Warriors Don't Cry Read Online Free PDF Page B

my fear. My curiosity had gotten us into a real mess, she said. The police and a whole bunch of white folks were outside waiting for me. Grandma pushed me away and wiped my tears. And even as she straightened the bow on my braid, those voices were shouting at us through the door.
    “I’m demanding you’all get out here right now. I’m with the Little Rock Police. Don’t make us come in after you.”
    Grandma straightened her shoulders, assuming the posture of a queen as she reached down to take my hand, and instructed me to stand tall. As we walked through the door, I tilted my chin upward to match her chin as she looked the two policemen right in the eye. She spoke to them in a calm, clear voice, explaining that I was not good at reading signs. Then she apologized for any inconvenience I had caused. Her voice didn’t sound frightened, but I could feel her hand shaking and the perspiration in her palm.
    Suddenly, one of the officers moved close and blocked our way, saying we had to come upstairs for a serious talk. Grandma didn’t flinch as he moved too close to her. Instead, she smiled down at me and squeezed my hand. But as he beckoned her to move ahead, I knew we were in more trouble than we’d ever been in before. When she asked where he was taking us, he told her to shut up and do as we were told. Some of the crowd moved with us. When we passed close to Mother Lois, she and Grandma talked to each other with their eyes. I started to speak, but Grandma pinched my arm.
    Once inside the upstairs room with the straight-back wooden chairs, long table, and cardboard boxes, both officers lit cigarettes. One of them said we must be part of a communist group from up North, trying to integrate Little Rock’s bathrooms. Grandma’s voice only cracked once as over and over again she insisted that I had made a mistake. She called them “sir” and “mister” as she protested that we were good Little Rock citizens grateful for the use of our own bathrooms. She said she remembered the time when we couldn’t even enter the front door of the store and she was humbly grateful for that privilege.
    Finally, after an hour, the older policeman said he’d let us go, calling us harmless niggers gone astray. But he warned if we were ever again caught being curious about what belonged to white folks, we’d be behind bars wearing stripes, or even worse, wearing ropes around our necks.
    As we climbed into the car, Grandmother India warned me that curiosity killed the cat and it was going to be my undoing. As punishment for my bad deed, she made me read the Twenty-Third Psalm every day for a month. I also had to look up “patience” in the dictionary and write down the definition.

IN a way, she was right—patience was slowly bringing changes. As I celebrated several birthdays, growing into double digits, the one major change I could see was Mother Lois’s attending still more classes at the white people’s university. I was so fascinated with the idea that I had to see this school; so she began driving the whole family past the university extension on Sunday afternoon rides. It was located in the kind of all-white neighborhood we only dared travel through during the day. I craned my neck to look at the pretty houses and manicured lawns.
    Sometimes, on our way there, we passed Central High School, so tall, so majestic, like a European castle I’d seen in history books. “Wow, that’s a lot bigger than our high school,” I said one Sunday. “I want to go there.”
    “May Brown cooks there,” Grandma said. “She tells me that’s where the richest white families send their children. Folks up North know about Central High School. They know it’s a good school.”
    “I wish I could see what’s inside,” I said.
    “Don’t you dare even say that, girl; curiosity gets a body in a whole lot of trouble. Be patient,” Grandma commanded once more as she smiled at me. “Be patient, and one day, God willing, you’ll see inside