The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir Read Online Free Page A

works quietly beside me.
    “Grandma, how come Delano don’t have to read out him homework to you?”
    “Delano is almost six years old. Him big enough to know when him own homework is right! You is not even four yet—now read, before I really have to answer you!”
    Delano makes a funny face and dashes out into the yard to chase stray chickens and stone ripe mangoes off the tree. I work on copying the new words Miss Sis has written in my notebook. I love smelling the chicken cooking while I work. Grandma puts the tiny pieces of crispy, salty, garlicky chicken that flake off onto a plate. One by one, she gives them to me as I read. One word seems impossible to sound out. S-A-L-V-A-TI-O-N. I struggle to make sense of the letters, but nothing comes to me.Grandma stands over me, one hand on my shoulder, the other patiently positioned on her hip.
    “Nuh mind, man. You know the answer! Just try sound it out again!”
    I spell it aloud. “S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N. Salvat…salava…Grandma, me just can’t get this one right, you can sound it out for me, please?”
    She looks first at me, then at the page. “No, you have to do it yourself. That is the way fi learn! Now try again!”
    “Savat…Grandma, me just don’t know it. Just please do this one for me, nuh! Please!”
    Grandma nods and looks at the page again. She points at the word and rubs the page. Then she mumbles something I cannot hear. Her breasts go up and down. She touches the page again. Then she closes the book. “Stacey, is time for you to go bathe now. Ask Miss Sis tomorrow. Is fi her job to tell you what the word is. Just ask her when you reach school in the morning.”
    I look up at her, confused. She smiles and rubs my head. “Stacey, go bathe before night come catch you dirty. And make sure you wash you coco-bread good.”
    As I lather my legs I wonder why Grandma always tells me to wash my coco-bread good. I know what I should do when I bathe. I am annoyed that she wouldn’t just tell me the word. She saw that I was having trouble sounding it out by myself. Her refusal to help seemed spiteful. Then I remember the helpless look she had on her face and suddenly realize that she can’t read a lick. I feel like everything bad is happening to me. First my mother runs off and leaves me. And now my grandmother is a big dunce. By the time I am done bathing I am very angry. I don’t want Grandma to be my grandmother. I wish I belonged to Miss Sis. Then I would have someone to help me with my stupid homework.
    When Grandma calls me to come for my tea, I turn away and mumble, “I don’t really want nutten from you!”
    “Stacey, is what you say? You really forgetting yourself inside here?”
    “I don’t have to listen to you. You can’t hear and you can’t even read.”
    In one motion she grabs my braid and throws me flat on my back. The smell of the floor polish makes me want to sneeze, but I am too afraid. She drags me up by my braid and brings her mouth right down to my eyes. Every wart on her face is magnified.
    Her breath hisses out of her lungs. “Listen to me, Staceyann whatever-you-middle-name-is Chin, listen, and listen good! If you smelling you-self I advise you to hold your skirt tail down. If you ever talk to me like dat again, I will break every bone God use to hold you upright!”
    She releases me. “Now get out of your yard clothes and go put on your pajamas.”
    The dull ache of the coco has already begun. My grandmother must be an obeah woman. Deaf or not, she knows exactly when you say something rude. That must mean something. I don’t want to be angry with Grandma anymore. I make myself think of all the good things she knows: how to soothe the terrifying sweats brought on by a duppy; how to wash out dirty white clothes so they are really, really white; how to quickly clean any size house; how to pray and make it sound like a pretty song. But all of that seems like nothing next to reading like Miss Sis.
    The next morning, I ask,