The Carnival Costume

Kezia pressed her nose against the window of Auntie Viv's workshop and watched the rain slide down the glass. Inside, bolts of shimmering fabric leaned against the walls like sleeping rainbows. Feathers of every color — sapphire, gold, scarlet, tangerine — poked out of buckets on the floor. And right there in the middle of the room, standing on a wooden frame like it was waiting for someone, was the beginning of something enormous.

"You ready?" Auntie Viv asked, pushing open the workshop door.

Kezia took a deep breath and stepped inside. "I'm ready."

This was the year Kezia would carry a costume in Carnival. Not a little costume with a few sequins and a headband. No. A real costume — the kind that towered above the crowd, the kind that caught the sunlight and made people on the side of the road gasp and say, "Oh my goodness, LOOK at that!"

The kind you carried on your head.

For four whole hours.

Auntie Viv spread out a drawing on the table. It showed a giant sun rising out of the sea, with golden rays bursting upward and tiny silver fish leaping through waves of turquoise fabric. It was the most beautiful thing Kezia had ever seen.

"Three months," Auntie Viv said. "That's what we have. Think you could handle that?"

"Yes!" Kezia said, bouncing on her toes. "Yes, yes, yes!"

The first month was magical.

Every afternoon after school, Kezia walked to Auntie Viv's workshop. They bent wire into the shape of sun rays. They stitched sequins one by one — tik, tik, tik — until the fabric glittered like the ocean at midday. Kezia's fingers got sore, and sometimes she pricked herself and yelped, but she didn't mind. She was building something spectacular.

Her best friend, Josiah, stopped by one afternoon and peered through the window.

"What IS that thing?" he asked.

"It's my Carnival costume," Kezia said proudly.

Josiah tilted his head. "How you going to carry that? It's bigger than you!"

Kezia stood up as tall as she could. "On my head."

Josiah laughed so hard he had to hold his belly. "Girl, that thing going to flatten you like a roti!"

Kezia shooed him away and went back to stitching.

The second month was harder.

Auntie Viv showed Kezia how to practice balancing. They started with a small basket on her head, then a bigger one, then a wooden board with a bottle of water on top.

"Walk smooth," Auntie Viv said. "No bouncing. Carnival is in your feet, but the costume is in your neck."

Kezia walked up and down the yard, the board wobbling on her head. The water bottle tumbled off and bonked her on the shoulder. She tried again. It fell again. She tried again. It fell again.

On the fourteenth try, she made it all the way to the mango tree and back without dropping anything.

"See?" Auntie Viv said, clapping. "You finding it."

But that night, Kezia lay in bed rubbing her sore neck and staring at the ceiling. The costume was getting bigger every day. It had three layers of wire now, and the sun rays spread out wide as a dining table. It was heavy. Really heavy.

What if Josiah is right? she thought. What if it flattens me?

She pulled her blanket up to her chin and tried not to think about it.

The third month, Kezia almost quit.

She tried on the costume for the first time, and the weight pressed down on her like the whole sky had decided to sit on her head. Her knees wobbled. Her neck burned. She took three steps and stumbled sideways, and Auntie Viv caught her just before the beautiful golden sun rays crunched into the workbench.

Kezia sat on the floor and covered her face with her hands.

"I can't do it," she whispered. "It's too heavy. I'm too small."

Auntie Viv sat down next to her, right there on the dusty workshop floor. She didn't say anything for a while. She just sat.

Then she said, "You know how long I been making Carnival costumes?"

Kezia shook her head.

"Twenty-two years. And every single year, somewhere in the middle, the costume tries to tell me it's too much. Too big. Too heavy. Too complicated." Auntie Viv picked up a golden sequin from the floor and turned it in her fingers so it caught the light. "But you know what I always do?"

"What?"

"I show up the next day."

Kezia wiped her eyes. She looked up at the costume on its wooden frame — the silver fish leaping, the turquoise waves rippling, the golden sun blazing with a hundred thousand tiny sequins she had stitched with her own sore fingers.

She came back the next day.

And the day after that.

She practiced with the costume for ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty. Auntie Viv padded the headpiece with extra foam. Kezia learned to shift the weight — just so — from one side to the other when she got tired. She learned to breathe deep and slow. She learned that her legs were stronger than she thought, and her neck was stronger than she thought, and maybe she was stronger than she thought too.

Carnival morning came with a boom of drums before the sun was even up.

Kezia stood in Auntie Viv's yard in her full costume for the first time in daylight. The golden sun rose above her head, its rays reaching toward the sky. The silver fish sparkled. The turquoise waves flowed and fluttered in the warm morning breeze. She looked like she was carrying a whole sunrise.

"Oh, Kezia," her mother said from the gate, pressing both hands to her heart.

Josiah was there too, and for once he had nothing smart to say. He just stared with his mouth open.

Auntie Viv adjusted one last strap and squeezed Kezia's shoulders. "It's yours now," she said. "Go show them."

The music started — steel pan and soca booming from the trucks — and Kezia stepped onto the road with the other masqueraders. The crowd was thick on both sides, people waving flags, children sitting on their parents' shoulders, everyone moving to the rhythm.

The costume was heavy. There was no pretending it wasn't. After the first hour, Kezia's neck ached. After the second hour, her legs were trembling. The sun beat down — the real sun, not the golden one on her head — and sweat dripped into her eyes.

She thought about stopping. She thought about sitting on the curb and letting someone else carry it.

But then she heard a little girl on the side of the road shout, "MAMA, LOOK! A SUNRISE! SHE CARRYING A WHOLE SUNRISE!"

And Kezia smiled. She shifted the weight — just so — took a deep breath, and kept going.

The third hour. Her feet hurt. The drums pounded. She danced anyway — small steps, smooth steps, the way Auntie Viv taught her. The crowd cheered.

The fourth hour. The final stretch. Every muscle in her body was singing a song of please stop, but the road was alive with color and music, and she was part of it — right in the middle of the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She danced down the last street with the sun blazing above her, and when the music finally stopped, she stood still for a moment, the costume towering over the crowd.

Then Auntie Viv and her mother and Josiah all rushed toward her. They lifted the costume off her head, and Kezia felt so light she thought she might float right up into the actual sky.

"You did it!" Josiah yelled. "You really did it! Four hours! I would have DIED!"

Kezia laughed. Her neck was sore. Her legs were wobbly. Her fingers still had tiny sequin marks from three months of stitching.

She had never felt so tall in her entire life.