I Am Not Sidney Poitier Read Online Free Page B

revealing her yellow bikini and cartoonishly narrow waist. There were no goose or duck or sparrow bumps on her as she lay out on the deck and appeared to have the sun’s rays zero in on her like a spotlight.
    While Ted motored the sloop out of the slip and toward open water, Wanda Fonda had attached herself to my side. “What kind of name is Nu’ott?”
    “My name is Not Sidney.”
    “Okay, Not Sidney,” she rather nicely said. “Just what kind of name is Not Sidney?”
    “One my crazy mother dreamed up.”
    “I think it’s a nice name. I find it much better than my name. I hate that my name rhymes.”
    “It’s not so bad. At least it doesn’t get you beaten up all the time.”
    Wanda Fonda put her surprisingly strong grip on my forearm and sighed. “Do they beat you up?”
    I was saved by Ted calling me over to him at the tiller. I moved to him, Wanda Fonda tethered fast.
    “Nu’ott,” he said, “what we’re sailing today is a sloop. A sloop has one mast and two sails—mainsail and foresail. This fractional rig sloop was made by some Frenchies named Beneteau, was made in their factory in South Carolina. They grow great peaches up there. I love to suck on the pit, but then I never know what to do with it. The wind is the most important part of sailing. Without wind, there is no sailing. Today you’ll learn about the wind. Next time, knots. Yep, today you just sit back and watch and I’ll teach you about the wind and the beat and the close reach and the reach and the broad reach and the run, about luff and what it means to be in irons, about coming about and jibbing and about sails. You ever see what the sun can do to a convertible top over time? I had a little MG when I was in college, and the sun turned the top into a shag carpet.”
    “Nu’ott, I’m going below for some lemonade,” this from Wanda Fonda. “Can I bring you some?”
    “You can bring me a tall glass, Wanda Fonda,” Ted said. The girl was always called by both names. “Bring some for Betty, too. You want some lemonade, Betty? Maybe you want some iced tea instead?”
    “Lemonade sounds nice,” Betty said. She was sitting not far from the tiller.
    “You want some lemonade, Jane?” Ted called forward.
    Jane waved her hand in the air in a way that could have meant yes or no or my nails are perfect.
    “What about you, Nu’ott?” Wanda Fonda asked me, again.
    “No, thank you,” I said.
    With that Wanda Fonda disappeared down the companionway.
    We passed under the sweeping suspension bridge, and Ted turned to me and said, “This is the Not Sidney Lanier Bridge.” He chuckled. “Just joking. I think Sidney Lanier was a poet or something.”
    I looked at the bridge, looking both east and west along its length, but could not see where or if either end ever found land.
    Once past the bridge Ted switched off his motor and raised the mainsail. The feeling of moving under the power of the wind was thrilling even though we weren’t making great speed. The motion of the sloop was hypnotic, at least to me. To Betty, it was nauseating. She swayed against the boat’s rhythm and took on a greenish cast.
    Wanda Fonda came back with a tray of glasses of lemonade. The sweating glasses made me instantly wish that I had said I wanted some.
    “You look like you’re going to upchuck, Betty,” Ted said. “Do me a favor and lean over the side when you do.”
    Betty looked at the glass of lemonade being held out to her by the freckled Wanda Fonda, then turned to release her last meal into the Atlantic.
    “Attagirl,” Ted said.
    “Uncle Ted?”
    “Yes, Wanda Fonda?”
    “I’m glad you brought Nu’ott with us.”
    Ted smiled warmly at me. “Of course I brought him out here. He’s a sailor at heart. A lover of the sea. An admirer of the wind. A free spirit. A mighty Viking! Or perhaps a Moor.”
    My eleven-year-old ears liked the sound of that.
    “Go up there and raise the foresail, Wanda Fonda.”
    I watched as she did. The girl pulled