Josephine Against the Sea Read online

  Casper was a successful broadcaster before his mind cracked. Early one morning, people found him roaming the streets in a torn suit, claiming that the Heartman kidnapped his wife.

  I’ve heard stories about the cloaked figure who patrols the streets at night in a hearse-like vehicle, looking for victims. One time I came home late from Ahkai’s house and Daddy rambled on and on about why children should never be alone outside after dark, and how the Heartman can rip the heart from your chest and offer the organ to the devil. Afterward we were both too scared to sleep and spent the rest of the night watching cartoons.

  Casper claimed that the Heartman had no hearse but was instead riding a steel donkey—a cursed animal with eyes like fire. Legend says a person knows the steel donkey is coming for them when they hear the sound of chains dragging in the still of the night.

  Last year I found an old chain, hid behind the tamarind tree, and rattled it when Casper walked by. No one saw him on the school premises for at least a month.

  On seeing us approach, Casper ambles toward us, his four large dreadlocks swaying around his bony frame.

  “Good morning, Casper,” Daddy says in a flat voice.

  Casper gasps and holds the twig—no wider than a pencil—in front of his face. When he whispers, the few dead leaves on the twig rustle under his breath. “Whew! He nearly saw me—that was close!”

  I forgot to mention Casper got his nickname because he believes that, like a ghost, he has the ability to become invisible. He also acts like he’s a narrator on the National Geographic channel.

  Casper follows us. “These beasts can be very territorial, especially around their young. One false move, and I could have been a goner.”

  Daddy is now walking so fast that Ahkai and I struggle to keep up, but Casper, not letting the increased pace deter him, jogs next to us.

  “This burst of speed is futile. Little do they know what awaits them in the closed canopy. Stay tuned.”

  It’s a shame he won’t be able to find out anything because he’s not allowed in the closed canopy, also known as our classroom. Daddy accompanies us to class so he can apologize to our teacher. Mr. Atkins used to be a soldier, and he’s super strict! He makes us stand outside the classroom if we’re even a minute late from lunch.

  But Mr. Atkins is not there. Instead, a small woman with rich brown skin and bleached dreadlocks sits at his desk, scribbling in an attendance book, while students are clustered together in little groups, chatting and showing off their new school bags, school shoes, and pencil cases.

  The woman looks up and gives us a big smile. Bright red lipstick stains her teeth. Ahkai pretends not to see her, but when he walks by her desk, he does this little action—a combination of a bow and a nod. He sits in a corner, next to two boys comparing their new heights against a wall, takes out a heavy book, and starts to read.

  Meanwhile, Daddy is wiping his hands on his shirt and trying to shake out a few of the wrinkles.

  “Oh, wow, you’re the tallest student I’ve ever had!” the woman says. At first, I think she’s talking to me, but then I realize she’s staring at my daddy.

  “Oh, me? N-No, I’m just dropping off my daughter.” Daddy doesn’t get sarcasm.

  “I’m Miss Alleyne, but you can call me Aurora,” she replies, laughing at Daddy’s awkwardness. I notice there’s an extra emphasis on “Miss.”

  I narrow my eyes to slits. Her dress is bright with yellow sunflowers, and too tight to be appropriate for school if you ask me.

  “I—I—I Mr. Cadogan,” Daddy stutters. “Vincent.” Miss Alleyne comes over to us and shakes Daddy’s hand, taking far too long to break the hold.

  “Oh, and how is Mrs. Cadogan this morning?”

  “She’s fine … wait, no! I mean, uh Bean’s, I mean, my uh …”

  I step between them and scowl at Miss Alleyne. “She’s dead.”

  Daddy grimaces. Miss Alleyne finally pays me, the person she’s supposed to be interested in, some attention.

  We might as well get this over with. I have to go through this process with every new teacher. My mother can’t ever sign a permission slip or collect me from school. You can’t send a note to my mother about my bad behavior, and you won’t ever see her at a PTA meeting. I’ll never want to sing a song or make a card for Mother’s Day. And, yes, this is awkward, but for you, not me.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says, reaching out to me.

  “Where’s Mr. Atkins?” I demand, dodging her touch.

  “Mr. Atkins unfortunately had to travel, so I’m substituting for him this term. I just transferred from Ealing Primary in town.”

  Daddy scratches his nose. “Oh, well, if yuh need somebody to show you around—”

  “We know a good taximan who can give you a tour!” I interrupt. Daddy gives a sheepish wave goodbye as I pull him out of the classroom.

  He looks down at me, shaking his head. “You know, Bean, things will ’ave to change eventually,” he says in a soft voice.

  He’s right.

  I need to restore his passion for cricket to distract him from these women. He needs to fill those empty weekends watching cricket matches on TV with me, and he can use any free hours during the week to help me practice my bowling. I can’t wait for all the fun we’ll have together! He won’t have any time or desire to give romantic Fairy Vale tours.

  Cricket is much safer than heartbreak.

  “Have a good day at work. Love you!” I close the classroom door.

  It’s hard to pay attention to the math lesson, despite Miss Alleyne’s best attempt to make the useless subject interesting. What cruel person decided to put a large clock above the blackboard so kids could watch the tiny hands move so slowly they seem to be going backward? With every passing minute, I get more anxious about cricket tryouts, and more annoyed by the theory of mixed and improper fractions.

  Briinnnggggg!

  Lunchtime!

  I fly out of my seat so hard the chair falls over. Miss Alleyne narrows her eyes and squeezes her lips together, but phew, she’s still trying to be nice. I won’t be fooled though. Nice teachers don’t teach fractions on the first day of school.

  Finally, Operation Cricket Queen can begin!

  The bathroom is packed so I sneak into the moldy toolshed at the back of the school. The area is out of bounds because of a small, murky swamp that fills up during rainy season, but students mainly stay away because of the fly-sized mosquitoes thirsty for blood.

  I change into Ahkai’s games outfit—dark blue track pants held up with a belt, and a large white T-shirt with Fairy Vale’s elegant school crest. I push my curls into Daddy’s old fishing hat, making sure to cover as much of my face as possible with its brim.

  Ahkai is waiting for me under the tamarind tree. He took a break from reading in the library to give me moral support. I know my disguise has worked when I’m almost in front of him and he still has his standard blank expression. It’s only when I smile that his eyes turn bright, and the dimple appears on his right cheek.

  “Your transformation is astounding!” Ahkai tries to lift the hat.

  I duck away and join the boys warming up on the field. The official members of the Fairy Vale cricket team are on the field as well, but they’re sitting on the grass, sizing up the newbies.

  They’re mostly batsmen, able to hit the ball high into the air or far down the cricket field to get the winning runs.

  But the team is missing good bowlers, someone to hurl the ball into the stumps, scattering the three wooden sticks like bowling pins to get the batsmen out.

  Someone like me.

  Coach Broomes blows his whistle and gestures for our group to come closer. He is a short man with a long gut that bulges over the top of his pants and almost reaches his knees. But don’t be fooled by his physical appearance—I’ve seen him do one hundred push-ups with the rest of the cricket team without breaking a sweat.

  “All right, this is what we gine do. Bowlers down there, batsmen over there.�
�� He points at the opposite ends of the pitch. The strip of ground is littered with footprints and skid marks from the batsmen running between them to score runs.

  A boy puts his hand in the air.

  “If yuh don’t know which one yuh is, then get off my field. Yuh wasting my time,” Coach Broomes says without looking up from his clipboard. The boy shrugs and walks off the field.

  One down. Nine more to go.

  We’re to bowl to the batsmen, so Coach Broomes can analyze our technique and choose the best player. I’m so eager to fire the ball at them that I rush to be first in line.

  Coach Broomes pushes the stumps into the ground with a worried expression, but he always looks that way, as if he’s stuck in a cycle of bad news. I can’t wait to bowl the ball into those stumps and send the three sticks flying into the air.

  There’s only one spot available on the team, and I’m going to make sure it’s mine.

  Jared walks to the crease with a cocky swagger. He’s one of the few boys at school who is taller than me. My heart is pounding. He’s the only eleven-year-old in the school with a slight mustache and hairy legs. He’s super strong too—able to send a ball flying over the tamarind tree with a flick of the wrist.

  This is just my bad luck; I’ll have to bowl out the best batsman to guarantee a spot on the team.

  Just like on TV, I see his player statistics coming up next to his face.

  Jared Scott

  Age: 11

  Left-handed batsman

  Strike rate: 108.92

  Highest score: 212

  Next victim: Josephine Cadogan

  “First bowler!” Coach yells, but with a smirk on his face as he scribbles on his clipboard. I bet if he had his way, he’d hire a towel boy to wipe the sweat from Jared’s face and feed him bottled water through a straw. And not just any kind of bottled water either—I’m talking about the expensive kind with bubbles.

  I wipe my sweaty hands on Ahkai’s pants, trying to decide what kind of delivery to bowl. I need to get Jared out by either forcing him to hit the ball into the air and taking the catch, or by hitting the stumps.

  Focus. Precision. Speed.

  CRACK!

  Jared hits the ball into the air toward me. I jump to my left, reaching for the ball to catch it. It slams onto my fingertips, but I can’t hold on. My elbows slide into the ground.

  “Ohhhhh!” A low moan from everyone on the field. I nearly had him!

  “Good ball,” says Coach Broomes, scratching his chin. “But your run-up is too short. Go back another four steps.”

  The cricket team is dead silent, shocked by the rare compliment from Coach Broomes. There is a “whoop whoop” cry in the distance. That’s Ahkai cheering, and though I’m annoyed he could blow my cover, I do feel a little less nervous.

  My sneakers pound into the ground as I run toward the pitch. Hit the stumps. Hit the stumps.

  This time, the ball misses Jared’s wild swing and hits the top of his leg pad. It’s not exactly what I wanted but the ball would have knocked into the stumps. He’s as good as out.

  “HOWZAT!” I yell, appealing to Coach Broomes. I’m jumping up and down, already celebrating, but Coach Broomes doesn’t raise his finger. Actually, he looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

  Oh no …

  I was so excited that I screamed “Howzat” in my normal, high-pitched girly voice.

  So close …

  I pull the hat from my head. My curls stay upright for a few seconds, and then flop down around my face.

  “Josephine Cadogan …” He’s so angry that his fingertips turn pink as he clenches the clipboard. “Suppose you did break your finger now? This ain’ netball! This is a serious sport.”

  He looks around, as if checking to see if anyone is recording him.

  “Please, Coach Broomes, just give me a chance,” I beg. He knows I’m good. I see it in his face.

  But Coach Broomes blows the whistle and walks away from me. He throws the ball to a boy with a tall flattop haircut, who races to the pitch to bowl.

  I look at Jared, expecting him to be gloating, but I’m surprised to see pity in his eyes.

  I don’t know which is worse.

  Jared glances over at Coach Broomes, and then focuses on the new bowler. Everyone continues to play the game like I never existed, like I’m another old ball with no thread.

  The image of Daddy waving at me from the cricket stands fades away, like a wave pulling a footprint from wet sand. I stand there on the field, crushing Daddy’s hat between my fingers, wishing I could rip it apart and use the pieces to tie Coach Broomes to the tamarind tree until he’s agreed to give me a fair shot.

  I need to think. I need to scream. I need to be alone.

  At first, I drag my feet back toward the school, but then I start to run, faster and faster. Everyone and everything is a blur. A confused Ahkai calling out to me. Children lining up with trays for school meals. The sleeping guard in the hut. The bees buzzing around brown coconut husks lining the road.

  When my eyes focus again, I find myself on top of Coconut Hill, in front of the view of the shimmering blue sea—inviting, magical, but dangerous. I sit under the silk cotton tree, or as Ahkai would call it, the Ceiba pentandra, and stare at the ocean. My chest heaves and I sniffle, mucus running out my nose. There’s no one around to hear my sobs, but I am crying without tears.

  I think about the flattop boy walking out to the cheering crowd with the rest of the cricket team. I think about my mum missing another one of my birthdays. I squeeze my eyes closed as hard as I can, but as much as I try, tears refuse to fall.

  The wind blows and some of the silk cotton fibers from the pods float down around me. The tree sheds once a year, and when the fibers drift onto school premises, the students with allergies start wheezing. Some parents, tired of their children reacting to the fibers, asked at a PTA meeting that the silk cotton tree be cut down, but Miss Mo wasn’t having it.

  “Duppies live inside that tree!” she yelled, her spittle flying on everyone at least three rows in front of her. “Them gine unleash them evil on everybody in Fairy Vale if wunna cut it down!”

  Eventually, the government stated that the tree was of national importance, and so the school board was forbidden to remove it. But that “duppy in the tree” rumor spread throughout the school, so no student would even risk carving their initials into its trunk.

  My frustration explodes in my chest.

  I’m tired of rules!

  I’m tired of people telling me what I can and cannot do.

  Using a sharp rock, I press into the trunk of the silk cotton tree and scratch the letter “J” into the tough bark. I might as well be cutting with a Q-tip; the mark is almost invisible. I go over the letter again and again, and then—Ow! A splinter punctures my flesh.

  A drop of blood appears on my middle finger and falls onto the bark, disappearing into one of the dark cracks. The wind gasps as it flutters through the branches, leaving a slight chill in the air that, for a moment, disrupts the scorching afternoon heat.

  I take a piece of tissue from my pocket and press it against the graze. It stings! I can’t even vandalize a silly tree without getting hurt. It’s like I’m trapped in a maze, and there’s failure at the end of each path.

  “I hate my life!” I scream to the birds.

  Out of nowhere, a strong gust of wind pulls the tissue from my hand.

  I drop onto the ground under the tree and watch as the tissue flutters in the breeze and dances out toward the ocean.

  The light from the full moon shines through my window. I glance at the brass clock with bloodshot eyes.

  Three in the morning. Too early for school.

  It was easier to ignore the heaviness in my heart when I was focused on lessons and doing homework with Ahkai. But now that I’m alone, without any distractions, my failure to get on the cricket team haunts me, whispering dark taunts whenever I try to sleep.

  Coach Broomes would have let you on
the team if you were faster.

  You’re not as good a bowler as you think.

  You’re not good enough.

  Now I’ll never see Daddy’s excitement when I hand him those tickets. I’ll never get to see the look of pride on his face as he watches me from the stands.

  A cry cuts through the darkness. “No! No! I’m begging yuh!”

  That’s Daddy!

  I jump out of bed and rush toward his bedroom. We never got around to closing doors. When I was younger, shadows came alive in the dark, so Daddy would leave all the bedroom doors half-open and keep the light on in the hallway.

  Daddy’s fighting with his bedsheet like a fish caught in a net. It’s strange, but his hands are flailing around while the rest of his body is stiff, like he’s bound by some invisible rope. He’s covered in sweat, so much sweat that the entire bed is soaked.

  “Daddy?” I pat him on his chest. His eyelids flutter but he doesn’t wake up.

  Years ago I was trapped in a terrible dream. When I closed my eyes, I was in the middle of the ocean about to be attacked by hungry sharks. When I opened my eyes, ghouls with slimy skin closed in over me. When I tried to get over to Daddy’s room, there was a graveyard in the hallway, with bony arms pushing out of the mounds. I lay there in bed, opening and closing my eyes, screaming with no voice.

  Miss Mo told me I had a spiritual attack.

  “The next time it happen, repeat the Lord’s Prayer, you hear me?” she said, after scolding Daddy for not having a Bible in the house. Then she flung holy water that she had borrowed from church in all directions. Ahkai did his best to disappear into the darkest corner of my bedroom, his face shining with embarrassment.

  I pat Daddy’s chest with a little more force. Strange … Daddy’s usually a light sleeper—I can’t even sneeze without interrupting his sleep. “Wake up!”

  “No!” Daddy launches forward, almost slamming into my forehead. He looks around like a trapped wild animal, and clutches his head, his fingernails digging into his temples.