Long Division(71)

“I mean, I never got a chance to see them again because the sky took them away from me.”

“They didn’t drown?”

“If they really drowned, their bodies would have come up sooner or later.” Baize turned around and headed back across the pier and over the railroad tracks.

I grabbed Baize’s hand as we walked by the bathroom again. The cat and the Dobermans weren’t in there any more. We looked across the road and headed toward the hole. “Look, I hear what you’re saying about your parents disappearing and all that, but I’m taking you home.”

“Home as in 2013?”

“That’s the only home you got, right?”

“I ain’t going back home without you,” she said, and kept trying to look me in the face. “Voltron? Voltron! Yo! You said you wanted my help.”

“I changed my mind, Baize. You’re too young for this. You sound sick, too. I bet it’s that time of the month. Things are about to get crazy. And you know what else? Folks can tell just from how you dressed that you ain’t from the ’60s.”

“They can tell the same thing about you, Voltron,” she told me. “Don’t worry about my time of the month. I came prepared. I just gotta get right with the air here.”

“Look, don’t make it harder than it has to be,” I told her. “2013 is farther away from 1985. So I’m closer to these folks just based off of time. Plus, look at you. You got that ugly haircut for a girl and that dumb backpack on and folks in the 1960s, they be knowing things?”

“Okay, for real.” Baize got right in my face even though I was running from her eyes. She grabbed my chin. “No, you did not just say ‘Folks in the ’60s be knowing things?’ Really? It’s like that? You should feel so lucky that someone thinks you’re kinda cute,” she said, “because…”

“Don’t say that!” I grabbed her by her shoulder blades and shook her. “Don’t ever say I’m cute. You don’t even know cute. My line is crookeder than a Smurf house and I fart in my sleep all night long, and when I smile one of my eyes…see it?” I pointed to my left eye. “It’s a little bit crusty and bloodshot all the time. I think I got permanent pink eye. For real! It’s contagious, too. Don’t—”

Baize tried to knee me in the privacy but I turned and she got me in the left thigh. In the middle of our tussle we heard twigs breaking and leaves crunching. “Shhh,” I whispered to her. “You hear that?”

“Don’t tell me to shush,” Baize whispered back. “I only said someone thinks you’re cute. Not me, dummy. Don’t act like I’m trying to get with you. I don’t even roll like that.”

We were both still, but it was too hard to see if someone was coming because everything was so green and full.

“Voltron,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I think that lady back there was my great-grandma.”

I started to ask her how she knew when from about ten feet away, we saw someone on the ground crawling toward us. It was Shalaya Crump. I ran over and helped her to her feet. She hugged my neck and held me tight as I’d ever been held for a whole minute without saying a word.

I let go of the hug, but Shalaya Crump kept squeezing tight. I whispered in her ear not to say my name in front of Baize, but Shalaya Crump was actually crying right there in my arms while looking directly at Baize. It was one of the top two things I never thought would happen. I pulled away from her hug and asked, “What happened to your Jewish friend, Evan?”

Shalaya Crump tried to talk, but something terrible must have happened. Every time she started to talk, her teeth got to chattering. Baize walked up and started rubbing her back, too. Finally, she got something out. “It’s worse than we think. They…”

“Who? I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t know how to turn it on. The mayor…his uncle…if they didn’t stop this Freedom School from being used, the Klan was gonna go after them. They wanted to run them out of Melahatchie.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know…”

“Know what?”

“The Klan was going to kill Evan’s family if they didn’t put on sheets. They Jewish and they were gonna help with the schools. They gave Evan a gun. It was Gaddis’s plan.”

“Who gave Evan a gun?”

“His brother gave Evan a gun and they told him to shoot me in the shoulder.”

“I know you scared,” I told her, “but you doing your own long division right now. Just get in and get out like you tell me. Please! I don’t get nothing you’re saying.”

Baize jumped in. “Wait, who is Evan?”

“Girl, don’t you see grown folks talking?” I told her. “There’s a guy named Jewish Evan. Go ahead and finish. Damn.”

“Evan took the gun and he pointed it at me, then he aimed it at his brother’s leg and pulled the trigger but he missed. Then they beat him even harder.”

“Wait,” I said. “So his family was planning on killing our granddaddies and burning the church? Where’s your granddaddy at?”

“They made them do it. They ain’t never meant to kill him,” she said. “They only wanted to kill your granddaddy. That’s what they were planning to do when they caught you.”