Cinnamon Child

    The figure sprinted away from the angry crowd and headed towards a gap between the buildings. This little, androgynous form captured my attention and I felt concern stimulate my already precipitating heart: the mob had gathered quickly, from two angry men to thirty in less than five minutes.
  I let go of my mother’s hand, insisting that I was going to play at Charlotte White’s house across the road. She seemed reluctant at fist and warned me about the fiery temper of a lynch mob, then she resigned to the idea and with a sigh and a stern warning, gave me a nod marking her permission.
  Of course, I did not go to Charlotte White’s house, but made a detour around the houses to the alley where I had seen the little person take refuge. It was dark and smelt damp and funny, the smell of urine and garbage mixed together to create a strange stench. I could still hear the angry shouts and curses of the crowd, but I was intent on finding the little boy or girl.
  I mistook a heap of cloth for the figure and finally found the little huddled form cowering behind the crates of rotting, over-ripe fruit. I noticed the long brown mane tied into a low ponytail and realised that this shivering, vulnerable form was a girl of what appeared to be about eight.
  She was white, that much I could tell from her features, yet her skin was a smooth, beautiful texture of caramel undertones. Her face was mostly hidden by a newsboy’s cap and she was dressed in breaches, a patched jacket and black shoes…. I wondered why she was dressed so bizarrely.
“Hey little girl.” I said calmly, crouching down to her level.
  She didn’t look up and seemed to shiver more violently.
“Come now, I won’t hurt ya. I’m Mary-Beth and I’m fifteen. I just wanna help.”
  I offered my hand for her to shake and slowly, she reached out and shook it lightly with her miniature, fragile hand.
“Alice.” She whispered, her voice trembling.
“Alice? Now what a pretty name we’ve got here.” I sat down on the dirt, knowing full well I would get a whipping from Mother for dirtying my dress. “Why you so scared Alice darlin’?”
  She shook her head.
“You can tell me Alice, I won’t go tellin’ a soul.”
  She looked in the direction of the crowd even though they were invisible to us.
“Are all the men scarin’ ya?”
  She nodded.
“Ah, don’t worry Alice, they be scarin’ me too sometimes. But it ain’t nothing, they just provin’ their own justice is all.”
  At this she began to sob. Heavy, blackened tears rolled down her cheers and her little body shook with the force of her cries.
“Why you cryin’ Alice?” A terrible thought came to mind. “Why you cryin’g darlin? What’d you see?”
There was a long pause, the silence broken only by her sobs.
“My daddy’s in there Miss Mary-Beth. They got my daddy.”
  I then realised hwy her skin was such an extraordinary colour: her mother was white but her daddy was black. She was mixed, a “mongrel” as they say in town. She was the daughter of the Jones’, the mixed couple who lived down the road minding their own business.
  And the mob was looking for a scapegoat.
“Alice, where’s your daddy?”
  She began to cry even harder.
“Alice, where’s your daddy? Think real hard for me darlin’.” I asked again.
“He be hangin’ at that tree Miss Mary-Beth, and I don’t think he’s a gonna come down anytime soon.”
“Did your momma tell you to run?”
  She nodded.
“She put me in them clothes of daddy when he be a young boy, and told me to run as fast I can and not look back. She said she gonna find me when them big men leave.”
  She was still shaking violently. Her mother wasn’t going to get her: everyone knew that when a white woman and a black man played around in our part of town, both would be lynched.
  I took her into my arms, this terrified, weak little checkers girl. I wondered what I would tell my mother when I brought her home.