolts that it was now, I was still upset. Papa always said that a man who won’t take care of his own family is worse than an infidel.

  I thought about Mama marrying Mr. Pete, taking care of his children, leaving for Chicago for a better life for them, promising to send money to Ma Pearl to help out with me and Fred Lee. But four months after she left, we’d only heard from her once. And the promised money was not included in the letter.

  Whatever an infidel was, Mama was one too.

  “Johnny Lee don’t never come see y’all?” Shorty asked.