“I wish I could tell ever’body, so they’d know I’m something,” Isaiah crowed.
“You are something, Isaiah,” Sister Walker said and handed him another Bit-O-Honey.
“Something else,” Memphis teased. He put his hand on Isaiah’s head and moved it around. “Got a head like a football. Bumpy, too.”
“That’s my brains!” Isaiah twisted under Memphis’s head-vise grip.
“Is that what it is? Thought you’d been hiding candy up there all this time.”
Isaiah took a swipe at Memphis. Laughing, Memphis dodged it and Isaiah charged again, nearly toppling a lamp.
Sister Walker shooed them both toward the door. “All right now, gentlemen, please take your foolishness outside and leave my house in one piece.”
“Sorry, Sister,” Memphis said. Isaiah was already pulling him out onto the stoop. “See you next week.”
Aunt Octavia was waiting for them in the dusky parlor when they returned. She had on her apron, and she did not look happy. “Where you two been? You know supper’s at six fifteen, and if you’re late, you don’t eat.”
“Sorry, Auntie. Sister Walker wanted to be sure that Isaiah understood his arithmetic,” Memphis said, shooting Isaiah a warning look.
“Margaret Walker,” Octavia harrumphed. She pointed a serving spoon at them. “I don’t know if I want you to keep associating with that woman. I’ve been hearing some things lately about her that don’t set well with me.”
“Like what?” Isaiah pressed.
“She doesn’t go to church, for one.”
“She does, too! She’s a member at Abyssinian Baptist.”
“Ha!” Octavia snorted. “Selma Johnson goes to Abyssinian and says Margaret Walker hardly ever crosses that threshold. The Lord wouldn’t know her if you showed him a picture. You’re more likely to find that crazy old Blind Bill Johnson in church than you are Miss Margaret Walker.”
Memphis hoped he could divert his aunt from what sounded like the beginnings of a tear. She went on tirades sometimes about people for perceived slights and imagined injuries—“ The Lord wouldn’t know Miss So-and-So if you showed Him a picture.” “Barnabas Damson hasn’t got the sense God gave an animal cracker, if you ask me.” “Corinne Collins doesn’t have any business teaching Sunday school. Why, she can’t even keep up with her own children, who run around like a bunch of fools in a foolyard.” “Do you know I saw Swoosie Terell at the grocer’s, and she acted high-hat, and after I made her a plum pie when her mother was sick.” He wondered what trivial sin Sister Walker had committed that had set Octavia off.
“They say Margaret Walker got up to some trouble years back,” Octavia continued. “She was in prison and moved here to start a new life. If she weren’t an old friend of your mama’s, I wouldn’t give her the time of day.”
“Sister Walker was a jailbird?” Isaiah’s eyes were huge.
“You don’t know that’s true, so don’t go repeating it, Ice Man,” Memphis warned.
“You don’t know everything, Memphis John!” Aunt Octavia was in his face. “Ida Hampton told me, and I expect she knows a lot more about what’s what than you do.”
Memphis wondered if Ida Hampton bothered to tell anyone what was what about her little gambling habit.
“I hear she gets up to all manner of things that ain’t right.”
Aren’t, Memphis silently corrected.
“She might even be into voodoo.”
“Sister Walker is not practicing voodoo. She’s helping Isaiah with his counting and computing.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s right for you to be associating with her.” Aunt Octavia turned to Isaiah with her hands on her hips, like she meant business. “She do anything like that with you, Isaiah? Make you do magic with cards or put your hands on a crystal ball and talk to spirits? Anything like that?”
Memphis tried to give his little brother a warning with his eyes: Don’t say anything….
“No, ma’am.”
“You look me in my face when you say that. Look me right in my eyes and tell me again.” Isaiah’s head moved just slightly as he tried to peek around Octavia and keep Memphis in sight, but his aunt got wise and moved over, blocking his view. “Don’t you look at your brother. I’m the one asking. You look at me.”
Memphis held his breath. He could hear his blood pounding against his skull.