Fire from the Rock Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1957

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1957

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1957

  MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1957

  MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1957—EVENING

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1957

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1957—EVENING

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 1957

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1957

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1957

  WEDNESDAY JANUARY 30, 1957

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1957

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1957- EVENING

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1957

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1957

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1957

  SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1957

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1957

  THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1957

  SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1957

  SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1957

  MONDAY, MAY 6, 1957

  THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1957

  MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1957—AFTERNOON

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1957

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1957—SIX P.M.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1957—EVENING

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1957

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1957

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1957

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1957

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1957

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1957

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1957

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1957—MORNING

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1957

  Author’s Note

  A TOUGH DECISION

  “Are they gonna shut down our schools and make us all go to school with the white kids?” Reggie asked. He sounded concerned. “I like the fact that Dunbar and Mann are just for the colored kids! They don’t want us and we don’t need them.”

  “No, Mr. Birmingham,” said Miss Washington. “This process may take years. Next week we will start the selection process for those of you who might choose to be among the first, the proud, maybe even the famous. But it will not be easy. The white establishment does not want you there. It will be difficult, maybe even painful, and probably dangerous. I want you to go home tonight and talk to your parents. After much discussion and prayer, if you and your family want to be considered for this, I want you to let me know. We are slowly compiling a list of possible students to present to the school board. Only the best and the brightest will be chosen. Will you be among them?”

  “I know I don’t want to be on that list,” Sylvia heard Reggie say.

  The bell rang then, and Sylvia exhaled as if she had been underwater. Integration! Here in Little Rock. Finally. And she and her friends could be the ones chosen to do it. What a terrible, horrible, wonderful decision this would be.

  ALSO BY SHARON M. DRAPER

  November Blues

  Copper Sun

  Romiette and Julio

  We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Pact Led to Success

  The Battle of Jericho

  Double Dutch

  HAZELWOOD HIGH TRILOGY

  Tears of a Tiger

  Forged by Fire

  Darkness Before Dawn

  ZIGGY AND THE BLACK DINOSAURS SERIES

  The Buried Bones Mystery

  Lost in the Tunnel of Time

  Shadows of Caesar’s Creek

  The Space Mission Adventure

  The Backyard Animal Show

  Stars and Sparks Onstage

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Dutton Children’s Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © Sharon M. Draper, 2007

  All rights reserved

  CIP Data is available.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-65136-6

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE NINE BRAVE TEENAGERS

  WHO CHANGED THE WORLD IN 1957:

  Ernest Green

  Elizabeth Eckford

  Jefferson Thomas

  Terrence Roberts

  Carlotta Walls

  Minnijean Brown

  Gloria Ray

  Thelma Mothershed

  Melba Patillo

  and to Benita Zucker, my childhood friend.

  S.D.

  FIRE FROM THE ROCK

  LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

  1957

  “Fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the bread.”

  JUDGES 6:21

  “Is not My word like fire and like a hammer that smashes rock?”

  JEREMIAH 23:29

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1957

  Help! Mama, come quick! Donna Jean’s been bit by a dog!” fifteen-year-old Sylvia Patterson screamed as she burst through the front door. Her hat had fallen off, she’d lost a snow boot someplace back on the sidewalk, and her breath escaped in short, harsh gasps. Sylvia had never been so scared in her life.

  Her aunt Bessie hurried up the steps behind her, struggling with the weight of the sobbing, shrieking eight-year-old in her arms. She paused on the porch to adjust the child’s weight and to try to quiet her a bit.

  “Sh-sh-sh, child. It’s gonna be all right. Your mama’s gonna make it all better real soon. We’re at your house now. That’s a girl. Be brave now. Sh-sh-sh.”

  Donna Jean’s tears turned into big gulps as she realized she was home, but as soon as she saw her mother running to the door, she started wailing again.

  “Oh, my Lord! How did this happen?” The girls’ mother looked upset, but her movements were surprisingly calm. She took the little girl into her arms and cuddled her as she rushed the child into the house and set her gently on the sofa. Rust-colored blood had stained her apron.

  “It was one of Mr. Crandall’s big old hound dogs, Mama! He came out of nowhere and just grabbed her leg!” Sylvia cried.

  “Run go get me some soap and water, towels from the bathroom, some rubbing alcohol, a bottle of iodine, and the box of gauze strips, Sylvie,” her mother said calmly. Sylvia darted off quickly to obey, partly from fear, and partly from not wanting to miss one second of this horrible drama that was unfolding in her living room. When she dashed back her mother was cooing to the little girl, “It’s all right, baby. It’s just a little scratch,” but her forehead had
wrinkled into a frown as she examined

  Donna Jean’s leg.

  “How did this happen, Bessie?” Mrs. Patterson asked her sister.

  Aunt Bessie sighed deeply as she took the alcohol and bandages from the still-trembling Sylvia. “I feel like it’s my fault, Leola, but how was I to know that Crandall’s fool dogs were loose? The girls were just waiting for me by the fence, and the dog tore around the corner like a train off the track. He wrapped his jaws around her leg before I could turn around. Oh, Lord.” She put her head in her hands.

  Every colored person in Little Rock, Arkansas, knew all about the Crandall family and their vicious dogs. Mr. Crandall—the owner of a local barbershop, and surely the meanest man in the county—had trained his dogs to attack Negroes. Sometimes he conveniently forgot to tie them up. All his friends probably thought it was really funny, but all the colored people thought it was terrifying. Last year at least five people—all of them Negroes—had been bitten by one of his dogs.

  Crandall’s wife, Eileen, was known as the most vocal segregationist in town. She and her friends—all of whom wore cat-eye-shaped glasses, Sylvia had noticed—protested vocally when the buses, the police force, and the university had been integrated. They had recently formed something called The Mothers’ Coalition to prepare for protesting against possible school integration.

  The Crandalls had two teenaged children—a thick-shouldered, crew-cut-wearing son named Johnny, who was an outstanding player on the Central High football team, and a thin, pale daughter named Callie, who mirrored her mother in looks and attitude.

  Sylvia and the rest of her friends walked to school the long way rather than go past the Crandalls’ house. Aunt Bessie should have known better! Sylvia thought angrily. She bit her lip, frustrated with herself as well. I should have known better, too.

  With its peeling yellow paint and the sagging front porch, the Crandall house looked dingy, but Mr. Crandall made it just plain frightening. His hair was greased back, and his eyes, even at a distance, looked dark and fierce. The local children whispered that he could cast spells with those eyes.

  Even though Mr. Crandall seemed to wear the same pair of work pants every day, he was known throughout Little Rock for his highly polished, chestnut-brown, double-laced oxford shoes with metal taps on the toes and the heels. Folks said he special-ordered those shoes from Houston, Texas. In addition, he made a point of wearing a clean white dress shirt every day. His wife never ironed them, however. He always hired women like Aunt Bessie to do his shirts. Today she had taken twenty-five bright-white dress shirts to him, bleached and starched so well they looked like little soldiers.

  Sylvia watched quietly while her mother worked on her sister, not sure if she should cry or throw up. She took deep breaths of the stuffy air in the living room, but she felt dizzy and enclosed.

  “I just went to deliver his laundry,” Aunt Bessie said, weeping, as she helped her sister wash Donna Jean’s wounds. Some of the water in the basin, tinged pink with DJ’s blood, sloshed onto the carpet as DJ’s mother squeezed out the washcloth.

  “Why are you still doing laundry, anyway?” Sylvia’s mother asked angrily. “You’ve got a successful beauty shop. You don’t need to be doing this!”

  Bessie nodded her head in agreement. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have taken the girls with me, but I’d promised them a treat—you know how much they love Mrs. Zucker’s cookies.” Donna Jean had stopped screaming and only cried out when they touched a particularly tender area.

  “You know, you’re the only colored woman in Little Rock who will still do laundry for that fool,” her sister said bitterly. “You let him talk to you like you’re a child, and he only pays you ten cents a shirt.”

  Sylvia looked up in surprise. Her mother rarely showed anger against anyone, especially her own sister.

  “You used to work for his wife,” Aunt Bessie retorted.

  “I went one time. Then, because she treated me like dirt, I refused to go back, like you should have years ago,” her mother said flatly.

  Aunt Bessie’s shoulders drooped. She had told the girls to wait for her outside Mr. Crandall’s back fence while she col- lected her two dollars and fifty cents. Mr. Crandall always took a long time because he checked every shirt for brown marks or water spots before he would pay her.

  Hateful old man never finds any spots—he just likes to make Aunt Bessie stand there in the cold. Sylvia noticed her hands were squeezed into fists.

  “It was cold, Mama,” Sylvia explained quietly. “Donna Jean had the jump rope she got for Christmas and she was jumping a little to keep warm, I guess. Both of us were giggling and acting silly—maybe a little scared, too. Then that dog got loose and headed straight for Donna Jean. I tried to get her out of the way, Mama—really I did—but the dog was too fast.”

  Sylvia kept replaying the scene in her mind, trying to figure out how she could have been faster, quicker, smarter—something that might have helped her sister. But superheroes only exist in my comic books, Sylvia thought with a sigh. In real life innocent children bleed and people like me just feel guilty and helpless.

  Her mother reached over and gave Sylvia a hug. “It’s not your fault, child,” she said gently. “You did the best you could. Donna Jean is going to be just fine.”

  Sylvia pulled away. “But it shouldn’t have happened, Mama! What kind of person trains a dog to bite little children?” she asked angrily.

  “A hateful man is an unhappy man,” her mother replied philosophically.

  “Well, I hope he chokes on his misery!” Sylvia paced around the small living room, not able to channel her anger.

  Donna Jean whimpered softly. “It hurts, Mama.”

  “I know, baby. Mama’s gonna fix it. Lie still now, you hear?”

  “Should we take her to the hospital?” Sylvia asked, her voice tight.

  “The wounds aren’t deep. As long as we don’t let them get infected, I think she’ll be all right,” her mother responded. She was bathing Donna Jean’s leg with alcohol, daubing it with iodine, and wrapping it with clean, white gauze. Sylvia felt a little dizzy because the red iodine made the wound look even bloodier than it really was.

  Aunt Bessie continued. “I dropped the shirts onto the porch and ran screaming toward Donna Jean with a shirt hanger in my hand. I beat that dog off her.”

  “Mr. Crandall really started cursing then, Mama,” Sylvia explained. “He told Aunt Bessie that she would have to do every single one of those shirts over again, plus pay for any injuries to his dog. Can you believe that?”

  “He can let that dog wash and iron his shirts!” Aunt Bessie said angrily. “Never again, Leola. Never again!”

  “Or his lazy, busybody wife,” Sylvia’s mother mumbled, almost to herself.

  Sylvia couldn’t help smiling at the thought of a huge, snarling hound dog standing in front of an ironing board, calmly pressing shirts. Then the memory of the real dog, teeth bared, its eyes red with rage, sobered her.

  She told her mother, “When Mr. Crandall finally came over to tie up the dog, he said to us, ‘Stupid gal ought not to rile up good hunting dogs.’”

  “I believe he was smiling when he said it, Leola,” Aunt Bessie said. “He and his drinking buddies will have a good laugh about this tonight.”

  Mrs. Patterson’s face showed a mixture of sorrow and bitterness, but she made no comment because just then Gary burst through the front door. A cold wind always seemed to follow him, Sylvia thought with a shudder, even when the weather was warm. At seventeen, her brother was tall and thin, with large, slightly crooked teeth, and he wore his hair straightened and slicked back in the style many of the teenaged boys thought made them look good. He took one glance at Donna Jean, the blood, the bandages, and the look of defeat on his mother’s face, and he cried out, “What’s going on? Who hurt my baby sister?” He clenched his fists. He wore his anger like clothing.

  “She’s fine, Gary,” his mother said, trying to calm him with her voice. �
�She had an unfortunate run-in with a dog.”

  “One of Crandall’s dogs attacked her?” Gary looked around wildly, then, in one swift movement, grabbed the poker from the fireplace.

  “It was an accident, Gary. The dog got loose, and Donna Jean got in the way. There’s nothing we can do,” his mother said, her voice pleading now.

  “He has trained those dogs to attack us!” Gary cried. “I’ll kill it! I swear I’ll kill all those vicious beasts!” Sylvia looked terrified as Gary’s anger seemed to dart about the room looking for ways to escape.

  Aunt Bessie grabbed his upraised arm and took the poker from him. “No, you won’t, Gary. Calm down. You’ll only bring trouble to this family. Just leave well enough alone. Your sister is not seriously injured. Let it be for now.”

  Gary retorted, “No, I can’t just let it be. Crandall needs to be punished! How can you live like this—never taking a stand, always letting them hurt you?”

  “The Bible says vengeance belongs to the Lord,” his mother replied quietly.

  Gary shook his head in disbelief. “What about you, Sylvia?” Gary asked. “Are you going to stay in the Amen Corner with the old folks, or open your eyes and look at the future?”

  Sylvia blinked, unsure what to say. She remembered her brother as a freckle-faced boy who loved to climb trees, who insisted on going to the very top where the branches got thin and he swayed in the wind. To Sylvia he used to be better than Batman when it came to beating up her imaginary monsters. But this was very real and very scary. “I just want things to be like they used to be,” Sylvia said helplessly, “when we were little and nothing bad could hurt us.”