Raven (Orphans 4)

William's room was actually more organized and cleaner. The messiest thing was his unmade bed. After I straightened up his room, I went down and cleaned up the sewing room. I put the pullout back together so it didn't look like a bedroom. With my few things neatly put away, no one would even know I had slept there.

"You don't have to do that every day," Aunt Clara commented. "You can just close the door."

"I'm sure Uncle Reuben wouldn't like that," I told her.

She didn't argue. Even though he wasn't here, his shadow seemed to linger. The way Aunt Clara looked over her shoulder, it was almost as if she believed the shadow would tell him things we had said.

After we cleaned up the bedrooms, she began to vacuum the living room. I polished some furniture and swept the kitchen floor. I had to keep busy so I wouldn't think too much about Mama sitting in jail.

"You are a good worker, Raven. I hope some of your good habits will spill off onto my Jennifer," she said, but not with much optimism.

She prepared chicken salad for our lunch, and we sat and talked. I really didn't know much about her. She described where she had been brought up and how she had met Uncle Reuben. She said he had just started working with the public works department, and she had just graduated from high school.

"He was like an Atlas out there on the highway. With his shirt off and his muscles gleaming in the sunlight. He was a lot trimmer then," she recalled fondly. She laughed. "One day, he pretended to have road work right in front of my parents' house just so he could visit with me. We got married about four months later. My mother hoped I would at least go to a secretarial school, but you're impulsive when you're young," she remarked, and looked very thoughtful for a few moments. Then she shook her head and patted my hand. "Don't you go jumping into the arms of the first man you see, honey. Stand back, listen to your head instead of your heart, and take your time."

It seemed to me that every woman I ever met gave me the same advice. I was beginning to believe that love was a trap men set for unsuspecting women. They told us what we wanted to hear. They wrote promises in gold. They filled our heads with dreams and made it all seem easy, and then they satisfied themselves and went off to trap another innocent young woman. Even Aunt Clara, who had married her young sweetheart, discovered she had gotten caught in a trap. Uncle Reuben ruled his house like an ogre, turning her into a glorified maid instead of putting her up on a pedestal as I was sure he had promised. She just shook her head and threaded herself through her days like a rat caught in a maze.

After lunch, she drove me over to the school. It was smaller and seemed quieter than mine. The principal, Mr. Moore, a stout, thick-necked man of about forty, invited us into his office. He listened to Aunt Clara and then called his secretary and dictated orders quickly.

"I want you to contact her previous school, get the guidance counselor, get her records sent here ASAP, Martha," he said. I was impressed with his take-charge demeanor. "I suppose you know that we'll have to get some sort of instructions from Child Welfare as to her status. You and your husband are going to be her legal guardians, of course?'

"Yes, of course," Aunt Clara said.

"She'll do fine," he concluded, gazing at me. "I know this isn't easy for you, but you should consider what it will be like for your new teachers. They have the added burden of bringing you up to par in their classes. The subjects might be the same, but everyone has his or her way of doing things, and there are bound to be differences. Some teachers move through the curriculum faster than others?'

"I know," I said.

He nodded, staring at me a moment with his eyes dark and concerned. Then he smiled.

"On the other hand, you have a cousin attending classes here. She should be of great help. Your daughter is a year older than Raven?" he asked Aunt Clara.

"Yes."

"Not a big difference. You'll have similar interests, I'm sure. She can help fill you in on our rules and regulations, too. Keep your nose clean, and we'll all get along, okay?"

I nodded.

Mr. Moore suggested I attend classes immediately. "No sense wasting any more time. She can still sit in on math and social studies. She'll get her books in those classes, at least," he said.

"What a good idea," Aunt Clara agreed.

A student office assistant brought me to math class and introduced me to Mr. Finnerman, who gave me a textbook and assigned me the last seat in the first row. Everyone looked at me, watching my every move. I recalled how interested I used to be when a new student arrived. / was sure they were all just as curious.

One girl, a black girl who introduced herself as Terri Johnson, showed me the way to social studies and introduced me to some other students along the way. She called me "the new girl." As we approached the social studies room, I saw Jennifer coming down the hall with two girlfriends at her side. The moment her eyes set on me, she stopped and moaned.

"That's her," I heard her tell them as she passed by without saying hello.

It was worse when social studies class ended and I had to find the right schoolbus home. Jennifer didn't wait for me, and when I found the bus, she was already seated in the rear with her friends, pretending she didn't know me. I sat up front and talked to a thin, dark-haired boy named Clarence Dunsen, who had a bad stutter. It made him shy but also very suspicious. When he did speak to me, he waited to see if I was going to ridicule him I looked back at Jennifer, whose laugh resounded through the bus louder than anyone else's.

Please, Mama, I thought, be good, make promises, crawl on the floor if you have to, but get out and take me home, take me anywhere, just get me away from here.

"I got news," Aunt Clara said as soon as we entered the house.

"What?" I gasped, holding my new textbooks tightly against me.

"Your mother's not going to jail."

"Thank God," I cried. I was going to add, "And good riddance to you, Jennifer Spoiled Head," but Aunt Clara wasn't smiling. She shook her head. "What else, Aunt Clara?"