Read Online Juba! by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page B

I asked my roommate when I got home.
    â€œFreddy is doing what he thinks he can do,” Stubby said. “That’s not easy sometimes.”
    â€œThat’s not good enough for me,” I said. “And I got some words I have picked out for Freddy. I’m just saving them for a special occasion.”
    From the dancing at the auditions, I thought maybe John Diamond had got the white dancers on board. They were all kinds of good, and I thought about asking John for their names, but he and I were always butting heads about who was the best between us, and I knew he wouldn’t do me any favors. We had even danced together at times when some promoterwanted to put on a black and white show, but I could tell he didn’t like sharing the stage. Margaret taught mostly young Irish girls, and I wondered if she would help.
    In the afternoon Stubby came and asked me if I was going to help him put up the cart and bring the unsold fish upstairs. There wasn’t that much fish left, but only half the smoked oysters were gone.
    â€œWhen Jack is selling, he just kind of mushes his way through a conversation and gets people nodding and smiling, and then they feel too ashamed not to buy something,” Stubby said. “When I’m selling, I’m begging them to buy, and they start acting like the fish are moldy and the oysters are rotten.”
    â€œSo how do you think I should go ask Margaret if she’s going to help me get this thing together?” I asked.
    â€œYou’re not even interested in selling these fish, are you?”
    â€œStubby, dancing and entertaining people is what I love,” I said. “If fish could clap their hands, I’d be dancing for them. So do you think Margaret will help me get a show together?”
    â€œFish don’t have hands,” Stubby said. “And Margaret’s not going to help you, because she doesn’t like you that much. She told me that.”
    She didn’t like me that much, but I had a sneaky feeling she liked dancing enough to think about working with me.
    I had been in Margaret’s apartment a couple of times, and she had shown me some interesting things about dancing.She was tough in a way and had a quick tongue on her, but there were things she knew, and it came to me that maybe all the white dancers didn’t have to be that good just to put on a show. In fact, the more I thought about it, the clearer I realized they didn’t have to be good at all. As long as they didn’t fall down on the floor, they could fill up the space between when I was dancing and when Freddy and Simmy were dancing.
    The Artis twins were a little weird, but that was part of their act. They were not that good-looking, but they moved together well. Pete told people they were from Africa, but I knew they were from Philadelphia. He had them dress alike in white, gauzy costumes, and sometimes they played castanets as they danced. They were a popular act.
    The show was going to be a colored dance performance with some white dancers and singers just around to show it was a mixed group. So when I got to Margaret’s place, after washing up to get the fish smell off my hands and clothes, I was feeling pretty good as I explained to her what I had in mind.
    â€œIf you think for one hot minute that I’m going to be out rounding up dancers and helping you put on a show just to show off the talents of three colored boys, you have put your hat on the wrong part of your body, Mr. Juba.”
    â€œI’m not wearing a hat,” I reminded her.
    â€œAnd you don’t have much of a head to put it on if you were wearing one,” Margaret said. “There are young white people out there who can dance just as well as you can and will put their hearts and souls into it. But they are not as stupid as you seem to think they are, that they’re going to just sweep the floor for the coloreds.”
    â€œI didn’t say they couldn’t