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  JACKSON JONES AND MISSION GREENTOP

  Mary Quattlebaum

  GROVER G. GRAHAM AND ME, Mary Quattlebaum

  THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM—1963

  Christopher Paul Curtis

  IGGIE’S HOUSE, Judy Blume

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  To Christopher,

  my partner in the garden

  Every success story has a beginning. But I wonder if those great folks knew when they had taken the first step down that road. Like there was a sign: GREATNESS—NEXT RIGHT.

  For example, George Washington. He chopped down that cherry tree and owned right up to it. Did he say to himself: “Here’s the beginning of my success story, so I better not blow it by lying”? Or did he try to fix that tree? And squeak out real fast to his daddy: “I-chopped-down-the-tree-with-my-little-hatchet-but-it-was-looking-bad”?

  To puzzle out the answer I’ve read my share of books on good-doing folks. And believe me, there are lots. Athletes, presidents, artists. Black, white, yellow. All inspiring.

  And I figure, the writers left out a lot.

  Such as when the GREAT ONES were bad in school. And wasted money on video games. And smacked kid sisters.

  For once, I would like to read a story about a real guy who was not always so GREAT.

  So I decided to write about myself. Not that I’m GREAT (yet, anyway). But I was pretty successful last summer.

  And let me tell you, getting there was not so great.

  The story begins on my tenth birthday.

  April 10.

  Jackson-Jones-Born-into-This-World Day. I was moving from nine to almost grown. Double digits. The Big 1–0. The Man (that’s me) is TEN.

  My best friend, Reuben, was impressed. He’s nine and counting. One hundred and thirty-two days till he’s ten.

  “What ya going to get for your birthday?” he asked. He sketched the star on Captain Nemo’s helmet. I was sprawled on his bed.

  I shrugged, acting cool. Like saying, “Oh, is it my birthday?” Acting like I didn’t know Mama was rattling my favorite Red Velvet cake into the oven. HOPEFULLY wrapping a new basketball.

  That’s what I wanted, a basketball.

  The one I had was so old, it didn’t bounce anymore. Just sort of thucked.

  Thuck. Thuck. Thuck. Not the way to dribble.

  “What you need is a basketball,” said Reuben, honing in on my thoughts, “to replace that orange Frisbee you call a ball.” He pencil-shaded Nemo’s star a precise gray. “Remind me to ask for paints for my birthday,” he added, “so I can give Nemo some color.”

  Captain Nemo Comics by Jackson Jones and Reuben Casey is our life’s work. I write. He draws. We’re the perfect team. We’ve taken Captain Nemo to Planet Huzarconi, which is ringed with deadly gases. He’s fought the six-headed Cerebral and the no-armed Flawt. And we’ve got about 293 Nemo adventures left to do. I figure Reuben and I will be the perfect team until we’re old, old men.

  Reuben carefully drew a bubble from Captain Nemo’s mouth.

  I dug into my pocket, unfolded a piece of paper, and read: “Begone, evil wizard, lest I smite you.”

  Reuben printed Begone in the bubble. Stopped.

  “Do people say ‘Begone’?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Begone’ is hero talk.”

  Reuben said “Begone” to himself three times.

  Did I say we were the perfect team? Excuse me, I meant to say slightly less than perfect. What holds us back from one hundred percent perfection is this: Reuben is soooo careful. And slow.

  Mama says Reuben is the careful tortoise and I am the impatient hare in that story where the turtle wins the race and the rabbit looks like a fool.

  That story makes no sense. I can beat Reuben at any race. But sometimes I slow down so he almost wins. When I tell this to Mama, she just says, “Maybe that rabbit’s so bent on winning, he can’t see there’s no race.” I think Mama’s explanation twists the story—but still makes no sense.

  Reuben was still muttering “Begone” when the phone rang.

  His grandma, Miz Lady, answered it.

  “I’m not sure Jackson wants a tenth birthday,” she said, loud so I’d hear. “He’s acting mighty cool.”

  I grinned. Miz Lady was acting cool herself. She knew inside I was balloons and basketballs.

  “Your mama says your birthday is ready, Mister Cool.” She flapped her hands at me and Reuben. “I’ll be along as soon as I find your present.” She peered into a closet. “Now, where did I put it?”

  “It’s under your bed,” Reuben whispered loudly.

  “What?”

  “UNDER YOUR BED.” Reuben let out the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. Miz Lady’s hearing is not too good. That’s why she hollers so much. She thinks other folks’ ears are just as bad.

  I slouched out the door, moving slooooww. Letting some of Reuben’s turtle rub off on me. I wanted this birthday to last a looong time.

  “Ten,” said Reuben, naturally walking slow. “All right.”

  Walking slooowwly, I had lots of time to think. My first thought: Apartments are the perfect way to live. Reuben and Miz Lady are down the hall in Apartment 316. I knew that in 506 Juana Rivera was sneaking away from her kid sister, Gaby, and her tagalong brother, Ro. And Abraham was slinking out of 219 as his mother hollered, “Remember, sweetie, just a teensy piece of cake.” Even our mailman lived in Apartment 102 and sometimes delivered the mail right into my hand.

  Everyone was coming to Apartment 302. Coming for my tenth birthday.

  Except Mailbags Mosely, on account of being in college at night. But this morning he had clapped a Chicago Bulls starters cap on my head and grinned a happy birthday. Yeah. Now all I needed was the basketball.

  I was walking so slowly, I was almost stopped.

  Cake smell, smooth and chocolate, tried to hurry my steps.

  Reuben and I moved like two snails. Like two snails going backward.

  Till I couldn’t stand such slowness any longer. I jumped for Apartment 302, flung open the door.

  Birthday!

  Balloons. A cake stuck with candles till it looked like a porcupine. I shifted my eyes casually over the present pile. No basketball shape wrapped in blue paper.

  But there was an envelope with my name in Mama’s writing.

  Money! Cartoon dollar signs flipped in my head. Mama was giving me money to buy just what I wanted.

  After ten years of “Jackson, you know we don’t have the money for that.”

  After ten years of “We don’t have a coupon for that kind of cereal. Put it back.”

  After ten years of “You’d think dollars were toilet paper, they go that fast.”

  Mama was giving me money for my birthday. I felt truly grown up.

  Juana waved from the kitchen. Abraham eyeballed the cake. Miz Lady flapped her present like a fan.

  Mama arranged all her plants around the cake, like invited guests. She fussed with their leaves.

  Mama says talking to plants makes them grow. They can sense when you’
re kind, she says. It sounds cuckoo, I know. But her African violets are fuzzier, her philodendron is wider, and her ivy clambers about like a jungle. I’ve about given up being embarrassed.

  See, Mama grew up in the country and never got over it. “Sheer heaven,” she always sighs. “Miles of green grass, roses, cows, my own horse. The city is no place for a boy.”

  Personally, I think the country sounds like the opposite of heaven. Who wants to tug some old cow’s bag when he could shoot hoops? But Mama’s stuck on country-land. She even named me Jackson, after her old horse.

  Still, Jackson is a good name, horse or no horse. What if she’d called me Bossy?

  Every mother has her weirdness, I figure. Abraham’s mother watches over him like a worried bird. The only time he can eat cake or unwashed carrots is when he visits Reuben or me. I’ll take Mama’s plant-yakking any day.

  Abraham lit the candles. Everyone sang, “Happy birthday, dee-aa-rrr Jackson,” and I made a wish.

  You guessed it. I wished for a basketball. But it was an I-got-this-wish-in-the-bag kind of wish, instead of an eyes-squeezed-want-it-with-all-my-heart wish. I knew I was getting that b-ball.

  “I keep waiting for them to appear,” said Juana.

  She gobbled her cake as if they might suddenly appear and snatch it away. “Yesterday I took one of those stress tests at People’s Drug. You press a dot and the color changes. Blue means relaxed; red means totally whacked out. Mine was crimson. Those kids made me a basket case.”

  “Gaby and Ro might calm down in a few years,” said Mama.

  “Where’s your basketball?” Reuben whispered to me.

  I ignored him. I ate my cake very slooowwly.

  “Mister Cool,” hollered Miz Lady, “don’t you think it’s time you opened those presents?”

  I untied ribbon and peeled tape so slooowwly, the wrapping paper didn’t rip at all. That paper could wrap up next year’s presents.

  I got socks from Abraham (“Mom picked them out,” he said. “Sorry.”); a glow-in-the-dark armband from Juana; and a Georgetown Hoyas T-shirt from Reuben and Miz Lady.

  I carefully folded the wrapping paper.

  “There’s one more,” said Mama.

  I gave her my best Is-it-my-birthday? look.

  Reuben rolled his eyes.

  Mama held the envelope like a little white bird. Stuffed with money, I couldn’t help thinking.

  “Ten years ago,” said Mama, stroking the bird-money, “God gave me a present: my son, Jackson. Each year I grow prouder of him.”

  I was cool, just taking it in. Thinking about slam-dunking my new b-ball.

  “I always wanted Jackson to have the kind of childhood I had,” Mama continued.

  Wait a minute. Mama had no basketball in that country childhood. Her best friend lived seven miles away.

  Mama handed me the envelope. Her eyes were all misty-happy.

  “Jackson, I hope you enjoy this gift as much as I enjoyed mine as a girl.”

  Forget slooowwly. I snatched the envelope. Clawed the flap.

  I drew out the card. Opened it.

  I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  Noise pushed at me.

  “Do you like it?” from Mama.

  “Ain’t Mr. Cool excited now?” from Miz Lady.

  “What is it?” from Juana.

  “Plot five one,” I answered all of them.

  “A plot in the Rooter’s Community Garden on Evert Street.” Mama beamed.

  I knew Rooter’s. I must have passed it a billion times and never felt the urge to open the chain-link gate and join all those sweating, digging, grunting garden people. Mailbags Mosely even had a plot and gave us tomatoes each year. “Sweeter than store-bought”—he’d smack his lips. But I couldn’t taste a difference. And who cared?

  Now I was a Rooter.

  “There’s ten dollars in the card for seeds, manure, and tools,” said Mama. “I’m as excited as if this was my garden.”

  I wished it was.

  “I don’t know anything about gardens” was all I said.

  “Oh, gardening is easy,” said Mama. “All you do is plant the seeds and—”

  “Talk to ’em.”

  “See, you’re a pro already.” Mama looked at me anxiously. “Do you like your present?”

  “Sure.” I figured the present could be worse. I might have gotten a cow or a “vacation” in the country with rope swings, fishing poles, and other country-doing things.

  But my tenth birthday had flattened like a basketball hit by a Mack truck. POP!-fssssss.

  Mama answered a knock at the door.

  Maybe some razzle-dazzle player would dribble through. He’d juke and leap and send a birthday b-ball straight into my hands. “Surprise!” everyone would yell.

  But instead, a dervish whirled right for the cake, separated into two parts, and clung to Juana. I groaned. Gaby and Ro Rivera.

  Juana is about the smartest kid I know. She can speak English and Spanish, at the same time even, and not get them mixed up. Her parents came from Colombia and still speak Spanish. Juana’s tried to teach me a few words.

  She can even understand Gaby and Ro, who usually chatter at the same time. And because they’re little—Gaby’s six years old and Ro’s four—they sometimes use the wrong words. To figure out their speech Juana must be brilliant.

  Now the kids wanted cake.

  “Just a little piece,” said Juana.

  The devouring duo hurled themselves at the paper plates, gobbled the cake, grabbed Juana, and dragged her out the door. Juana didn’t even struggle. She looked like a prisoner resigned to her fate.

  “What are you going to plant in your garden, Jackson?” Miz Lady asked.

  “Oh, flowers,” sighed Mama, gliding the cake into the kitchen. “Marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums.”

  I was wrong. My birthday could get worse. Who ever heard of a basketball star with a summer bouquet?

  Reuben shot me a look that said, What you gonna do now?

  Mama came back with packets of cake for Miz Lady, Reuben, and Abraham. Abraham would have to eat his quickly—before his mother snatched it.

  “Happy Birthday, Mister Cool,” Miz Lady hollered as she left.

  “Nas-tur-tiums.” Reuben shook his head.

  Then I got a brilliant idea. Not just brilliant—spectacular. How to have a garden and a basketball too. Or, rather, how to have a basketball because of a garden. My deflated day started pumping back up again.

  “A garden.” Mama smiled to her pot of begonias.

  A garden. Already, I could picture myself dribbling down a wide-open court. Fast. Smooth. And not a flower in sight.

  • • •

  “Nas-tur-tiums,” Reuben repeated the next day. “They even sound nasty.”

  He was back at his desk, drawing. I was sprawled on his bed. Our favorite working position.

  “A garden. What kind of present is that for a tenth birthday?” Reuben shook his head.

  Then a look of horror crossed his face.

  “Do you think Miz Lady would give me a garden—”

  “Relax,” I said. “Your birthday’s in August. Gardens are almost over by then.”

  “Relief” said Reuben. He paused, drew a finicky line, erased it. “You gonna tell your mama you don’t want it?”

  Very coolly I said, “Maybe I do want it.”

  “What!” Reuben shot up so fast, he forgot he was slow. “You want nas-turtiums and marigolds and that other thing?”

  “Zinnias.”

  “You want zinnias?” he howled. “Man, turning ten turned your brain. What you gonna do with flowers?”

  “Sell them.”

  “Sell them,” Reuben said slowly. I could almost see his mind puzzling the idea of planting flowers, selling flowers, buying…

  “What you gonna buy?”

  “Basketball,” I said. “Wilson’s best at twenty-four ninety-five. Shoot, I’ll buy two basketballs. A hundred basketballs. One rose at Mabel’s Fanta
stic Florals costs five dollars. We sell twelve roses—that’s sixty bucks.”

  “You know nothing about growing flowers.”

  “It’s easy. All you gotta do is plant some seeds and, um, talk to them.”

  “Man, you gonna talk to seeds?”

  Outside I was very cool. Inside I was squirming. “Maybe we can take turns.”

  “Oh, now you want me to chat up some plants.” Reuben stuck his pencil before his nose and chirped: “Good day, Mr. Zinnia! Are we ready to grow, grow, grow?” He crossed his eyes and resumed drawing the twelve zippers on Captain Nemo’s uniform.

  I leaned back on the bed, so cool I’m almost an ice cube. I started talking, like I was talking to myself.

  “Bet I can grow fifty—no, a hundred roses. And how much is five dollars times one hundred?”

  Reuben was still drawing, very carefully.

  “That’s five hundred dollars for roses,” I continued. “And I’ll charge one dollar for each zinnia and whatever.”

  Reuben made tiny pencil strokes like he’s fashioning the most careful zipper known to man.

  I let my voice get so quiet, it’s almost silence. “I wonder if Abraham and Juana would like to earn some extra money?”

  “Jack-son,” exploded Reuben, “I never said I wouldn’t help you plant your flowers. But I refuse to talk to ’em.”

  “Maybe Juana will do the talking. Girls are supposed to like flowers.”

  “When do we start?”

  “Tomorrow. We’ll buy some seeds, stick them in the ground. Presto!—flowers.”

  Reuben thought. “I don’t think a garden works like that. We gotta make a plan. You know, to decide what goes where.”

  Reuben drew a square precisely in the middle of the page. With a ruler he drew six dotted rows. All this took exactly eight minutes and forty-two seconds. (I checked my watch.)

  Then he erased his first line and redid the dots. Another one minute and nine seconds.

  “Reuben, man, it’ll be July before you finish that plan. We gotta decide how much money to invest in seeds.”

  Reuben looked with satisfaction at his square and dots. “I got two dollars and fifty-seven cents.”

  “And I’ve got my ten-dollar birthday money, plus one dollar and eleven cents.” I figured rapidly. “All in all that’s thirteen dollars and sixty-eight cents.”