Nineveh Presbyterian Academy is based in an old hotel, or at least that’s what Daddy’s telling me.
“You see, it was founded in 1966, so it’s really old. They started small, but they stuck to their core values of ‘faith, diligence, and academia’ and managed to last for fifty years. They’ve graduated judges, lawyers, and politicians!”
“Daddy,” I interject, “it’s just a school. It’s not a university.”
“The great ones start young!” Daddy proclaims.
He rambles on as he drives me to my first day of fifth grade. The SUV passes through a Floridian jungle of grass, trees, and pavement before reaching a clearing. On the left side of the road, I can see it: a three-story building of brick and kudzu. A line of dark-colored luxury sedans are parked in front of it. Uniformed children are being dropped off. My father pulls into the drop-off area.
I straighten the pleats in my dark blue skirt and brush off my white blouse. Mama spent all night sewing the school insignia onto the left pocket of my sports jacket. My father is beaming as he looks back at my uniformed splendor.
“Alright, Beloved,” he coos, “give Daddy kisses.”
I unbuckle my seatbelt and exchange kisses and goodbyes with my father. Once I’m out of the car, I forge ahead into alien territory. The inside of the building is carpeted with khaki and magenta patterns. Potted plants accent the walkways. I reach into my backpack and pull out the schedule that was mailed to us a week ago. My first class is…general math, room 218, Ms. Coke.
There’s a map near a flight of stairs heading upwards. The map says to follow the stairs up. Room 218 is on the second floor. Ascending the stairs, I notice that all of the small children are staying on the ground floor. Students my size and taller are heading up along the wide, carpeted stairway. Me and the kids my size get off on the second floor, as the behemoth teenagers continue upwards.
It feels odd coming from a public school to a private school. The boys all look the same. The girls are all dressed alike. I am no longer Beth Daniels from Tougabrook, Georgia. I am a small drop in a sea of royal blue uniforms. The ocean carries me to my general math class. My ocean voyage ends as my classmates and I wait for the teacher to arrive.
“Who’s the Black kid?” whispers a student.
“How’d she get here?” goes another.
“Careful,” says one boy, “her father probably sells drugs.”
A little girl pipes, “She has a father?”
I slam my books on my desk and yell, “Yes, I do have a father and he doesn’t sell drugs!”
“Beth Daniels!” snaps the newly-arrived Ms. Coke, “We’ll have none of that in here. Head straight to the office.”
“But…”
“Now!”
I get up from my desk and head towards the door. Ms. Coke tells the main office about my outburst over the school intercom. A thought occurs to me: how did Ms. Coke know my name?
The assistant principal speaks with me. He lets me off with a warning as it’s my first offense. He tells me to be more understanding of the other students and to be more open to my new role at Nineveh Presbyterian Academy. I return to my class. I’m a good girl for the rest of the day.
My father is furious when he finds out. How dare I jeopardize my future in response to harmless teasing? I’m going to be eleven soon, so I need to start acting my age. I can only stand there in the living room and endure it, until my face gets warm and the tears start to come.
My mother intercedes. “Your daughter’s being targeted for the color of her skin. Doesn’t that concern you?”
My father grimaces. “They were just teasing her. Kids do that. Are you defending her behavior?”
“No,” my mother responds, “I think she could’ve handled things more politely, but the fact of the matter is they were teasing her because of her race. Why are you defending their behavior?”
My father waves his hands and makes a derisive noise. “Kids tease about height, weight, hair, and skin color. Kids are mean. You get used to it.”
“Really?” my mother says with a hand on her hip. “If it were just about skin color, why do they think you’re a drug dealer?”
Back and forth, they go. Not missing an opportunity, I flee to my bedroom as fast as I can and slam the door. I grab Mr. Cuddles and curl into a ball on the bed.
Something scratches on my balcony door.
Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch
“Go away!” I command.
The noise is insistent.
Finally, I get up and go to the balcony doors. I throw the doors open and there on the balcony railing is a blue blossom. I pick it up and twirl it between my fingers. I calm down as I smell the blossom. It turns purple like before.
“Thank you,” I say to the flower.
I carry it back into my room and put it in my dresser drawer with the rest. Squirrels have been bringing them by regularly. Then I look at the tree mural and step back in awe. The tree is in full bloom, with blossoms of fuchsia, gold, and aquamarine. A warm sensation covers my entire body. I feel so thankful I run to the wall and spread my arms out, trying to embrace the tree.
As I rub my face against the wall trying to show the tree mural my appreciation, I close my eyes. My fingers can still feel the flat surface of the wall. Then I feel something soft beneath my fingers, like a petal.
Then two petals.
I feel bark on my face.
Stepping backwards, I watch as the tree protrudes from my wall. Its branches come down from the ceiling. Roots rise from my room floor. Blue and green light shimmer all along its trunk. The flowers all glow as they grow closer to my face. Luminescent pollen trickles from the blooms. I close my eyes again. I hear the voice:
“We are Tree.”
“I know,” I reply aloud.
The tree speaks again: “We can protect you.”
“How?” I ask.
It replies simply, “Listen to your mother.”
My eyes snap open. The tree is a mural again.
Later that night, my parents simmer down and we have dinner together. The food is delicious, but the table is quiet. I’ve never seen my parents like this. They didn’t argue like this in the old house. Then again my old schoolmates never had a problem with my skin color. At my old school, everyone used to just call me “pretty girl”.
After dinner, Mama helps me with my homework before Daddy comes in to read me a bedtime story. They don’t speak to each other. Once I’m tucked in, I fall asleep and dream of Claire.
I find her laying on her bed doing homework. I float inside of her. We are connected.
The homework is geometry. Frustrated, we throw down our pencil and get up to grab our music player. Heading back to our bed, we see a red wet spot. We check our pants and find a matching blood stain on our crotch.
“Oh my God,” we pout, “it had to come now.”
Annoyed, we change out of our pants and get a fresh pair of panties with a pad. We’re angry at our body. The bed has to be stripped and we stomp to the laundry room with our bloody sheets and clothes. Waiting on the sheets to finish, we plop on our bare bed and escape into our headphones. We glance across the room to the blue-flowered vine.
It’s now tall enough to touch the ceiling. Several other vines have grown through the hole in the floor. Together they have twisted together to form a sturdy stalk of blue-flowered vines.
“Turn purple,” we command.
Defiantly, the flowers turn gold and orange, with a hint of aquamarine. A sweet aroma fills our nostrils and we can hear the stalk in our minds. “We are Tree. We can help.”
We smirk at the flower stalk. “Thanks, but this is supposed to happen. I’m a girl.”
“It doesn’t have to,” states the stalk. “You endure pain and bleeding every month. Why?”
We shrug our shoulders. “I wanna have kids someday.”
Several flowers close and blossom rapidly with mirth. “All that trouble for offspring? We are Tree. We give birth to entire ecosystems without pain or bleeding.”
A sharp pain hits our abdomen. Something tells me it’s some kind of cramp. “I wish I were more like you then,” we admit.
“You can be,” Tree responds, “and in time, you will be.” Sparkles burst from several of the blossoms. “One day you will be the mother of entire planets.”
My dream fast forwards to the next month. Claire misses her period. She misses it the next month as well. Her cycle has completely stopped.
I see the image of a blue flower. It says, “Listen to your mother.”
The next morning at breakfast, my mother hands me a plum from the fruit bowl.
“Give this to your teacher,” she advises. “Maybe she’ll start to like you more.”
I give the plum an awkward look. “I thought you were supposed to give teachers apples, not plums.”
She kisses my cheek and says, “Making a good impression isn’t enough. You must stand out from the crowd.”
I heed Mama’s wisdom and take the plum to school.
Back at Nineveh Presbyterian Academy, I flow with the royal blue ocean again to my class. Still, when I get to my class, my feelings of being part of a greater whole are shattered.
“She’s still here?” goes a student.
“My dad said she’s probably a zebra,” babbles another.
“Really?” a boy pipes, “Did her dad marry a monkey or does her mother like horses?”
My blood boils, but I let the slight at my parents slide. I don’t want Daddy fighting with Mama again. Ms. Coke walks in. She smiles at the class before sneering at me. I take a deep breath and take my mother’s advice. With the plum in hand, I approach Ms. Coke and offer it to her. She accepts and sniffs it.
“Hmm…,” she remarks, “Smells sweet.” She takes a bite. “Mmmm! This is delicious!” She hungrily devours the rest of the fruit. Satisfied, I return to my seat and endure another day at school.
After classes are over, my father and I are summoned to the headmaster’s office. The gray-bearded administrator introduces himself as Mr. Gunter “Gunner” Kinderbaum. He asks us to sit down and gets to the point.
“Parents have been complaining to me about your daughter,” he begins.
Flustered, my father responds with, “What? Why? She slammed a book on her desk yesterday. Has she done something I don’t know about?”
“Well, Mr. Daniels, the parents are concerned that her behavior may escalate in the future, and we should probably address the issue now.”
“Address what issue?” my befuddled father asks, “I talked to Beth about her behavior last night. We addressed the issue then.”
The headmaster clears his throat. “I’m sorry, sir, but, according to Ms. Coke, your daughter is having a disruptive influence on the entire class. I’ll have her come and explain it.”
Headmaster Kinderbaum buzzes his secretary to send in Ms. Coke. The platinum blond educator enters the room.
“Ms. Coke,” orders the headmaster, “tell Mr. Daniels about his daughter’s disruptive influence on your class.”
Ms. Coke touches her forehead. “Um, I can’t, for the life of me, remember what she’s done wrong. Ms. Daniels is a very smart girl and well-behaved. I’m thinking of putting her in our gifted program.”
The headmaster sputters, “B-b-but she’s only been in class one day. Haven’t you already disciplined her once?”
Ms. Coke waves her hand down. “Oh, that was just a misunderstanding. The kids were teasing her. I called the parents this morning and they’re willing to let it drop for now.”
The headmaster gives Daddy and me a nervous grin. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Have a good day and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
At home, Daddy tells Mama what happened. I run upstairs and change out of my uniform. A sweet aroma surrounds me. I turn to look behind me and see that Tree has come out of the wall again.
“Thank you so much,” is my most appreciative greeting. “I think my mom actually kept me from getting kicked out of school. Thanks for the advice.”
“And the fruit,” Tree adds.
“Yeah, my mother gave me that fruit,” I respond. “She said it would make the teacher like me and it REALLY worked. My mama is the smartest woman in the world.”
“Yes,” Tree agrees. “Yes, she is.”
After I change out of my uniform, I lay on my bed and grab Mr. Cuddles.
Staring at the glory of Tree, I ask, “Do you know Claire?”
Tree answers, “Claire was almost Tree.”
“Is she your friend?”
“She is not Tree,” the plant answers.
“Why?”
“We angered her.”
“How?”
Tree pauses. “We do not know. We gave her what she wanted.”
I hug Mr. Cuddles closer. “Do you miss her?”
“We want her to be Tree.”
“Do you think you’ll be friends in the future?”
“Claire will be Tree.”
I nuzzle Mr. Cuddles face before asking, “Are we, I mean, you and me, friends?”
Tree retracts back into the wall. As a mural, it answers, “You will be Tree.”
“Beth!” comes a call from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready!”
At the dinner table, my parents are a lot more talkative. Last night’s argument is a thing of the past. My father is especially pleasant.
“Honey,” he says to Mama, “those plums you put in my lunch were super sweet. Did you get them from the store?”
“Nope,” Mama answers, “They came from the fruit bowl right here at home.”
“Well, they were certainly delicious,” he declares. “Did I mention you are the sunshine of my life?”
Daddy starts singing that old Stevie Wonder song my parents like. He’s not very good, and he knows I hate his singing.
“Daddy!” I plead.
“Shh!” Mama chides. “Let him sing.”
My father sings on: “You are the apple of my eye. Forever you’ll be in my heart.”
I sigh and finish my food while my father serenades Mama. Afterwards, I put my plate in the sink. Passing by the countertop, I reach for a plum.
“Don’t eat those!” Mama snaps.
I freeze. Daddy stops singing.
Mama explains to me, “These aren’t for you.”
Daddy protests, “Aw, let her have one. They’re delicious.”
Mama gives my father a stern look. “These aren’t for her.”
My father’s face goes blank. In a monotone, he repeats, “These aren’t for her.”
“Good,” Mama says with a nod. She turns to me. “Now go upstairs and I’ll help you with your homework.”
I obey. I’m a good girl, but it’s weird how my parents have been acting lately. I hope they’re not getting a divorce. That would suck.
In my room, I sit at the desk next to the closet. The homework isn’t easy. Mama comes to help. Mama makes it all better.
“Have the kids been treating you better?” my mother asks.
“No,” is my answer. “Someone wanted to know if Daddy married a monkey or if you really like horses.”
Mama sighs. “Do you think plums will work this time?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think we have enough.”
She pats my hair. “You’ll think of a way,” she assures me. “Oh, have you met Claire?”
I stiffen up.
“Nurse Claire,” my mother clarifies, “from your school. I heard about her working there. She and I are old friends.”
I smile. “Okay, I’ll go see her.”
Daddy comes in the room. “It’s story time,” he chimes.
After a lovely story about gardens and trees, Daddy tucks me in and I escape to my “other self”.