Taneesha Never Disparaging Page 7

  “Girl, do you know how much salmon costs?!”

  You’d have thought I’d just thrown her into the garbage.

  I felt a twinge of guilt. I thought of the bony, starving kids that she always told me about when I threw away food. But the guilt passed. I just wanted to get out of there.

  “Sorry,” I said, not meaning it. “I got to study.”

  I flounced out of the kitchen. I knew I’d flounced because I felt my parents’ eyes drilling into my back and looking at me all like “Why are you flouncing out on us?”

  I walked through the living room and caught sight of the altar. I stopped. I thought about the practice, about all the times I’d chanted with my parents but hadn’t really wanted to. I thought about how I’d only done it because they’d made me.

  I’d chanted at meetings but I was always glad when I could escape. The only times I’d practiced on my own were when I wanted something real bad—like not getting nominated for class president. Now that had worked out real well, hadn’t it?

  But sometimes Nam Myoho Renge Kyo came through. Like when I chanted at the hospital Friday. But then again, I could have done the same thing without chanting. All I had to do was read to some little kids. That was nothing when you got right down to it.

  But what about my bike? My magenta ten-speed from Summit Cycles? Mama and Daddy were all set to buy me a $35 used bike from Mr. Garrett, the bike man down the street. But I chanted for the ten-speed I’d seen in the window at Summit Cycles. And the bike shop ended up putting the last one, the floor model, on sale for exactly $35. I got it for my birthday. No getting around that, I chanted me up a new bike. A nice one, too.

  But even for stuff I’d really wanted, like my bike, I’d never chanted more than a few minutes. Thirty minutes max to be exact. That was for Disney World. Before the trip, Mama had told me I had to chant a half hour every day for a whole month in order to go and, as usual, Daddy backed her up.

  I had hated being forced like that. I just knew that making your kid chant had to be against some kind of Buddhist rule or something, or should have been.

  I paid my parents back by chanting in a tiny whisper for the whole month. I said my throat hurt.

  But I’d gotten to go to Disney World last summer. That was pretty cool. Only talk about hot!

  CHAPTER 12

  DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS FLORIDA

  Standing in the living room, I started thinking about Florida. Before we went to Disney World, we spent four days at this Buddhist retreat in the Everglades—the Florida Wildlife Buddhist Center, the FWBC. That hadn’t been half bad.

  We’d had our own rooms in one of these one-floor buildings called dormitories. They were covered with stucco like a lot of the houses and buildings down there were. My room was connected to Mama and Daddy’s, but I closed my door whenever I wanted to.

  The food was great. We ate in this big cafeteria. I had lobster for the first time, on pizza at that.

  At night, we heard alligators croaking in the lake. They were going “Croak! Croak!” It was really spooky. But cool, too. The people that ran the FWBC said the bank on the edges of the lake was too high for the alligators to climb out. I didn’t care, though—I wasn’t taking chances. I stayed away from that lake like those people told us to.

  I stayed out of the grass, too—with its big, fat, green blades—so fire ants wouldn’t get me. The name of those ants alone told you what they were all about.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Florida was downright dangerous. But it hadn’t seemed like it at the time. What had seemed more dangerous was the possibility that I’d make an all-out fool of myself in front of a bunch of people I’d just met. And, thanks to my mother, I got my chance.

  Still, there was no getting around it, Florida was beautiful. In the daytime, you saw sky so blue it looked like a painting, not the real thing. And, just like on postcards, palm trees danced in the breeze everywhere.

  Now, I’d realized this before, I wasn’t a natural mingler. But something about Florida made me mingle. I made friends with kids from all over the country—from California, Atlanta, Minnesota, Texas, New York. You name it. Jocelyn and Dennis, a sister and brother, even came from England with their mother. And this other girl, Akiko, her parents brought her there from Australia.

  And there were these bikes that we got to ride around the campus. That’s what they called the place where the FWBC was, “the campus,” just like at a college. But, of course, none of those bikes compared to my magenta ten-speed. Now, seriously, how could they?

  They had ESG meetings there, too. I should have known they would. But I didn’t mind them so much. To tell the truth, they were kind of fun.

  In ESG, we got to choose different activities. I had a hard time deciding between two of them: circus stuff and Kung Fu. In the end, I went with the clown.

  She taught everybody tricks. She said clowns use Buddhism all the time, or something like that. All I knew was I learned how to juggle four oranges. I could still do it.

  On our last day at the FWBC, we had a big talent show in the cafeteria, kids and grown-ups together. I read one of Daisaku Ikeda’s poems. I knew the poem already because I’d read it in a book Gail, the ESG leader here in Cleveland, had given me a while back.

  In the living room, I walked over to the altar and sat in the middle chair in front of it. In the row of books inside the altar’s cubby, I saw my book—Fighting for Peace: Poems by Daisaku Ikeda. I pulled it out, started flipping through it, and remembered the day I stood on stage in the FWBC cafeteria, in purple shorts, sandals, and ashy legs, and read in front of all those people.

  At first, I hadn’t known what to do for the FWBC talent show and I hadn’t planned on being in it anyway. And, of course, Evella wouldn’t have been her self if she didn’t have a bunch of really good reasons why being in the show was a bad idea.

  What if you stutter? What if people laugh at you? What if a hurricane blows through while you’re standing up there on that stage, Taneesha? You should be checking out places to run for cover, not humiliating yourself in front of strangers!

  But a lot of kids were doing it, being in the show. Even ones who were way more shy than me. So I’d started thinking maybe I might be in it, too. Only, when I got that brilliant idea, I didn’t have a talent.

  Then, in the FWBC bookstore, I saw Daisaku Ikeda’s book and I remembered this poem I’d read in it once. The bookstore people let me photocopy it.

  I didn’t read the whole thing for the show. I skipped some parts at the beginning and lots of the middle. Daddy had said that might be a good idea since it was real long. I used one of the computers at the FWBC to type up just the parts I was going to read.

  In the living room now, sitting in front of the altar, I found, tucked inside my book, the crinkly white sheet of paper with my poem typed on it. I was still irritated with my parents and I didn’t want to give them a reason to celebrate—“Taneesha’s reading Sensei’s poem!” I could just hear them. And I didn’t want to. So I read the poem very quietly:

  Long have I walked

  the roads of this world,

  leaving behind

  so many memories,

  creating so much history.

  I have no regrets.

  For in my justice-loving heart

  has burned the flame

  of compassionate determination

  to rid the world

  of fear and war…

  I have forged

  a broad, new path of peace.

  With the passion of my youth,

  with brightly burning eyes,

  I sought to create

  an ideal world

  such as people have dreamed of…

  … World peace.

  Nothing remains to me,

  I have no other wish,

  than the realization

  of this dream…

  There have been

  bright and beautiful

  seasons of spring.


  There have been days

  when the closing fog

  obscured everything.

  These memories

  are already part

  of the distant past,

  and yet they are the source

  of an energy that is

  deep and powerful

  and wondrous…

  History is in

  ceaseless motion.

  And with it the people’s

  wisdom and discernment grow.

  Do not overlook the fact

  that with every passing day

  they stretch their wings

  and stroke through the air

  with ever greater wisdom.

  Ringleaders of violent turmoil

  plunging all

  into the deepest pits of misery,

  leaving them

  weeping there!

  “Evil leaders depart!”

  This is the cry

  of all people everywhere.

  Our desire is to walk

  with our intimate friends

  beneath the cherries’ full bloom,

  inhaling the fragrance of peace,

  caressed by warm breezes

  and sharing our hopes

  in pleasant conversation.

  Strike the bell signaling

  the arrival of peace!

  Firmly sound the resonant chimes

  announcing peace,

  announcing victory

  to people everywhere.

  From a dark and blackened sun

  raise your sights,

  and regard the brilliant

  sun of peace!

  Holding the book and crinkly sheet of paper on my lap in the living room, I remembered how, at the FWBC, as soon as I’d finished reading onstage, everybody had started hooting and hollering. They even got out of their seats, clapping for me, giving me a standing O. It had been amazing. My stomach had done all these flip-flops, but in a good way.

  Then I’d looked down, and, unbelievably, saw my mother crying right in front of me. It wasn’t like a real theater, where the audience is in the dark; in that screaming-bright cafeteria, I couldn’t miss her.

  She sat next to Daddy, with tears streaming down her face, dabbing her eyes with this raggedy ball of Kleenex that she’d dug up from the bottom of her junky purse. I saw her dig it up.

  She wasn’t crying out loud, or anything, only silently. But still. Talk about embarrassing. I’d thought I’d die right up there on stage.

  Later that night, while my parents and I biked back to our dormitory, I’d looked ahead at the place where the tops of palm trees touched the night sky and seen zillions of stars twinkling up there. More than I ever saw in North Cleveland. And my parents had said they were proud of how I’d read that poem. They said Daisaku Ikeda would have been proud of me, too.

  “Sensei had the FWBC built for us,” Daddy had said, pedaling next to me. “And he’s had schools built in different countries, too. From kindergartens to colleges. Even a university in California.”

  “I know, Daddy. You told me that before.”

  “It’s not just for Buddhists either. It’s for everybody.”

  “I know, Daddy. You told me.”

  Mama, who was riding on the other side of me, had started humming a little song. I’d figured it was a signal for Daddy to change the subject. He must have picked up on it because he went mute.

  I’ve had the feeling for a while that when it’s time for college, my parents want me to go to that university Daddy was talking about. The one Daisaku Ikeda built. Do I want to go? I don’t know.

  Sitting in the living room at that very moment, I was just trying to figure out how to live through fifth grade.

  I sighed, closed the book, and sat it on the chair next to me.

  I felt myself smiling—it almost felt strange for my face to get into that position.

  I sighed again. “Good old Florida.”

  I had to admit, it was kind of all right meeting so many kids that chant. Only a few kids at Hunter do it. And none of their parents go to meetings as much as mine, or hold meetings at their houses a few times a month like us. But at the FWBC, I was just like everybody else.

  “Okay, Taneesha,” I whispered, “sitting here strolling down memory lane and everything is nice but you’ve got to get back to reality.”

  My life was on the line after all.

  I knew sometimes my parents could chant for over an hour. Even as long as two hours. Or more. To me, chanting that long seemed like it had to be torture. But if it could keep me from getting my teeth knocked out tomorrow, I figured, why not give it a try?

  I stood, walked over to the light switch on the wall, and flipped it. A warm spotlight from the ceiling flickered on and lit the center of the oval altar cabinet, the Butsudan.

  I opened the Butsudan’s doors, sat in the middle chair in front of the altar, and scooted forward. I pulled open the large altar table’s slender drawer and took out my string of prayer beads. I struck the bell with the mallet. Its bong echoed through the room.

  Wait.

  Without looking around, I felt Mama standing next to me. The arm of her fuzzy, pink sweater came into view. I whiffed up the aroma of the bowl of oranges she placed on the altar table.

  She leaned into my face and smiled.

  I didn’t smile back.

  I wanted her to leave me alone so I wouldn’t have to listen to a load of instructions.

  Her footsteps padded across the carpet. I heard her messing with the logs in the fireplace, moving them around with the long, black iron tongs.

  I waited.

  No way was I chanting with her in the room.

  In a few minutes, I smelled burning wood and heard it crackling. The fire’s orange glow reflected off the altar and I began to feel warm.

  Her footsteps left the room.

  Good.

  I placed my string of lavender plastic prayer beads over my middle fingers and pressed them between my palms for prayer. Five shorter sections of beads extended from the long, main loop like a stretched out neck and pairs of arms and legs. Each one of the five sections of beads had a fuzzy, white cloth ball attached to its end. The fuzzy balls were like a head, hands, and feet. The “feet” (two balls) dangled from the back of my left hand and the “head” and “hands” (three balls) dangled from my right.

  I felt the smooth roundness of the little plastic beads between my palms. And I remembered Gail saying that the string of beads looked like a person when you held it up by its “head.” She said holding prayer beads reminded us that we hold our own lives in our hands.

  With my hands pressed together in front of my chest, I kept my back straight, and looked upward. My eyes focused on what hung on a little wooden hook inside the Butsudan—a scroll, more than a foot long, made of silky, olive-green cloth and cream-colored paper. The green cloth framed the paper. The paper had bold, black, Chinese letters written on it; it was my family’s Gohonzon.

  At the altar, my eyes took in the Chinese letters that flow, like a dancing, black river, down the middle of the Gohonzon. I can’t read the letters but I know they spell “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,” and I know that means, “I devote my life to the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Flower Teaching of the Buddha.”

  Don’t ask me how I know that mouthful; I just do.

  For a moment, I just sat there, with my palms pressed together, staring at the writing on the Gohonzon, thinking. I thought about how Mama says, “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is your life itself, Taneesha.” And that if I chant to the Gohonzon, I can see that I’m a Buddha—that life, my life, never goes away, that I’m everything and everyone and everywhere, all the time. “The Gohonzon is a mirror,” Mama says, “a mirror for seeing you.”

  “Well, then,” I whispered, “let’s see what I can see.”

  I did Sansho, chanted three times slowly; then sped up. I tried to chant like a galloping horse the way I remembered somebody saying you should do, maybe Gail. I tried to f
eel that—the freedom of a horse galloping toward a sunny horizon.

  But it was no use.

  I didn’t feel one bit free or sunny. I was a slave, chained to the runaway thoughts in my head.

  My mouth said “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” all right. But my mind spun out of control and Evella did her best to take over:

  My face won’t get smashed in. I won’t get a broken nose—or arm. I will not wish I had signed up for Kung Fu instead of the clown at the FWBC.

  But you should have. Because Bigfoot’ s going to pulverize you!

  Why’d she have to pick on Carli anyway? Why does she want to beat me up? I didn’t do anything to her…

  Except you called her mean and stupid—that was smart!

  But she was mean and stupid! And big… Shoot! I’m scared. Really, really scared.

  You should be. You’re going to get smacked down!

  I bonged the bell and did Sansho to finish.

  “So much for that.”

  I felt worse than I did before I sat down.

  CHAPTER 13

  GAGGING UP GUAVA-MANGO JUICE

  Vote for me and I’ll set you free! R-O—DOUBLE-N—I-E!”

  On Tuesday afternoon, I slowly munched on a chocolate-chip cookie and watched in horror. I couldn’t believe it. Ronnie Lawson twirled on his back, making dizzying circles on the floor for the big finish of his campaign rap. Hiphop drumbeats blasted from a humungous old-school boombox—a contraption Ronnie had lugged into the classroom that morning. Kids, including Carli—who claimed to be my “biggest fan,” not Ronnie’s—were on their feet, dancing, clapping their hands, and snapping their fingers. And Mr. Alvarez didn’t even mind.

  I was the only one in my seat, fiddling with a neon orange glow-in-the-dark pencil. It sat on my desk next to a paper cup of some of the best juice I’d ever tasted. It wasn’t regular old orange or apple juice either. It was guava-mango. Ronnie said his aunt from Jamaica made it. The cookies and pencil came from him, too. Cookies. Pencils. Juice. Bribes Ronnie Lawson passed out to the whole class.