Betsey Brown Read Online Free Page A

Betsey Brown
Book: Betsey Brown Read Online Free
Author: Ntozake Shange
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library, cross the trolley tracks, behind the rich girls’ school, and back across to the colored teachers’ college. All these rushing, giggling brown babies loaded with books and language all their own converged upon Clark Street each morning: one mass of curls and prepubescent excitement.
    Betsey was hurrying up the stairs where Twanda was directing up & down traffic, putting the third-graders in their places and looking like Ma Rainey in a fluorescent yellow tent. Twanda’s mama did hair the old-fashioned way and wouldn’t allow her to comb out the bumper curls till the end of the week. But Twanda was so big, a real big gal, nobody said a word bout how howling funny she be looking. A big black roll of a girl covered up in them big roller curls. Liliana and Mavis twitched in they tight skirts with them slits up the back a little higher than was the usual style: so fast in the seventh grade.
    â€œCharlie gon’ give she some, come t’morrow. Betcha money on it. He gointa the high school. Now, how he be in the high school an’ he aint gon’ give she some?”
    But what’s he gonna give her? Liliana and Mavis were right in front of Betsey, talking the talk she couldn’t make sense of. All Betsey knew was that she was going to give this poem for her very life and win that prize. Huhmph, what was the prize? Betsey wisht it was a trip to Paris, but she knew better. Maybe the prize was a brand-new book, Countee Cullen, or a Paul Robeson record. Wow! Stop thinkin’ on the prize. Think on the poem.
    â€œI’ma tell ya one mo’ time. If she aint give it up yet, she a fool. Who you think don’t want Eugene Boyd?”
    Betsey dropped her books at the mention of Eugene Boyd’s name. Liliana turned round like someone who had been purposefully provoked:
    â€œGirl, what’sa matter with you? Get holdt to them books and act grown. Don’t you let them books get no run in my stockings, ya hear me?”
    Betsey was shivering, she was blushing, she was all thumbs; the books wouldn’t get back in her arms. “Speak up Ike, an’’spress yo’se’f” and Eugene Boyd danced up and down the stairs, but it was Twanda waving her huge arms over Betsey’s head, screaming at her.
    â€œGet a move on, rhiney heifer! Whatchu think this is, yo’ desk? I got traffic to move heah!”
    Betsey thought she was gonna cry or faint. She wanted Liliana and Mavis to like her, but here she’d made them mad. Now Twanda was shouting so the whole school could hear. “Rhiney heifer,” that’s all she needed, a new nickname. How could a rhiney heifer invite Ike or anybody else to speak on anything, much less to come on round, please?
    Liliana and Mavis were long gone by the time Betsey gathered her thoughts, her books, her crush on the basketball player, Eugene Boyd. He was like another poem to her. She didn’t know him but she “read” him the way you read poems. She watched his every move; the way his blue-gray eyes took in the ankles of all the girls. She knew he liked ankles. She tried to imagine inviting Eugene Boyd to come on in, but she got so excited she whispered out loud: “I’d better stick with Ike.”
    Not only were the floors of the Clark School shining like the halls of Tara, but Betsey’s brow was weeping with sweat, as were her panties and underarms. She imagined she shone like an out-of-place star in midday. She felt hot. And there was Mr. Wichiten with the razor strap at the head of the hallway, justa swinging and smiling.
    â€œGood morning, Elizabeth,” Mr. Wichiten murmured, justa swinging and smiling. Betsey knew she’d get a licking with that ol’ razor strap with the holes in it if Mr. Wichiten had any idea what was on her mind. Eugene Boyd and Ike, the prize, what “she” gon’ give up, who was “she” anyway? Oh, Mrs. Mitchell was not goin to be in a good mood
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