The Mighty Miss Malone

Jimmie brings home half of an amazing apple pie in a pie tin. Mother and Father are immediately suspicious, and Deza is disappointed that Jimmie broke the deal the two of them have: Jimmie is to consult Deza if he makes any sort of plan out of the ordinary (she wants to keep him from getting into trouble). Jimmie admits that he took the pie from a woman’s windowsill but claims he left money for it. Father tries to march Jimmie out of the house to return the pie, but Deza offers to go with Jimmie instead to save his pride in front of his friends. Father gives them 45 minutes.

Jimmie walks with the swagger Deza sees him adopt whenever he is with his friends, but he drops it as they approach the house from which he took the pie. He tells Deza that he hid the pie after taking it and a dog found it, but he rescued it and cut away the parts the dog touched. Deza knows they cannot return a half a dog-eaten pie, so she takes it to a homeless woman and her kids in the park who live in a cardboard “hut.” The woman is grateful for the pie and gives Deza one of the pieces of apple from the filling. The woman tells Jimmie not to steal anymore, but, because the pie is so tasty, she also jokingly tells him to stuff a few more pies under his shirt when he goes to apologize.

A nicely dressed woman named Dr. Bracy answers the door of the home where Jimmie stole the pie. When she hears what Jimmie did, she references Robin Hood, as Jimmie gave the pie to poor people; Jimmie loves this idea, but she clarifies, “Only problem with your epiphany is I don’t believe there’s a rich person within ten miles of here” (23). She brings two pieces of pie, one for Deza and one for Jimmie, but when Jimmie claims he left only eight cents to pay for pie because the other two cents he gave to a blind, crying, wheelchair-bound woman, Dr. Bracy laughs and eats the second piece herself. She shows Deza a poorly written note Jimmie left, full of errors and no punctuation. Dr. Bracy is not a medical doctor but has an advanced degree after studying “all about books and writing” (27). Dr. Bracy tells Jimmie he must chop wood and clear her back yard starting Saturday morning. She might also require him to attend a tutoring session with her to improve his writing. She chats with Deza as they eat; Deza tells Dr. Bracy about school and her friend Clarice. Dr. Bracy can tell that Deza tries to take part of her piece of pie away in a napkin and instructs her to give it to Clarice, not Jimmie. At home, Deza looks up “epiphany” in her dictionary, but the definition is challenging, and she asks her parents for help. Father tells her it’s like a light of understanding coming on.

Mrs. Needham always publicly calls students to her desk in order of lowest grade to highest to accept their graded essays. Usually the honor of best essay grade goes to Deza, but on the day Mrs. Needham returns the family essay, Deza is shocked that her essay was second best to Clarice’s. Deza is mortified. Dolly Peaches, a boy who consistently earns the lowest grades, says, “How’s it feel to be number two?” (33). Clarice is thrilled; she hops to the front of the room and hugs Mrs. Needham. Deza assumes Clarice is putting on an attention-getting show as an intentional kindness to Deza, to take their peers’ eyes off Deza’s embarrassment.

After class, Mrs. Needham insists that Deza read the comments she wrote on the essay. They indicate that Deza should not use a thesaurus but write more naturally; that writing six pages when the assignment was two is unacceptable; and that this paper will be the most important of Deza’s student career. Deza is upset and asks why she got an A-. Mrs. Needham asks Deza to sit in her teacher chair. This excites Deza, who often imagined herself in the teacher’s seat. She tells Deza that all teachers want one student who shows so much promise that it is evident they will make a significant contribution.

Mrs. Needham, however, found that promised child in Deza. Though the school board is forcing her resignation due to age, Mrs. Needham wants to continue tutoring Deza with more challenging work. She also wants a former student, who is about to graduate from dental school, to help with Deza’s cavity-stricken teeth. Mrs. Needham gives Deza a pair of shoes and socks that belonged to her niece. Deza’s own shoes and socks are falling apart from wear, and she gratefully tries on the shoes. Mrs. Needham tells Deza to ask her parents if she may keep them. Mrs. Needham also gives her two half-slips, three pairs of underwear, and the beautiful blue gingham dress that Deza coveted for weeks in the window of the “rich person’s clothes store” (43), Himelhoch’s. This dress still has a tag pinned to it, and Mrs. Needham claims her niece must have worn the dress “all summer” (43) with the tag attached.

Clarice waits for Deza out in the hall, concerned that Deza is angry or upset about the graded essays. Deza assures her that she is not. Deza does not talk about the clothing or shoes, claiming that the bag holds graded work. On the way home she tells Clarice that Mrs. Needham will tutor them in September for an extra challenge. They hug and part ways at Clarice’s house.

Back at home, Deza discovers that Mother is at the mission getting food. Jimmie has two drawings he shows to Deza. Deza thinks Jimmie is a terrible artist. The first drawing, she determines, is a fight between two boxers. One’s head is on the ground. Jimmie explains, “See, that’s what’s going to happen on the seventeenth. Joe Louis is gonna knock Max Smelling’s head off” (48). Deza is tired of hearing about this upcoming fight. The other picture has what looks like a large Hershey’s Kiss with a rain cloud over it, plus three people, one of whom is her. Another is Jimmie—she can tell because he always draws himself “as big, and bumpy with muscles” (49)—holding a box labeled “nituls.” The third is Dolly Peaches. Jimmy explains that the drawing is a murder plot showing Dolly Peaches’ demise: The raincloud will rain on the haystack where Jimmie dumped a box of needles (which he spelled “nituls”); they will rust from the rain. Then as Deza walks by, the needles will all jump out to find her feet—her feet have always weirdly attracted injury. Father once said the expression “hidden like a needle in a haystack” [citation] would be moot with Deza walking near because any needles would fly out to jab her feet. In Jimmie’s drawing, though, all the rusty needles stab Dolly Peaches instead because he is in the way; then he would get lockjaw and die. Deza tells Jimmie he should work on his schoolwork with as much thoughtfulness as his murder plots.

Jimmie asks about the bag and Deza shows him. Jimmie recommends that she show only the dress or the shoes—not both—to Mother, so that if Mother makes her return the item, Deza will have the other to keep in secret. Deza debates this but decides to stay honest and shows Mother both. Mother says the outfit is made for Deza and they will both write thank-you notes to “that wonderful woman” (55). Jimmie says Deza “lucked up” in that she gets to keep both the dress and shoes.

The next morning, Deza looks at the face of the man on the Quaker Oats box and asks Father who he is. Father asks Mother, and she mentions how the Quakers helped slaves on the Underground Railroad. Father decides the man must have just heard about the Emancipation Proclamation: “He’s overjoyed because he can quit fighting for freedom and get back to quaking” (58). Deza then discovers that the oats have live bugs in them, and she drops the container onto the floor in shock. She tells her parents, but they say they cannot afford to waste one bit of food and to sweep the oats up. Deza is surprised to hear that Mother usually just sifts out the bugs and kills the germs with boiling water. Father scoops some raw oats—along with the bugs—into his mouth. Then Jimmie does the same thing. Father spits out his mouthful, though, while Jimmie swallows his. Deza decides she will never eat oats again.

After school dismisses on the last day, Deza and Clarice walk past the vacant lot where some people are fighting. Then Clarice realizes Dolly Peaches is beating Jimmie badly. Clarice tells her they should get Mrs. Needham and the police. Deza, though, remembers the advice Father gave Jimmie and her about fighting: Swing from the waist. She rushes Dolly from behind and shoves him off Jimmie. He says several insults then brazenly tells everyone he will hit Deza even though she is smart and a girl. He hits Deza with a punch to the jaw, and her face explodes with pain from her bad teeth, but she does not go down.

As he gears up to hit again, Deza hits Dolly with a forceful uppercut to the belly, knocking the wind out of him; he drops to the ground. She sits on him and demands an apology for each offense, including hurting Jimmie and purposefully mispronouncing her name. She holds her hand up to shush the crowd for Dolly’s apologies, and they quiet. He apologizes five times. Afterwards Deza is shaky with a sense of power, especially the feeling she got when quieting the crowd. She worries that Jimmie will be mad and humiliated, but once at home, she helps tape his forehead injury and knows that he forgives her.

On the first day of summer vacation, Deza and Clarice go to the library to read for a few hours, but they do not like the number of cardboard cut-outs, posters, and banners calling attention to the upcoming boxing fight: Joe Louis, a Black American boxer, will face the white German, Max Schmeling. A white librarian, Mrs. Ashton, tells Deza and Clarice, “Oh, yes, you two need to be very proud. Joe Louis is such a credit to your race” (75). Deza whispers about the silliness of boxing gloves, and a woman reading nearby gets up to go complain about the girls’ giggling. Deza and Clarice leave for the ballpark, where the Iron-Head Dogs are playing the Chicky-Go Giants. The scorecards cost a penny, but a friend of Father’s is handing them out and gives Deza one for free. Jimmie sings the National Anthem followed by a Joe Louis fight song, and the crowd cheers and applauds him. Deza feels very proud of her brother; Clarice’s crush on him is evident. The game is a loss, though: “Four to nothing. We’d been shut out” (82).

That night at Chow Chat (what Father alliteratively calls their dinner conversation), Deza mentions Mrs. Ashton’s comment. Her parents ask for the context, and Deza fills them in. Father explains that a comment like that usually means “they have good intentions, they think they’re giving you a compliment” (83), but that in actuality it is a warning, like a dog’s growl, about that person’s real, condescending beliefs. Father tells Deza to be grateful for that kind of early warning.