Ibby followed, imitating her.
Annabelle heard the whistling and turned around. Birdelia and Ibby kept on walking, swinging their arms. Annabelle jumped down from the swing and came over to the fence.
“See you still got that black eye,” Annabelle said, following along behind the fence as they strolled by. “And I see you’re a nigger lover, too.”
Ibby wanted so badly to turn around and pull Annabelle’s braids, but she remembered what Birdelia had told her.
“Now!” Birdelia said.
With that, Birdelia turned, pulled down her underpants and mooned Annabelle, then ran away as fast as she could. Ibby turned her head to see Annabelle Friedrichs standing with her hands on her hips and her mouth open.
Birdelia kept running. Three blocks later the girls stopped to catch their breath.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Ibby said.
“She won’t be bothering you no more,” Birdelia giggled.
They took their time walking the rest of the way up to St. Charles Avenue. They crossed the street to the median, which Ibby discovered was called the neutral ground in New Orleans, and stood beside a yellow sign to wait for the streetcar. A few minutes later, a green streetcar with a red roof pulled up.
“Just give the money to the conductor.” Birdelia handed Ibby a dime and stepped onto the streetcar.
They walked up to the front, handed the money to the driver, then went to the back of the streetcar and found a seat.
A woman sitting behind them tapped Ibby on the shoulder. “You go on and sit up by the driver, like you supposed to.”
Ibby looked around. There were plenty of empty seats, both in the back and up front by the driver.
“Go on now.” The woman waved her hand.
Ibby got up, waiting for Birdelia to follow.
“You stay put.” The woman pushed Birdelia down by the shoulder.
Birdelia jutted her chin out, nodding to Ibby to do as the woman said, then looked the other way.
The streetcar traveled a good ways down St. Charles Avenue before making a turn at the bend of the river. About six blocks later, Birdelia jumped up and pulled a white cord over the window. She tilted her head toward Ibby.
“Why’d she make me go sit somewhere else?” Ibby asked when they got off the streetcar.
“That was the section for colored folks. I thought you knew that white folks supposed to sit up front.”
“Why?”
Birdelia shrugged. “Always been that way, far as I can remember. Mee-maw say, a long time ago, when she was just starting to work for Miss Althea, they used to have streetcars marked with yellow stars for just colored people. Problem was, they didn’t come around too often, and when they did, they was always full, so Mee-maw ended up walking to Miss Althea’s most days. She say she was happy when they got rid of the streetcars for colored folks ’cause at least she could always find a seat on the back of the regular streetcars.”
As they crossed the street, Ibby thought about what Birdelia said. She couldn’t imagine being treated so differently.
They walked a few blocks down Plum Street until they came upon people milling about a purple clapboard building on the corner.
“You go and wait in that line out front.” Birdelia pointed to the people standing just outside the front door of the building. “I got to go to the side window around back, where all the other colored folks are.” She handed Ibby a quarter and disappeared down the street.
Ibby opened the screened door to the snowball stand. A sign over the counter advertised about a hundred different flavors of snowballs. A man in a white apron and funny paper hat held a Chinese takeout container under the opening of a large machine. Fine bits of shaved ice fell into the container and piled up over the rim. It took about twenty minutes for Ibby to reach the front of the line.
“What flavor?” the man in the paper hat asked.
Ibby pointed to a little girl in the next line over. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“That’s wedding cake with whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk. That what you want?”
“Can I get it for a quarter? That’s all I got,” Ibby said.
“No problem, little lady.”
After she got her snowball, Ibby walked out to look for Birdelia, who was waiting for her out front.
“What did you get?” Birdelia asked.
“Something called wedding cake.” Ibby followed Birdelia to a bench near the sidewalk.
“I get the same every time. Cherry.” Birdelia licked the red syrup off the side of the container, where it was dripping.
The girls sat on the bench, enjoying the warm sun on their backs and the coolness of the snowballs on their throats. As Ibby sipped her snowball through a straw, she noticed Birdelia fiddling with the gold chain around her neck.
Birdelia held it out for Ibby to see. “Miss Fannie gave me this necklace for my eleventh birthday this year. See? Got a letter B on it, for Birdelia.”