The Mighty Miss Malone Quotes

My most endearing trait, and being as modest as I am I had to ask my brother Jimmie for this, is that I have the heart of a champion, am steady as a rock and can be counted on to do what is required. Jimmie also said that I am the smartest kid he has ever met but my all-encompassing and pervasive humility prevents me from putting that on this list.

My first pet peeve is when people don’t pronounce my name right. […] My second pet peeve is that the Gary Iron-Head Dogs, the best baseball team in the world, have been cursed and will never win the Negro Leagues championship.

My dream is to read every book in the Gary Public Library and to be a teacher who has the reputation for being tough but fair. Just like Mrs. Needham.

“Hello, ma’am. My name is Deza Malone and my brother made a mistake and took a pie from someone and we were going to return it but I found out at the last minute that half of the pie had got chewed on by a dog. Jimmie cut all the doggy parts off of the pie and wiped the dog’s spit from the rest. It’s the most beautiful pie I’ve ever seen and I thought it would be a shame to throw it away. I was wondering if you and your kids might like to have it instead?”

I took the dishrag off and the woman said, “Now, that’s a pie! Sweetheart, thank you very much! We’d love to have it!”

She laughed. “A little dog slob could never ruin a fine pie like this. Besides, do you know how many times we’ve had to fight dogs off something we were gonna eat?”

“Smile, kiddo,” the bad brain said. “Get as close as we can.”

Clarice had covered her mouth with both hands. It was easy to see that she was grief-struck that something this terrible could happen on the next-to-last day of school.

“Okay, kiddo, when she hands the paper to you, snatch her arm! We’ll get two or three bites in before she can slap us off or call for help!”

[…]

I held my breath, giving her one last chance to say, “Dear me, Miss Malone, I’m so sorry, I’ve made a terrible mistake, I should have called Clarice.”

Mrs. Needham looked right in my eyes, held my essay out and said, “Very good job, Deza.”

Very good job?

Was she playing a joke on me? I looked at what was written in red on the top of my paper. There was a big “A-” sitting there!

“Deza, I have been teaching longer than you could imagine, and I’ve always had the dream any teacher worth her salt has. I had thought, prior to this year, that I would have to be satisfied in coming close to the dream once, before, alas, ‘the best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley….’

“The dream is the gift of having one student, just one, who is capable of making a real contribution. One child who’d have no choice but to make a difference for our people.

“Out of the thousands of students I’ve had in the thousands of years I’ve been teaching, I’ve suspected for quite a while who the child I’ve been waiting for is.”

All I could think was, I love her like a sister, but, please, just don’t say Clarice!

“Miss Malone, you are that child.”

As I smoothed my fingers over the dress I started having worries. Maybe I should show her only my shoes … no, maybe only my dress. …

My other brain said, “He’s right, you know, kiddo…”

And just like that, I did know. If the bad brain was agreeing with him then Jimmie was wrong.

I gave myself a good soapy wash and smoothed my hair back with a little Vaseline. I put baking soda in my palm and brushed my teeth. I rubbed some more of the Vaseline into my legs and arms till they were nice and shiny. I put on the new slip, the socks and shoes. Then, being extra careful not to get any Vaseline on it, I slid the most beautiful piece of blue gingham clothes ever made over my head.

I loved how I had raised my arm like I was carrying a magical sword and all the little thugs got quiet. They parted for me and Clarice like the Red Sea did for Moses! But most of all I loved knowing that when something was happening to someone, I could do more than wring my hands, I could strike back!

I loved those feelings at the same time I hated them.

Fighting is wrong and very unladylike, but worse than that, by gut-punching the biggest bully at Lincoln Woods School I had humiliated Jimmie. And even though I’d stopped him from being hurt and maybe even murdered, I now saw a very scary side of myself.

Brain number two was starting to take over.

All I could hope was that Jimmie would understand that I was trying to rescue him.

I’m not sure what’s more surprising about the first notes of any song Jimmie sings—what it does to me, or the changes it brings in Jimmie.

I have to close my eyes, just like he does. I can’t tolerate anything that would interfere with hearing his voice.

[…]

And it seems like Jimmie makes himself larger and larger as he sings. If I opened my eyes I’d see he’d grown so much that he was filling every square inch of the park. No room would be able to hold him, chairs and rugs would get crowded up against the walls.

His voice always stayed light and high-pitched and soft, but it was strong in a way that let on that there were stories behind each word.

“Usually when people say that, they have good intentions, they think they’re giving you a compliment, but when you look at it…”

Jimmie said, “It’s an insult.”

“I can’t deny that, Jimmie,” Mother said, “but you learn you have to make allowances. You have to know which battles are worth fighting.”

Father said, “And ‘credit to your race’ and a lot of other sayings you’ll be running into are things that give you a warning about whoever it is who’s saying them. […] Think about a strange dog, Deza. They let you know if they’re friendly or not, right? […] Unless they’re rabid they give you signals that if you get any closer you’ll end up hurt. […] Think of ‘credit to your race’ as that first growl. Just be aware that that person is letting you know you need to keep an even sharper-than-normal eye on them.

Mrs. Needham and Mother had both told me, “Deza, you have to pull yourself together.”

And as I sat on the couch wrapped in Mother’s arms, I felt big hunks falling off of me and thumping to the ground. This must be how a tree feels in autumn when it watches the leaves that have been covering it all summer start to be blown away.

It must feel this hopeless and lonely.

I knew I really had to reach out and pick up the fallen pieces and put them back.

The man said in a hoarse voice, “My Darling Daughter Detha, don’t you recognithe your Deareth Delightful Daddy?"

I looked again.

The man’s voice was rough and hacky, like Father’s after a long night of coughing, but Father never had such a bad lisp.

He was too small to be my father. He was bony and scraggly-looking.

[…]

Jimmie ran onto the porch.

The poor hobo reached out his hand and mumbled, “My Genuine Gentle, Jumpin’ Giant, Jimmie!”

Jimmie’s face hardened. “My Fine, Friendly Father Figure?”

Maybe it’s because the story is so sad. But Father always tells us, “There’s a thin blurry line between humor and tragedy.” When he was working regular at the mill he’d told me and Jimmie, “I’ll give each of you one whole nickel for every joke you find that isn’t cloaked in pain or tragedy.”

We’d tried as hard as we could to earn a nickel but couldn’t come up with a single joke that didn’t have someone getting killed or hurt or made fun of or embarrassed or mocked.

Father told us, “And the more tragic something is, the more jokes you’ll find about it.”

I couldn’t think of anything more tragic than what happened to those poor men out on Lake Michigan, yet Father’s story didn’t have one smile or laugh in it.

And no alliteration. Something wasn’t right.

Father said, “That’s what we’re hoping for, Jimmie. Joe knows he’s got to win this fight, he knows how important it is, he’ll come through.

“Some of the time life boils down to some pretty ridiculous things, Deza. This is one of them. I agree, it’s silly to put so much importance on one fight, but you have to keep in mind that this fight is the one chance we have to show the Nazis, we are people too. It’s ironic, but Joe will show we’re human by savagely beating the stuffing out of someone.”

I would have believed anything my father was saying because it was in his own strong voice. I was going to have faith in Father’s word. I was going to try to make a light come on for Clarice, because the more I thought about it the madder I got at myself for not seeing this on my own.

Father’s lisp was back. “I can’t believe it, Peg. It’th like that fog on the lake, I never thought I’d thee or eel anything like it again, but here it ith. Thith ith jutht ath heavy on my heart. Thith ith the thame feeling. Oh, God, Peg, won’t I ever get rid of thith? Ith thomething wrong with me?”

Mother wrapped an arm around Father’s shoulder.

Clarice was squeezing my left hand and Jimmie was squeezing my right as we walked.

Father said, “What ith going—”

I looked back and Mother shushed Father. “Wait till we get home, it will be OK.”

“Why are you taking this so personal? You have nothing to be ashamed of, Roscoe. No one has work, no one has food.”

Father said, “Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s not shame. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe I’m afraid that one day I’ll come in here and see the love and concern on all of your faces, see the way you and the kids work so hard to make me feel better, and I’ll lose my mind. I’ll be so hurt, so angry, so desperate that I’ll go out in the streets and do something horrible. Something to get food or coal or clothes, something that would allow me to feed my family, something that would allow me to feel like a human being and not some animal in a zoo waiting for a handout.”

I knew how Father felt.

I hadn’t had teeth knocked out of my head and hadn’t floated around scared to death on a terrible lake, but every morning, after I made breakfast for Mother and Jimmie, I would sneak into my parents’ bed and didn’t want to move or think or anything. I wouldn’t even read a book.

At first I tried to remember that poem Father used to say about how “Hope has wings…” but I couldn’t.

I just wanted to have my face covered with the pillow that Father used to sleep on.

Mother touched my cheek. “No, Deza, it’s not that but it’s good nonetheless!”

She said, “Ta-da!” I read Mrs. Ernest Nelson, Flint, Michigan in very good penmanship.

Mrs. Carsdale had given us the letter for a new job in Flint! This was good news!

Not really, but when you’re feeling bad you can’t be picky about what kind of things can lift you up.

“Oh, Mother, you got it! So now we can move to Flint and find Father?”

Mother said, “Why on earth would a sensible Indiana girl want to move to Flint, Michigan?”

“If Flint’s where we’ll find Father I’ll go. The quicker we find him, the quicker we can get back to Gary.”

If I ever found that Dewey decimal system for superstitious sayings and looked up “Bad news comes in threes,” I would’ve seen that for the Malones, it meant three times every hour.

At supper, Jimmie asked what kind of truck we were going to use to move.

Mother said, “Children, give me your hands.”

A not-so-good sign.

“Jimmie, Deza, there isn’t going to be a moving truck, we won’t need one.”

My heart flew! “Oh, Mother! I knew it! We aren’t moving!”

“Yes, Deza, we are. We just won’t need a truck to do it. Most of this furniture…” She looked around. “Who am I kidding? None of this furniture is ours.”

The woman who answered the door was strikingly beautiful and long-limbed and dressed in a flowing robe that looked like an orange cloud had left the skies and was floating around her legs.

She smiled and hugged Jimmie. “Little Jimmie! I know you from the park! I love your voice, poppa!”

[…]

The woman told the numbers man, “I’m only doing this because it’s Little Jimmie’s family. You already dumped that Carter woman and her brat in the basement and that’s that. This ain’t no hotel or no orphanage either.”

Marvelous Marvin said, “Woman, please.”

She pointed at me. “I’d best not catch you snooping round my sister’s room neither.”

Mother said to Miss Carter, “Julia, isn’t this terribly unsafe?”

“Shoot, girl, Yeah, it’s all unsafe. You gonna have to be extra careful when you get to camp, that’s unsafe too, if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just like anything else, there’s just enough bad folks in camp to make it so you got to keep your guard up at all times. It’s especially hard on women, and even worse for little girls.”

She looked at me and a shiver went through my heart. “You just gotta keep your wits about you and don’t let no one in on your business. Keep it to yourself why you’re on the road alone.”

Mother’s 1-1-1 lines jumped out.

“Always let folks think your husband or your brother is with you, always tell ’em that he’s gonna be back later tonight. There’s strength in numbers.”

The opening of the hut that caught my eye was closest to the fire. There was a cloth pulled to one side that you could drop down to cover where the front door was supposed to be. Even in the dark I could tell the cloth was gingham. It was too dark to be sure if it was blue.

I walked over to touch the material. It was a little dirty and a lot stiffer than Mrs. Needham’s dress, but it was still beautiful. And it was blue.

Mother smiled. “Deza, which one?”

I said, “It’s got to be some kind of a sign!”

Stew said, “Good choice.”

He’d written, “Good for you!” and put a giant C+ with three exclamation points.

I turned the paper back over. Maybe I saw it wrong.

I looked again but it was the same.

One sign that I had toughened up was that instead of crying I thought of a little joke that Jimmie said he did whenever he didn’t like his grade.

“I turn the paper over, then, the same way people bang on a machine when it ain’t acting right, I smack my hand on the paper. Maybe if I bang it hard enough my grade will jump up a mark!”

It was nonsense, but I slapped my hand on Mr. Smith’s essay.

I turned the paper back over and smiled.

I’d have to tell Jimmie that it still wasn’t working.

“But it wasn’t me singing, it was my brother, my big brother!” I don’t think a prouder sentence has ever crossed my lips. […] “We tell him all the time that thee isn’t anyone else in the world with a voice so beautiful.”

The harmonica man said to him, “I played all over this country and I ain’t never heard nothing like that in my life. […] My name’s Zeke Greene, folks call me Saw-Bone Zee and it’s a true honor to make the acquaintance of a brother musician like you, sir.”

Sir!

It’s horrible what one tiny word can do to you. […] I’d learned not to cry or even get angry when all sorts of calamity befell us. […] I thought I could control it all.

And then this man called Jimmie “sir” and all my hardness melted away.

I hadn’t understood what the hobo with the beautiful beard had meant when he said we were fresh, but now I got it.

There weren’t a lot of them, but all the fresh ones, young and old, had a certain look, a expression that anyone who’s been on the road for a while has had scrubbed off their faces.

It wasn’t like they were worried or feeling sorry for themselves, they had a look of surprise, like they couldn’t believe what had happened. You can’t know the feeling unless you’ve had it.

One day you’re living in your own home, and then it seems like with no warning, the next day you’re carrying everything you own in a blanket or a sack or a ratty suitcase while being shooed from one place to another like a fly.

I’d decided in Gary that when it came to reading those kinds of words, I had four choices: one, I could pretend that I had blond hair and blue eyes. But that didn’t feel right. Two, I could start reading novels like they were history books, just a bunch of facts put together. But that wasn’t what the authors wanted, they wanted me to enjoy the story the way they wrote it. Three, I could change a word or two here or there and keep enjoying them by pretending they were about me, or four, I could stop reading novels altogether.

[…]

I’d decided a long time ago that I’d ignore those interrupting words and keep reading.

I look at my novels the same way Mother looks at buggy oatmeal: there might be a few bad things in them, but if you plugged your nose and sifted them out, there was still something pretty good left.

The curtain split in the middle and a man in a beautiful blue suit with a pair of two-tone blue shoes and a matching blue hat stood with his head bowed. His face was completely covered by the brim of the blue hat. […]

I froze. Maybe this man was going to introduce Jimmie.

The drum banged. The people cheered louder. The drum banged one more time and the music stopped.

The man kept his head down and raised the microphone to his mouth. […]

Then a clear, strong voice sang, “More or less resigned to crying over Angela…” The band jumped in, the crowd screamed louder and I found out for a fact that I am not a swooner, because if there was anything in the world that could make you swoon, it was […] the voice of the Genuine, Gentle Jumpin’ Giant, Jimmie Malone!

Before I could say anything, Father cleared his throat and started reading the signs only he could see:

“He had heard that hope has wings
But never believed such lofty things.
It took time to set him straight,
To learn hope was an open gate.
Try as he might, he didn’t see
That hope lived in his family.
He had learned that hope has wings…”

Father pulled his bony hand down and grabbed mine and Mother’s in both of his and finished,

“And now he’ll live by these joyous things.”

The car was silent as me and Mother stared at the sly smile on Father’s face.

He weakly waved his arms and half-shouted, “Burma-Shave!”

For the first time in a million years, Mother, Father, and me exploded in laugher. Together.