Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson

lumps of flesh part under the knife. Crimson liquid leaked onto the cutting board. She sighed, “But,
     Mummy, Samuel so boring! Michael and Clifton know how to have fun. All Samuel want to do is go for country drives. Always
     taking me away from other people.”
    “You should be studying your books, not having fun,” her mother replied crossly.
    Beatrice pleaded, “You well know I could do both, Mummy.” Her mother just grunted.
    Is only truth Beatrice was talking. Plenty men were always courting her, they flocked to her like birds, eager to take her
     dancing or out for a drink. But somehow she kept her marks up, even though it often meant studying right through the night,
     her head pounding and belly queasy from hangover while some man snored in the bed beside her. Mummy would kill her if she
     didn’t get straight A’s for medical school. “You going have to look after yourself, Beatrice. Man not going do it for you.
     Them get their little piece of sweetness and then them bruk away.”
    “Two patty and a King Cola, please.” The guy who’d given the order had a broad chest that tapered to a slim waist. Good face
     to look at, too. Beatrice smiled sweetly at him, made shift to gently brush his palm with her fingertips as she handed him
     the change.

    A bird screeched from the guava tree, a tiny kiskedee, crying angrily, “Dit, dit, qu’est-ce qu’il dit!” A small snake was
     coiled around one of the upper branches, just withdrawing its head from the bird’s nest. Its jaws were distended with the
     egg it had stolen. It swallowed the egg whole, throat bulging hugely with its meal. The bird hovered around the snake’s head,
     giving its pitiful wail of, “Say, say, what’s he saying!”
    “Get away!” Beatrice shouted at the snake. It looked in the direction of the sound, but didn’t back off. The gulping motion
     of its body as it forced the egg farther down its own throat made Beatrice shudder. Then, oblivious to the fluttering of the
     parent bird, it arched its head over the nest again. Beatrice pushed herself to her feet and ran into the yard. “Hsst! Shoo!
     Come away from there!” But the snake took a second egg.
    Sammy kept a long pole with a hook at one end leaned against the guava tree for pulling down the fruit. Beatrice grabbed up
     the pole, started jooking it at the branches as close to the bird and nest as she dared. “Leave them, you brute! Leave!” The
     pole connected with some of the boughs. The two bottles in the tree fell to the ground and shattered with a crash. A hot breeze
     sprang up. The snake slithered away quickly, two eggs bulging in its throat. The bird flew off, sobbing to itself.
    Nothing she could do now. When Samuel came home, he would hunt the nasty snake down for her and kill it. She leaned the pole
     back against the tree.
    The light breeze should have brought some coolness, but really it only made the day warmer. Two little dust devils danced
     briefly around Beatrice. They swirled across the yard, swung up into the air, and dashed themselves to powder against the
     shuttered window of the third bedroom.
    Beatrice got her sandals from the verandah. Sammy wouldn’t like it if she stepped on broken glass. She picked up the broom
     that was leaned against the house and began to sweep up the shards of bottle. She hoped Samuel wouldn’t be too angry with
     her. He wasn’t a man to cross, could be as stern as a father if he had a mind to.
    That was mostly what she remembered about Daddy, his temper—quick to show and just as quick to go. So was he; had left his
     family before Beatrice turned five. The one cherished memory she had of him was of being swung back and forth through the
     air, her two small hands clasped in one big hand of his, her feet held tight in another. Safe. And as he swung her through
     the air, her daddy had been chanting words from an old-time story:
    Yung-Kyung-Pyung, what a pretty basket!
    Margaret Powell Alone, what a pretty