Transform Messages Into Stories

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 fritters1 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 gum2 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 benna3 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 wharf-rat boys,

not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street – flies 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

okra – far from the house, because okra4 tree harbors red ants; when you are growing

dasheen5, 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 marbles –

you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers – you 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 doukona6; this is how to make

pepper pot7; 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?

1 fritters: small fried cakes of batter, often containing vegetables, fruit, or other fillings 2 gum: plant residue on cotton 3 sing benna: sing popular music (not appropriate for Sunday school) 4 okra: a shrub whose pods are used in soups, stews, and gumbo 5 dasheen: the taro plant, cultivated, like the potato, for its edible tuber 6 doukona: plantain pudding; the plantain fruit is similar to the banana 7 pepper pot: a spicy West Indian stew