I lifted my eyes from my newest book. Its mesmerizing smell was enough to keep me from putting it down. A small boy in the corner of my classroom raised his grimy little hand and flung it around like a snake, flailing to and fro. I nodded at him in acknowledgement, and he set his hand back down on his desk full of classwork I gave him.

"Miss May, when'll we learn to read like you?" he stammered, as his cheeks flushed a red darker than Julia Gates' prize-winning apples.

I tucked a blonde curl of mine behind my ear, a nervous habit I had that my mama used to rap my knuckles for when I was young. Before I could respond, a sudden flood of old memories gushed into my head.

It started with one from when I was just a baby. It wasn't vivid, nor did the memory have movement. It was solely an image, an image of a black woman's arms swaddling my small white body. Tula was her name, at least the only name I knew her by. Never did it phase me that I had a white mama and a white papa but a Black nanny. To me, she was a friend and a good one at that.

My mind flashed next to my seventh birthday, when Mama and Papa bought me a new doll. I named her Little Tula and was instantly scorned for wanting my beautiful doll to be associated with a Negro. At the time, my little mind was blind to the racism so heavily practiced by my parents, neighbors, and peers.

Tula was my friend and more of a mother than the pasty, worrisome one that I had been given. My pa was never seen much. He was often off checking in with the slave-holder, Tom, or talking cotton with the husbands of mama's friends. Tula's stories of her daddy became my definition of a daddy. We had an inseparable bond, or so I thought.

Along with turning seven came a tutor for my reading skills. Her name was Ms. Turpil-Rey. She was snarky, cruel, and my worst nightmare. I often left her sessions crying, bruised, and hating reading more than I had before. She also said she hated my curls once, and that was enough to set off a life-long insecurity.

Still, I had my Tula. Her warm, large body was always waiting for me by the window seat of my nursery because she wasn't allowed near the tutor. To be frank, I wouldn't have wanted that tutor near her. Tula would smile at me, stand, wipe her hands down on her apron, and place a secretive kiss on my brow.

Every day she'd ask, "D'you learn anyfang, angel?"

My responses were typically a "yess'm," or a "only that I hate readin'" or a "no'm, I wasn't listening."

She would smile and hand me my doll, and we'd begin playing.

One day, our usual routine was broken as I finished my lesson, and she was nowhere in the room.

"Tula, Tula, are you hidin'?" I chuckled and pounced on my bouncy bed, thinking she was causing the lumps. No nanny. I bounded to the closet and slammed the doors open. No nanny.

I turned to go fetch my mama and clasped down on the handle of my door. When I creaked the door open, a certain buzz echoed from the parlor. I ran down the staircase, my blue fluffed dress swooshing at the same time as my footsteps pounded the wooden stairs. The buzz turned into a small, quiet hum.

"Mama?"

The hum turned silent, and my mother's heels clicked my way. She put on a fake smile and rushed me back to the nursery. Her group of friends stood at the base of the staircase and through gritted teeth she snarled, "You ruined my party, May. Go play with that fool, Tula. You'll learn the importance of one of your mama's gatherings one of these days."

I sighed and sat down on the window seat as my mama closed my door sharply. I stroked the spine of the new book Ms. Turpil-Rey and I were working on. I'd read it three times already. Of course, she wouldn't have known that because I pretended like I didn't know the first words.

My gaze zoomed out to the plantation. It looked empty in the fields. Tufts of white cotton were mere specks from my window. Not a single slave was in the fields. My eyes darted then to the right, where about a dozen slave houses were nestled neatly and compactly. A crowd of black bodies was gathered there.

I sat up a little straighter because I knew they weren't supposed to be over there. I popped my window open a bit, praying I could hear something, but it was only a buzz, like my mother's party. Two acres was too far to eavesdrop.

I pushed my window all of the way open. The circle was just large enough for me to sneak through. A white, chipped-paint terrace stretched down to the base of the back lawn. I slipped off my shiny, black, strap-on shoes and left them neat on the seat as I flung my legs out of the window. The two seconds of my toes searching for the terrace were terrifying, but once I got my footing, I was ready to climb down.

One scraped knee and two torn stockings later, I was safely on the ground and sprinting through the back gate on the lawn. The rocky path that led to the fields sloped down a steep hill. I tended to bound down it, but this time I'd have to go down slowly and quietly.

As I got closer, the slave houses got nearer, and the buzz evolved into screams and yells. I snuck behind one of the houses and attempted to see what everyone was yelling about.

My eyes were not anticipating what I would come to find. A young man, perhaps sixteen, collapsed in the middle of a crowd. A better-dressed Negro, presumably the slaveholder, was beating him mercilessly. His arms came down with such force that the whip he was using to inflict pain hardly had enough time to curve and snap. A large man shuffled and blocked my view.

"Stoppit, Tom, please!" many slaves screamed. A woman in the back of the crowd crumpled to her knees as the boy gave a blood curdling cry and gasped for his last breath. The rhythmic smacking of the whip stopped, and the crowd scattered, some moving quicker than others. The woman looked up from her tear-covered hands, slowly rose, and walked towards the motionless boy's body.

She glanced around, ensuring Tom was nowhere nearby and placed a tender kiss on his bloody brow. Then she turned in my direction, and I instinctively sprinted back up the hill, into the house, and up to my room. I sat on my bed, pondering what I had just seen.

About an hour later, Tula slowly entered my room. I crossed my legs, hoping she wouldn't see the tears in my stockings.

Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks red. "Hiya baby," she choked, and slumped onto the window seat. She flattened her apron as she sat. "I know you watched that, May. You shouldn't have been there."

"Neither should you've Tula!" I stammered. "Who was he? What happened? Does Mama know?"

"Hush! 'Nough questions," she hissed, as a slow tear streaked down her face.

"You know him?" I asked after awhile of silence.

"Yes'm. He was my baby. My last one. He was a gentle soul, wouldn't hurt a fly," she paused, choking on her words. "Tom caught him pocketing some cotton . . . he liked to look at plants."

My heart dropped to my stomach. "Can't my mama or papa help?"

Her brow sharpened, and she stood. Her finger pointed straight at me. "Look atcho skin, May! Look at it! You're white as your porcelain doll. I'm black as the darkest night. Your color ain't never gonna help me out. Ain't never gonna help any of us out!"

"No, no . . . I can help!"

"No, no," she laughed, "you can't. You know what we want? We want what you have. We want even the things you hate, child."

"No one would want to read," I grumbled.

"My baby boy wanted to. I want to. Every one of 'em Negroes hauling your cotton wants to. We get nothing but whips and heartache, baby," she snapped and sat back down, covering her face in her hands.

I reached behind my pillow where I hid the newest book Ms. Turpil-Rey gave me. I pulled it out and traced the intricate gold patterns that surrounded the title. "It's 'bout a princess who isn't happy being locked up in a tower. She's so beautiful, but the wicked people won't let her go. Tula, ain't that cruel?" I explained as Tula uncovered her face.

"Yes baby. I know it is." Seriousness flashed over her sullen face. "What happens to her?"

"I dunno, haven't read that far. I hope she gets freed so she can be like the other princesses." I flipped to the last pages, skimming the sea of words quickly.

"Child, don't do that! That'll spoil it, won't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Just read it . . . don't spoil it. You wanna know what happens to her?"

I nodded.

"Then find out. Your wants may be tricky to get . . ." she paused, "but the fight will pay off, child. Dear Lord, let it pay off!" She teared up and quickly prepared me for bed, tucked me in, said a prayer, and slipped out my door.

At the time, I remember thinking Tula really was foolish for crying out to God over the ending of a book. I didn't realize until I was much older that just possibly she was crying for something more.

The next morning, Tula was sitting on the window seat extra early. I sat up in bed and flattened my frizzy hair.

"What are you . . ." I started.

"I couldn't sleep. May, can you read your story to me?" she said hurriedly.

"I guess so." I shuffled in my comforter until my feet found the cold floor. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and grabbed the book from my nightstand. I flipped to the first page. "I'll just start over for ya, Tula."

A smile cracked on her still-sullen face as I did my best to make my reading exciting. My voice would crescendo, and she'd lean in, elbows on her knees and head in her palms. Her face would change with the story, and I finally realized why reading could be a blessing: emotion.

My stomach grumbled, and I closed the book. Tula snapped back into reality and quickly sent me down the stairs to have breakfast. My mother was at the table sipping coffee and rolling her nails on the wood surface, showing her irritation. My father was heading out to town and planted a kiss on both my mother's and my face on his way out the door. Mama and I ate in silence. When the meal was through, I quickly went back to my room. I caught Tula thumbing the pages of the book, and in embarrassment, she set it back down.

"Tula, I could teach you how to read it," I smiled.

Her face lit up but quickly darkened again. "No baby, I'm not allowed to. It's against the law."

"But it'd be a secret! I won't tell."

* * *

She refused my proposal many times, but her curiosity increased daily. She wondered how to spell a name or what letter was which. By the end of one month, I had read eight books to her. On the ninth book, she finally asked to read a page.

"Try it, Tula. You can do it."

She stuttered a word at a time, letter by letter, sound by sound. Her sentences were rigid and choppy, but she managed. Her words became smoother as time progressed, and my seven-year-old pride grew.

I'm teaching a slave to read, I thought. I'm teaching a friend to read.

Another month passed, but this time it was Tula who read five books. Our little secret was successfully creating a lifelong love for literature for the both of us.