Tameisha's Adventure

By Zoanne Evans

Thirteen-year-old Tameisha is tired. Tired of teachers, tired of homework, generally tired of school. All she really wants to do (apart from hanging out with her friends) is to style hair.
That all changes when a cosmetologist inspires her to make an unprecedented visit to the school library to research Madame C. J. Walker. In the library, something goes terribly wrong and Tameisha finds herself, still in Barbados, but in 1840, just post-emancipation.
Although slavery has ended, the plight of Black people remains dire and Tameisha is under constant threat of being sent to work in the fields of a plantation.
Initially, Tameisha is shielded from danger by the kindness of some of the people she encounters (including a few influential historical figures) and the education she has despised up until then, but that may not be enough to save her from the back-breaking fi eld work most Black Barbadians are still required to do in 1840.
Will she find her way back to twenty-first century Barbados or will she have to stay in the nineteenth century and accept her awful fate?

• Language: English
• Publisher: CaribbeanReads Publishing
• Release date: Jun 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781953747259

Book preview

Chapter One

At Home

The sun rose over the hillside, bathing the St. George Valley and the rolling fields with its warm December rays. A cool wind wafted past the Pine Hill Dairy milk plant and scurried over the rooftops of the quiet St Michael housing area where candy-coloured government units, all built in the same unmistakable block style, huddled in the predawn quiet. The housing area was large with many latent dreams, broken lives and hopeful hearts all gathered up in a patchwork of struggle and the will to survive. In one of these housing units, a blue one near the corner of the street just before you got to Shelly’s hairdressing salon, Tameisha Rouse was stirring. From her upstairs window, Tameisha could see the back of her school and the large playing field which the school used for sports.

On that morning, Tameisha was grumbling as she struggled with her sheets in her tiny bedroom. It was Monday morning and she did not want to go to school. She had already decided that she would take her brother and sisters to their school then dawdle by Mavis, the sweet seller outside Pine Primary School. Tameisha had spent Sunday evening watching tapes and running errands for her mother and she had a lot to tell Mavis.

Tameisha! Where is my gel?

Tameisha pictured her mother standing at the bottom of the stairs with her hair still in curlers. She was most likely frowning and looking far older than her twenty nine years.

I don’t have it, Tameisha mumbled.

What? What did you say?

I don’t have your gel, Mummy, Tameisha shouted. Leandra probably used it on her dolly’s hair again. Tameisha heard a long stupse followed by stomping of the feet as her mother came up the stairs and entered her room.

Look, get out of that bed! Clovis said, tumbling Tameisha out of her bed. You blame Leandra for everything. Go and comb the child’s hair and try and get dressed for school…and see that David and Sherry get their bath. I have to leave early.

By now, Tameisha was fully awake. She kicked the sheet off and glared at her mother’s retreating figure. She hated being the eldest. She shouldered most of the responsibility when her mother was away, which was often these days, as her mum now had an eight-to-two job at a seniors’ home and then worked the evening shift at a gas station. Tameisha took the heat for a lot of things that went wrong too. Often, her sauciness would get the better of her and she would let her mother know just what she thought. She knew she stepped out of line, but she often found it hard to treat her mother as someone with authority since Clovis was not that much older than her. Clovis had only been sixteen and still at Parkinson School when she had dropped out to have Tameisha. Their arguments often got heated and personal.

I didn’t ask to be born! Tameisha would shout when she felt her mother was expecting too much of her.

Clovis’ tart rejoiner would invariably be: Me neidder, but I still get up every day and go to work so wunna could eat and have a roof over wunna head!

This guilt trip irritated Tameisha intensely. She felt that her mother placed too much on her shoulders at times. Nonetheless, she woke her sister, Leandre, and shepherded her downstairs into the living room. The twins were already up and as she sat on a chair with Leandre between her legs, she attempted to part her younger sister’s hair.

The two cast quite a contrast: Leandra’s chubby yellow-brown cheek pressed against Tameisha’s lean dark-brown leg. Tameisha wore her hair cropped short, whereas Clovis was yet to allow anyone to cut Leandra’s natural hair. They were similar in one way, they were both strong-willed and that morning was no exception.

Leandre pulled away.

You does pull my hair too hard! she cried.

Leandre don’t want her hair combed, Tameisha fretted to her mother as she tried again to part her sister’s hair. Why I have to do her hair anyway? She’s ten. She can do her own hair. And look at the dolly! She used the gel on its hair!

Stop telling me who should be doing what and plait that child’s hair, said Clovis. She frowned at the doll and headed up the stairs. Sherry and David, stop fighting over the cereal, she said from the stairs. Only a little leave in the box. Share it, nuh.

I had it first, snapped David.

You had more cereal than me yesterday, Sherry yelled as she lunged for the box. She was rewarded for her efforts with the contents spilling over the kitchen table and floor.

Selfish boy! cried Tameisha watching the skirmish from the living room. She released Leandra’s hair and took the few steps from the tiny living room into the kitchen. She slapped her brother on his back.

She hit me. She hit me, he wailed. His voice split the air like a fire engine’s siren.

What you hit him for? Clovis yelled. She appeared in the doorway forcing a blouse over her half-combed hair.

Didn’t you hear them fighting? And look at the floor! Tameisha shot back.

So you hit him? Clovis slapped Tameisha hard on her shoulder.

The girl winced, then pushed past her mother in outrage. ‘They are your children. You look after them! she yelled. I’m going to get ready for school." She rubbed her shoulder and began heading towards the stairs.

I’ll deal with you later, Clovis said. David, clean up the floor.

Tameisha turned and paused on the first rung of the stairs, surprised to hear her mother snap at her brother. Clovis often called him ‘her little man’ and let him get away with everything.

But Sherry started it, Mummy, David replied, looking up at his mother with imploring eyes. Clovis’ features softened. She smiled and shoved Sherry off her chair.

Pick those up, she snapped.

David turned away and stole a wicked smile at his sister who was now going into a rage at being made to clean up.

Because he’s the only boy in the house, you let him get away with everything, Tameisha said to her mother. He does wrap you round his little finger!

By the time Tameisha got the children out the door, each of them was miserable, hungry and running late. The spilled Kellogg’s flakes meant that the twins had milk and sugar for breakfast. Tameisha and Leandra settled for the two Eclipse biscuits left in the packet and a cup of sugared water each. Tameisha tried not to focus on the fact that Clovis did not eat at all. She would pick up something at the seniors’ home where she worked. One of the helpers or caregivers would be sure to have something. The sun hit the young mother full in the face as she walked up the road and four upset children went the other direction across the field to school.

Chapter Two

School Life

Tameisha was intent on sticking to her plan of hanging out by Mavis’s sweet tray that morning.

Once she deposited her brother and sisters inside their school yard, she set off in the direction of the elderly lady. She felt her body relax from the tension of the morning when she spotted her. Mavis was a plump, dark woman in her late sixties who had sold sugar cakes and sweets at this same spot for as long as Tameisha could remember. She had taken a liking to the skinny, outspoken girl who, as a small child, had walked to the nearby primary school on her own after the first week.

Just as she arrived in front of Mavis, Tameisha heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Danika Reece, the form captain of her class. Unlike Tameisha, Danika seemed to be in a great hurry. Danika was immaculately dressed. Every hair was in place, her uniform was neatly pressed and she wore the regulation ankle socks. Tameisha frowned. Her own socks were knee highs which she folded many times to reach her ankles. It was against the school rules, but those were what she chose to buy when her father had given her money to buy socks for school. Practically all the children broke the sock rule, everyone that is, except Danika. Tameisha stupsed as she thought of Danika and her primness.

Assembly will be starting shortly, Danika called to her.

I know, Tameisha responded coolly. I have to stop for something for my mother. You don’t mind me!

OK, the young girl said with an air of concern. "Just remember that the Headmaster said last Friday in full assembly that he’s punishing anybody who comes