Katani's Jamaican Holiday by Annie Bryant Read Free Book Online

I was about to close my eyes I thought of Spotty and laughed out loud. “Are you crazy, laughing in your sleep?” she teased.
    “I’m just thinking about that crazy Spotty,” I told her.
    “He’s quite harmless,” she assured me. “Him just bumptious and show-off.” Olivia moved easily between English and patois. But I noticed that around her dad she only spoke English. Selvin and Enid also spoke patois. My ear was getting a little used to their pretty accents and I could mostly follow what they were saying without asking them to repeat too often. Soon I fell into a deep sleep with the sounds of patois, a vision of the River Mumma, and Olivia’s singing in my head.
    CHAPTER 6
Making the Rounds
    W hen I woke up the next morning, bright sunlight was streaming through the open window as I was remembering a lovely dream about blue water and shells and pretty little fish swimming around my ankles. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in Jamaica at my Cousin Cecil’s farm, high up in the mountains…far from a beach.
    Olivia’s bed was already made and I heard sounds and smells coming from the kitchen, so I quickly made my bed and got ready for the day. I decided to wear my favorite tie-dyed T-shirt and my cutoff jeans. I also slipped on a pair of gold hoops. I mean, just because I was staying in the country didn’t mean I couldn’t glam up a bit.
    As I fried my frizz head with a straightening iron, I wondered why Grandma Ruby hadn’t woken me up, until I remembered that Selvin had said he would pick her up at five o’clock to take her to the bakery. It was way past that, I was sure.
    I went into the kitchen, where Enid was stirring a pot on the stove. “Good morning,” I greeted her. “Where is everybody?”
    “Olivia say to tell you that she soon come. She gone lookafter the goats. When she come, you will eat breakfast. You want some tea?”
    I told her I would wait for Olivia. I hoped she wouldn’t be too long, as I was starving. I went onto the veranda and looked around. We were too far from the road for me to see anything, but I could hear vehicles and now and then loud talking as people went about their business. Lots of selling and talk of bananas going on. A little gossip here and there about some woman who sounded mean. Guess there were Queens of Mean everywhere. In my school we had Anna and Joline—those girls had nothing good to say about anybody.
    When Olivia came in, she was deliriously happy. One of her goats, Lily, had given birth to two kids. She had put them into a smaller pen away from the others.
    “How’s Spotty?” I asked sarcastically.
    She grinned. “He’s okay. I keep the kids away in case he gets any funny ideas. He’s a strange one. Once, he wouldn’t allow anyone near the kids, even the mother. Don’t know what that crazy goat expected those babies to do.”
    She went to change her clothes, and then we sat down in the kitchen to a breakfast of boiled green bananas and salted mackerel cooked in coconut milk with lots of onions and tomatoes and pepper. Enid called it “run down.” All the meats here were cooked with a lot of seasonings. There was also a hot drink they called “chocolate tea”—a thick, muddy kind of cocoa. I didn’t much care for this breakfast. I really wanted cereal, or a nice big piece of Banana Bliss, but I tried to eat enough to be polite.
    I could hear Grandma’s voice in my head saying, Katani, at least try what’s being offered. Grandma Ruby was definitely old-school about manners and things. But fish for breakfast? Hello! I couldn’t wait to tell Charlotte about this. She’dbe impressed that I actually took more than one bite and didn’t utter one word of complaint. Charlotte said if you were going to be a world traveler, you had to be open to all sorts of new things. Even things that seemed a little yucky or weird.
    Just as we finished eating, Selvin drove up. “Ruby could use some help now,” he announced. “You can come with