Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharbfflies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okrbafar from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marblebsyou are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowerbsyou might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

RECONNAISSANCE by Tara FT Sering

The thin, feathery, tall grass swayed with the wind in an endless wave of goodbye. There was no returning now. Beyond the grassy field, Bibi could glimpse her older sister Pia, their cousin Allen, their neighbors Jaime, Joseph and Jasmine. They were waving and, Bibi could tell from afar, giggling. The high afternoon sun rippled in its own heat, and with very little shade in the newlydeveloped residential community in the outskirts of the city, everything wilted and baked and hardened under its glare. There were no clouds. It was the afternoon of the Third World War and the opposing campsPia, Bibi and Allen versus Jaime, Joseph and Jasmine were dressed in full battle gear: denim pants, waterproof jackets, lab glasses, slingshots draped on their shoulders and bottle cap ammunition in plastic packets tied to their belts. Midway into the conflictboth teams ducking behind parked cars, climbing an occasional short tree, diving into shrubs, hurling rotten guavas and water balloons at each othersomeone had released a bottle cap from a slingshot and it went flying past a vacant lot where it landed somewhere near the Araa house. A faint yet audible chink of glass breaking sent threads of cold apprehension running through the backs of the sweat-soaked soldiers and, one by one, they emerged from their hiding posts and gathered on the street. No one would admit to the crime and yet, responsible Pia, the oldest in the group, declared that of course someone had to go and check. On the basis of seniority, Pia had the authority to appoint anyone on a mission to survey the damage; but Jaime could not be persuaded, Joseph followed everything

Jaime did and did not do and therefore could not be forced to go alone, and it seemed unfair to send either of the smaller kids, Allen and Jasmine, who stood side by side, on the verge of tears. Pia herself refused to go or explain why. It had to be Bibi, or their mama would soon find out that someone was failing math in school, and it wasnt Pia. From where they stood, the Araa house looked quiet and undisturbed, a consolation for Bibi that the house might be deserted. She only needed to wade through the waisthigh grass to get to where the silent house stood, check how much damage they had caused, report back to base, and everything would be fine. It was natural perhaps that Bibi, in the years that followed, would forget about that hot afternoon, only to remember it at certain points in her life: for instance, when she returned home from work one afternoon and found that her husband had cleared out his closet, she stood there at the doorway of their bedroom, feeling the cool glass of the Araa houses windows pressed against her nose, the one that she had peered into years ago when she was nine. Under the blazing sun, Bibi turned to the five tiny figures one more time, squinting through the white glare. Sweat from her forehead trickled down her face and tears threatened to burst through her eyes. Her hands were cold, electrified. Her feet were heavy and half-paralyzed as she stood in front of the low, rusty grille gate. Her heart thumped, sank, slid down to her stomach. She pushed open the creaking gate and waited for a sign of dogs. There were none. She began to take small, careful steps along the pebble-washed path that led to the main door, but a gallery of windows to the left of the large, intricately carved wooden door

caught her attention. The orders were for her to check for something broken and if it wasnt a window, then the bottle cap must have hit something of less importance. Except for one window on the far left, all the others had their green curtains drawn. None appeared to have been broken, nor did their clear glass reveal any cracks. But there seemed to be a movement behind the last one whose curtains were pulled aside. Despite her mind being half-shut with fear, Bibi moved to inspect the window on the far left. It was dim inside but not completely dark, and a rustling that seemed oblivious to her presence continued despite her approach. She crouched low and held her breath. When she pressed her nose against the glass, she gasped and her knees buckled as though in a failed attempt to bolt. Mrs. Araa was blindfolded and her wrists were loosely tied to opposite posts at the foot-end of the bed. Hunched over her, Mr. Araa, whose fat, white, dimpled body glistened with sweat, lowered himself toward his wife, bucking his head and mouth over and away from her wrinkled nipples; then she kicked him with so much force despite her pate, spindly legs and knobby knees that he fell off the bed, only to pick himself upa hook like a thick purplish cowlick dangling from a clump of hair in between his legslaughing. Mrs. Araa could not suppress waves of giggles, and once more Mr. Araa jumped on her, kissing her body from in between the collarbones, in between her sagging and nearly flat breasts, down to her belly button, her round stomach, the dark mesh in between her legs. Bibi pulled away from the window, her breath short and fear pounding in her ears like an invasion. Her lips were pale and cold. She turned around and with eyes wide and unblinking, dashed down the pebble-

washed path, through the gate, across the street and into the grassy field. She would later remember this afternoon in the middle of making love to an acquaintances boyfriend whose bare shoulder, pressing down hard on her mouth, she would bite with uncontainable desire. He would yelp in pain and stop pressing himself into her and stare at her, irritated and befuddled, and she would lie there, her eyes steady, her lips curled in one corner, her belly surging and ebbing and surging again with pleasure. The afternoon of the war, Bibi sprinted through the filed, her face tight and stunned, When the others saw her approaching, they began to wave, but the speed and determination with which Bibi was approaching must have seemed unnatural, strange. They stopped and stood there, five frozen and visibly tense figures, waiting. And Bibi, running halfway through the field, recalled in a flash the way Mr. and Mrs. Araa looked when they sat side by side in church, she with the black lace fan and he with his shirt buttoned to the neck. She remembered too, almost in that same instant, the way he fell and returned laughing into bed, and the way his wife smiled and giggled, blinded and in captivity. And as Bibi, her legs scratched from overgrown weeds, neared home base, an involuntary smile briefly escape her lips, something of immense relief, and a hint of excitement.