“Gerard,” she honked.
I think she was going to say something different, but she sort of checked herself and pointed. “What in heaven’s name is that?” And she aimed her finger at me.
I didn’t get it right away, so I turned around to look behind me. “What?”
“That! That!”
“Oh!” I said. “That’s Baby.”
I slung him down off my back and held him up for her to look at. She made a sort of moaning noise and jumped over and took him away from me. She held him out in front of her and moaned again and called him a poor little thing, and ran and put him down on a long bench thing with cushions under the colored-glass window. She bent over him and put her knuckle in her mouth and bit on it and moaned some more. Then she turned to me.
“How long has he been like this?”
I looked at Janie and she looked at me. I said, “He’s always been like he is.”
She made a sort of cough and ran to where Miriam was lying flaked on the floor. She slapped Miriam’s face a couple of times back and forth. Miriam sat up and looked us over. She closed her eyes and shivered and sort of climbed up Miss Kew hand over hand until she was on her feet.
“Pull yourself together,” said Miss Kew between her teeth. “Get a basin with some hot water and soap. Washcloth. Towels. Hurry!” She gave Miriam a big push. Miriam staggered and grabbed at the wall, and then ran out.
Miss Kew went back to Baby and hung over him, titch-titching with her lips all tight.
“Don’t mess with him,” I said. “There’s nothin’ wrong with him. We’re hungry.”
She gave me a look like I punched her. “Don’t speak to me!”
“Look,” I said, “we don’t like this any more’n you do. If Lone hadn’t told us to, we wouldn’t never have come. We were doing all right where we were.”
“Don’t say ‘wouldn’t never,’ ” said Miss Kew. She looked at all of us, one by one. Then she took that silly little hunk of handkerchief and pushed it against her mouth.
“See?” I said to Janie. “All the time gettin’ sick.”
“Ho-ho,” said Bonnie.
Miss Kew gave her a long look. “Gerard,” she said in a choked sort of voice, “I understood you to say that these children were your sisters.”
“Well?”
She looked at me as if I was real stupid. “We don’t have little colored girls for sisters, Gerard.”
Janie said, “We do.”
Miss Kew walked up and back, real fast. “We have a great deal to do,” she said, talking to herself.
Miriam came in with a big oval pan and towels and stuff on her arm. She put it down on the bench thing and Miss Kew stuck the back of her hand in the water, then picked up Baby and dunked him right in it. Baby started to kick.
I stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute. Hold on now. What do you think you’re doing?”
Janie said, “Shut up, Gerry. He says it’s all right.”
“All right? She’ll drown him.”
“No, she won’t. Just shut up.”
Working up a froth with the soap, Miss Kew smeared it on Baby and turned him over a couple of times and scrubbed at his head and like to smothered him in a big white towel. Miriam stood gawking while Miss Kew lashed up a dishcloth around him so it come out pants. When she was done, you wouldn’t of known it was the same baby. And by the time Miss Kew finished with the job, she seemed to have a better hold on herself. She was breathing hard and her mouth was even tighter. She held out the baby to Miriam.
“Take this poor thing,” she said, “and put him—”
But Miriam backed away. “I’m sorry, Miss Kew, but I am leaving here and I don’t care.”
Miss Kew got her honk out. “You can’t leave me in a predicament like this! These children need help. Can’t you see that for yourself?”
Miriam looked me and Janie over. She was trembling. “You ain’t safe, Miss Kew. They ain’t just dirty. They’re crazy!”
“They’re victims of neglect, and probably no worse than you or I would be if we’d been neglected. And don’t say ‘ain’t.’ Gerard!”
“What?”
“Don’t say—oh, dear, we have so much to do. Gerard, if you and your—these other children are going to live here, you shall have to make a great many changes. You cannot live under this roof and behave as you have so far. Do you understand that?”
“Oh, sure. Lone said we was to do whatever you say and keep you happy.”
“Will you do whatever I say?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
“Gerard, you shall have to learn not to speak to me in that tone. Now, young man, if I told you to do what Miriam says, too, would you do it?”
I said to Janie, “What about that?”
