One Tribe by M. Evelina Galang
Chapter One, Selection One
____________________________________

On the seventh day of her new job, Isabel Manalo created the world.
     “Quietly,” she whispered to her first grade class. They sat cross-legged in perfect rows, little cabbages planted on a brown area rug. Some sat on their heels and rocked to their own internal clock. Boys to the left. Girls to the right. They kept their hands to themselves. She held out her arms. “Let’s get into a circle.”
     No one moved. She crawled on the floor and looked into their faces. She was used to the Midwest, where Germans and Poles and Swiss had settled and everyone was a shade of beige and every head was a variation of blond—dishwater, strawberry, yellow flaxen and gold. But today she didn’t see her students sitting in front of her; she saw versions of herself—brown children with apple cheeks, black moons for eyes, and wide smiles.
     “No, really,” she whispered. “Get up off those butts. I’m the teacher. It’s okay.”
     The children rose to their feet, stretching as if waking from a long nap. When she danced around them, they stared at her, a little startled. “Come on,” she said, tugging at their sleeves, “we’re going to make a play.” She started them off jumping like kangaroos, stomping wildly like dragons, crawling like caterpillars, then falling like snowflakes, like stardust, like rain. This was the warm-up. At first the jumping kangaroos were more like walking dead. The stomping dragons tiptoed silently until she ran after them, yelling, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!”
     “That’s a giant!” someone shouted. “Not a dragon!” Then they all screamed together, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!” The children walked with their feet spread wide apart, and they growled and stormed their way off the carpet and onto the gymnasium floor.
     She had them whisper like wind and then she had them shout like thunder. “Spin!” she commanded, raising her hands. “Spin like twenty-two hurricanes!” She spun her own body in circles and watched the lights hanging from the ceiling blur. She let her body move with the momentum, swung her arms around her torso. She could feel the first graders turning too, bumping into her legs and finally understanding the game. “Twenty-two hurricanes swooping down Virginia Beach!”
     She closed her eyes and continued spinning, the room and the children circling her. They were laughing now. Their shadows chased across the gymnasium walls. Shoes squeaked and burned on polished wood. Their reflections dappled the bricks, shimmering like water. “Faster!” she called out. “Faster!”
     Then suddenly a door slammed shut. A whistle blew. Harsh and angry hands clapped. “Children. Stop. Where is your teacher?”
     The children froze in their places. She felt the weight of several children who had fallen on top of her. She peered from under her sleeve and saw Andrea Calhoun standing with her arms crossed, her old neck bent forward, scanning all of them. “Where did your teacher go?”
     “I’m right here,” Isabel said. “It’s okay.”
     Andrea Calhoun wrinkled her brows. Squinted. “Ms. Manalo?”
     “It’s all part of the drama,” Isabel told her. “Everything’s fine.”
     “Right. I didn’t see you,” said Calhoun. “I thought . . . well, they seemed . . . Right. Don’t let me interrupt.”
     Isabel felt her face go red. Breathing hard, she crawled out from under a pile of children and escorted Calhoun from the room. “Be still as mice!” she told the kids.
     “I had a hard time warming them up,” she said to Calhoun.
     “Will they always be this loud?”
     Isabel’s throat was dry. “Sometimes. Is that a problem?” She looked over her shoulder at the children, no longer still as mice. “I’d better go,” she said, not waiting for an answer.
     Back in the room, she split the children into two teams. Sky against the Sea. Half the children held hands, swarming and curling as if they were the tide. The sky children waved banners of blue crêpe high above their heads.
     “Are you in trouble?” asked a little boy.
     “No. I am not.” She spread her arms out and let the fringe of her colorful poncho hang in the air. “Now listen or you will be in trouble. I am a bird,” Isabel cawed. She flapped her arms and the poncho flew into the air. “And the Sea team is water and the Sky team, you are the big blue sky!” She flew above the children who were rolling on the floor, back and forth, here and there, rumbling loud as surf. She maneuvered her wings about the banners of noisy tissue paper. And after awhile she sighed, “I’m so tired. I need a place to rest.” She scanned the children still rolling about like waves in the sea and, seeing no land, she said, “Where shall I rest?”
     “You have to find an island!” a little girl yelled.
     “Land in a tree!”
     “Land on a rock!”
     But there were only two teams—Sky and Sea—and there were no islands, no trees, no rocks. The Sea children wrapped their fingers about Isabel’s ankles. Then the Sky children tugged at the fringe on Isabel’s poncho. Somebody tickled a flag under her nose. The bird feigned a sneeze.
     “Let go!” she yelled. “Let me rest!” But they continued to hold her captive and, finally, the bird began to cry.
     And then she had an idea. The bird whispered to the sea of children, “The sky no longer loves you.” She sang to the flags of blue crêpe paper, “Ocean called you ugly.” Outraged, the sea unraveled its fingers from her ankles and she was free to run. The sky raised its banners in fury and conjured up storms and hurricanes and black thunderclouds. The children swung their arms in wide circles and spun like tornados, raining lightning from their angry sky fists. “That’s it!” Isabel called out. “Toss thunderbolts into the Sea!”
     “You have to toss them really fast!” yelled a boy hurling lightning at the sea. “Cuz they’re hot and they burn!”
     The team of Sea children cowered as they imagined bolts of light being flung into their faces. “Oh yeah?” called a Sea child. “Take this!” Isabel rose to her knees and waved her arms at the boy with the blue banner. And then the other Sea children waved their arms too. The sea rose high and higher, crawling onto its knees and finally standing on its feet, spewing water up into the sky’s scowling, bitter face. The waves ripped the tissues of blue sky into tiny pieces. And then the sky threw paper rocks and cardboard boulders onto the floor. This surprised everyone, especially the sea, which calmed under the weight of the rocks. So the thrashing of water died, leaving the sky to herself. The rocks rooted themselves to the earth, settled their bodies among the seas and formed seven-thousand islands. And the bird rested her wings among the rocks, settled on a hill and found herself a home at last.

From the first chapter of One Tribe by M. Evelina Galang

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
| Home | Book Index |