Reasons to Be Happy Part 16

I'd never thought about what our tuition cost. I thought about Kelly with her vintage dress and high-tops; what a cool idea she'd come up with.

Brooke is pet.i.tioning to install mini-lockers in the bathrooms so girls don't have to carry all their 'beauty products' around.

I laughed out loud, frightening away a monkey who'd crept into the window sill. Beauty products? Other than shampoo, soap, and some sunscreen, I had no beauty products here. I'd asked Modesta if she had a mirror the other day and she'd snorted as if I'd asked her if she had a big-screen TV.

Brittany is raising money to buy the school lounge chairs so we can tan comfortably during lunch. I've already heard Brittany say her mom is just going to buy the lounge chairs because she doesn't want to deal with a bake sale or something! The whole point is we're supposed to raise the money ourselves, by giving something of ourselves, right? DeTello doesn't want us to just write a check, but to learn to "be the change we want to see." Oh, Kevin is pet.i.tioning to start a school surf team. What do you think about that? There are some who "get it," like Kelly. Amy is raising money for the Chinese orphanage she was adopted from, some kids have organized teams for beach cleanup, Sam is starting a recycling program at school (can you believe we don't have one?), and Laurie is doing a way cool project: she's organizing an urban garden in some empty lots near the school to raise produce for local food pantries.

I felt a twinge at the way he wrote about Laurie's "way cool" project. I recognized it with surprise. Jealousy. I wanted Jasper to see me as way cool. I shook my head. What did I expect?

Did he tell me the Kevin project on purpose? To paint Kevin in a bad light? Ha, like any painting was needed! There was no light worse than what Kevin had already cast himself in. But did Jasper wonder if I still liked Kevin? Had Jasper ever heard any of those gross lies of Kevin's from the pool party?

I decided not to say anything about Kevin, one way or the other, even though I wanted to say, "Who gives a monkey's b.u.t.t what Kevin does for his project or anything else?" That day in the art room still made a weight settle on my chest.

Instead I wrote, So, when did you realize there was a world beyond your own? What was the moment Jasper Jones recognized he was part of a bigger world than his own experience? I know the exact moment when I realized it. I think I was six.

I would've written him the story then and there, but I'd already been at the computer for an hour. I didn't want to be the self-absorbed American hog.

I thought about my story for Jasper as I helped Aunt Izzy and the crew that afternoon.

I thought about my story for Jasper as I helped Modesta prepare dinner for the children.

I caught myself at one point doodling Jasper's eye, drawing that lighter, golden slice.

We were winding down to only a few days left in Tafi Atome, so I got busy. I gathered all my beads, sh.e.l.ls, and trinkets, some of Philomel's coal clay, and some beer and Fanta cans. A whole day went by as I worked on a wooden table behind the Children's House, sweat dripping into my eyes and beading on my top lip. Monkeys jeered at me from the trees above. Twice I was so engrossed that a monkey was able to swipe items off my table; one was just a beer can that he tossed back from a tree later, but the other was a pretty cool sh.e.l.l. Ah, well. I tried to stay vigilant and shoo them away after that.

I built a miniature African market on a 16x20 piece of cardboard Modesta managed to wheedle for me from the village's only cafe (nothing got thrown away here; everything was of value and could be used). This was the smallest project I'd ever done, but I knew I didn't have much time. I made four rows of market stalls from clay, then augmented some of their walls with colorful tin cut from the cans-orange, green, brown, and purple. Other stalls were augmented with sticks, and some with small pebbles. Inside each stall I arranged items for sale: a pyramid of yellow and green beads for lemons and limes, seash.e.l.ls, bottle caps filled with painted rice to be plates of red-red, tiny sacks (cut from an old T-s.h.i.+rt of mine) stuffed with dirt, tiny bundles of dried gra.s.s and twigs. I framed one door of a stall with chicken bones to represent a voodoo market. I chopped up a chicken feather to glue a pile of miniature feathers there, and used the feather stem to make a pile of bones. Some stalls sold heaps of my most colorful tiny beads, and some stacks of fabric (folded piles of every sc.r.a.p I could find, many of them trimmed from hems of my own clothing). I salvaged everything usable from my duffel and trash. To finish it off, I put five of Philomel's bra.s.s people in the aisles. It was a rush job, but when I wiped my sweaty face and stood back, it looked pretty darn cool, if I did say so myself.

I rolled my shoulders, wincing at the sunburn on the back of my neck, then carried the board-the city on top of it like some insane cake-to where Philomel chopped firewood near the water pump.

His eyes widened when I presented it to him. He peered at it, moving himself all around to look down one aisle and then another. He examined it from every angle and I knew the craftsman in him admired it. "Hah-nah, you made a little world here. This is good. This is a good gift. I thank you."

I then bought every last one of his bra.s.s people and a handful of bra.s.s animals as well-the two cloth bags I carried away were heavy.

But I felt light.

The real Hannah had broken free.

The next morning, at the end of my run, I came upon Aunt Izzy sitting on a log. I thought she was crying, with her head in her hands, but when she heard my footsteps she lifted her head and I saw she had just been deep in concentration.

"You okay?" I asked, panting before her.

She nodded. "Just thinking about what's next."

"In the doc.u.mentary?"

She made a face then nodded again.

"I thought you were really happy about how it was going and the footage you got this time."

"I am," she said, scooting over so I could use the end of the log to stretch. "I feel good. Hopeful. But...every time we come back from shooting, there's this horrible, frantic period of editing, more writing, raising money. I believe in this project so much, but every time we get home I have this fear that I can't pull it off."

I'd never heard someone grown-up admit something like this before.

"So how do you keep going?"

A monkey swooped down to s.n.a.t.c.h my sungla.s.ses, but I clamped my hands down on them in time. We laughed.

Aunt Izzy looked up. The morning sun shone pink through the leaves. The monkey screeched at us. I'm sure he was cussing me out in monkey language.

"If I sit outside," Aunt Izzy said, "somewhere green in nature, there's this inner voice I hear. That voice believes in the project. When I listen to her, I keep the faith."

I pulled my right foot up behind me in a quad stretch. "I hear that voice when I run."

Izzy smiled. "Good. Keep listening to her."

When had I first heard that voice? That voice had been around long before I ran.

I thought about that voice as I "showered" behind the outhouse. That was the voice I'd had in childhood-curious, hungry to know everything about the world. The voice of an explorer. A bold adventurer. The very first time I remember hearing her was the story I wanted to tell Jasper.

I dressed, then went to the school to email him. I was surprised-and more disappointed than I cared to admit-that there wasn't an email waiting from him. I wrote him anyway. Still thinking of your answer? Here's mine: I was five or six when I first thought about a bigger world. Some construction was going on in our neighborhood and they were tearing up the street. I was fascinated watching the big machines rip up the blacktop. I was even more fascinated by what was underneath: these big rocks and small pebbles. Who knew that all this stuff had been under there all the time, with me walking and riding my bike and coloring with chalk on top of it? But then I saw one of the bulldozers drop an ordinary rock, very plain on the outside and about the size of a watermelon. When that rock hit the ground, it cracked open...and inside that plain old potato-looking rock were jewels. The inside of that rock was sparkling pink, with glittering black flecks all through it. That's when a little voice told me that if there were mysteries, surprises, and discoveries under my own street and inside every rock, then they could be every single place I looked.

I'd held back for so long-not sharing my cities, not joining track, not using the school's climbing wall-that it felt like coming home to reveal my true self.

Jasper wasn't like anyone else I'd ever met. The way he said he couldn't tell the B-Squad apart? That's how I felt about all the other boys at my school now. Jasper was the only one who seemed unique, who seemed to be his own person.

What would happen when I returned to L.A.?

Half of me wanted to be there already, and the other half wanted that day to never come.

Philomel returned from the market and told me that tourists had loved my miniature version. He made big, animated gestures as he told me, "They all wanted to buy it, but I said no, it was a gift. They wanted to know if I would ever have more. They love it, Hah-nah."

I grinned. "Really?" I tried to make my mouth stop smiling but couldn't. "That's so cool."

"No, not so cool," he said, "because you are leaving and they will not get what they want. Money they would like to give me will remain in their pockets. So I have a favor to ask you. Can I make another world like you did? It is your project, you are the artist, but you will be gone, so these customers could not be your customers."

"Are you asking if you could use my idea, like as a model?"

He nodded, looking at the ground, hands stuffed in his faded pockets.

"Of course you can, Philomel! I'd be honored. On one condition, though: you have to promise that whenever you make one, you will think of me."

He waited as if he didn't think I was finished, then looked perplexed. "Think of you?"

"You have to remember me."

His eyes widened as if I'd suggested he had to picture me naked or something. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "I can never forget you. No one here can ever forget you."

I don't know why, but hearing those words felt like opening a gift. So much so that my eyes watered. Philomel looked wary and was probably thinking I was the biggest crybaby ever. Every time he talked to me I ended up crying over something.

I wasn't prepared, though, for how much I would cry the day we left Tafi Atome. How could only four weeks change my life so much?

The last night, I slept in Modesta's room. We pushed our mats close together so we could whisper without waking the smaller girls who shared this room. We lay on our backs in the sweltering heat and talked of our dreams for the future. Our wishes. Jasper and Philomel.

At some point late in the night, Modesta fell asleep. I looked at her in the moonlight that sliced through our open unscreened window. What a brave person. She'd lost so much. Life had been so unfair-why, for instance, did she have to cook and clean for the smaller ones? Who had decided that? But she never complained. She looked to the future with practical cheer.

I tried to picture Modesta being afraid to speak her mind to some of her peers here in this village. I had to put my arm over my mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

I didn't laugh, though, when I thought of her dream. How could she possibly afford to go to medical school? That was an entirely different thing than getting a craft apprentices.h.i.+p in a nearby village. The worry that she might never realize her dream kept me awake.

We rose early, and as I packed, I gave her many things: a pink bra, a T-s.h.i.+rt from Sprinkles Cupcakes in L.A., a pair of earrings, a notebook, several pens, a box of Band-Aids.

She handed me a small cloth bag, about the size of a pound of flour. It rattled as I took it from her hands. Inside were beads galore, all colors, all shapes, some solid, some striped. "You make another little world, like you did for Philomel. You make it and remember us." The way she smiled, I knew Philomel had told her what I'd said.

"Are you crazy, Modesta?" I whispered. "I will never forget you."

She hugged me, and as she pulled away, my hands touched that soft, pink cashmere. I paused, hands stroking the cuffs. She looked up at me, expectant. I knew it was the one item, of all my belongings, that she'd pick if I said she could keep one thing.

I looked down at my tanned hands on the pale pink. "This was my mother's," I whispered.

Modesta jumped under my hands. "Ah!" she said, beginning to wriggle out of the sweater. "Then you must take it with you."

I put my hands around her forearms to stop her. It took me a moment to speak. "I want..." I took a deep breath. "I want you to keep it." My eyes burned. "She would want you to keep it too." That was so true I felt it. I looked down at the sweater, rubbing the soft fabric, afraid if I looked at Modesta, I'd cry. "You are so alike. Two of the bravest women I know."

Modesta took my face in her hands and said, "She taught you well, then."

You know what? That felt more and more true these days: that I could be brave. Would I be able to hold on to believing that when I got back home?

"And that is why I want to give you this," Modesta said, pulling something from the pocket of her dress. She held one of Philomel's lost wax figures on the palm of her hand.

I hadn't seen this figure before. A five-sided star inside a circle, the circle itself rimmed in curled rays or spokes. "Sesa Wo Suban," she told me, hanging the figure around my neck.

She saw the question in my eyes and shook her head as if to scold herself for forgetting I didn't speak that dialect. "I change or transform my life," she translated.

My breath stopped in my chest. I felt like she'd sensed what I was just thinking. I'd never even told Modesta about the B-Squad. How would I even begin to make it make sense to her?

"I love this," I told her. "I need this."

I carried my duffel bag toward the van on what felt like wooden legs.

There were tears, laughter, promises to return, to write, to stay in touch. I hugged everyone, all the children, beautiful Philomel, and finally Modesta.

"Sister," I whispered in her ear, holding her close. "You have transformed my life."

She squeezed me tighter.

"You are so, so beautiful," I told her.

She wrinkled her nose, but then looked me in the eye and said, "Thank you. Do not forget that you are beautiful too."

The farther we drove from Tafi Atome on those rutted, red roads, and then on the highways, the more I vowed to hang on to the ways Ghana had changed me.

The film team checked into a hotel in Accra overnight, before our flight in the morning. I set my duffel on the twin bed and headed to the bathroom. Western toilets, I remembered, looking forward to that luxury.

I stopped in my tracks. There was also a mirror. I stared at myself.

The sun had tanned my skin light caramel, but the change in my appearance was more than that. I looked...rested. My eyes were clear, no purple shadows under them. My cheeks and neck were normal, no longer bulging with that sausage-stuffed puffiness. I looked clean and real. I looked like myself again.

I touched my fingers to the figure Modesta had given me.

I might be all right after all.

But my breath constricted at the thought of returning to all I'd escaped.

Just thinking of home, school, and Jasper made my pulse race, but not in the fun, fluttery way. What would happen now? How would it feel when we were face to face, two actual people in the actual world together, surrounded by the B-Squad?

I caught myself making an inventory of foods I could shovel in for a binge.

Did I have a prayer once I got back to L.A.? Was I going to fall right back into the same disgusting habits? Was I going to lose myself again?

I looked in the mirror at the bra.s.s figure hanging around my neck. I ran the pads of my fingers over the curlicue edges.

I nicked my finger on one of the rays.

Hmm, I thought, sucking the faintly metallic taste of blood from my finger. I hoped that wasn't a sign.

I stood in baggage claim with my dad, heart racing. Although Modesta and I emailed each other at least twice a week, I hadn't actually seen her for two years. I felt like I might cry or dance...or both. I was already all aflutter about tonight and the nerve-wracking event ahead.

When I saw her coming around the corner with my Aunt Izzy, tears burned in my nose. She was so tall! We embraced, my hands registering the soft whisper of the new lilac cashmere sweater I'd sent her this year for Christmas.

Izzy and Dad embraced. They'd come a long way.

We all had.

Dad checked his watch. "We have time for lunch, but then we have to be back at the house."

"Are you crazy?" Izzy asked. "I can't eat! I'm too nervous. Aren't you nervous?" She poked Dad's shoulder.

Modesta cleared her throat. "I would very much like to eat something."

We all laughed. That settled it.