Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia

by Barbara O'Connor

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Also by Barbara O’Connor

  Copyright Page

  To Barbara Markowitz,

  agent and friend

  This one’s for you

  1

  Harlem Tate hadn’t been in Freedom, Georgia, more than three days before it was clear that nobody wanted anything to do with him. Nobody except me, that is. I had a burning desire to be his friend.

  All everybody else saw in him was a silent, glaring kid who didn’t smell too good. Me? I could tell by his scowling face that Harlem Tate didn’t get many chances to see the good in folks. Like me. And something about his hunched-over way of walking told me Harlem Tate’s insides were churning up with needing something. Like mine.

  So when I sat on Miss Delphine Reese’s front porch going over my day like I always do, I told her my plan.

  “He’s gonna be my friend,” I said, watching her pick dead leaves off the potted plants.

  “Is he now?” Miss Delphine stuffed the leaves in the pocket of her jeans and smiled at me.

  “Well, maybe.” I propped my feet up on the railing in front of me and frowned at my legs, all skinny and bruised up. How come I couldn’t have legs like Celia Pruitt or Charlene Stokeley? Maybe I could sit with them at lunch if my legs weren’t so ugly.

  I told Miss Delphine everything I knew about Harlem. How he came here from Valdosta to live with Mr. Moody. How he’s taller than anybody in sixth grade and even taller than lots of the eighth graders. I told her how he has this hunched-over way of walking and how he glares all the time and how everybody thinks he looks mean and acts dumb.

  “He sits way in the back of the class and if Mrs. Moore asks him something, half the time he don’t even answer,” I said. “Brian Sutter said he’s been in the sixth grade for three years.”

  Miss Delphine pressed her lips together in that way that makes her dimples show.

  “Aw, phooey.” She flapped her hand at me. “I wouldn’t listen to talk like that,” she said.

  “Harlem is tall,” I said. “You should see him.”

  Miss Delphine clicked her Passion Pink fingernails on the arm of her chair while I told her more stuff.

  “Everybody at school says he’s living with Mr. Moody because his daddy’s in prison and his mama choked on a chicken bone at the Holiday Inn,” I said.

  Miss Delphine smiled and combed her fingers through her fluffy red hair. “Sounds like he could use a friend.”

  Anybody else might have had something more to say about a boy showing up out of nowhere to stay with a crazy old man who chews tobacco and lives over a tattoo parlor and looks for cans on the side of the road. Anybody else might have said if Harlem looks so mean and acts so dumb, then why in the world do I want to go and be his friend? But not Miss Delphine. She’s beautiful inside and out. She treats everybody like they have worth—even those worthless kids at school who treat me like dirt for no good reason. And she has a talent for finding the good in everybody—and, believe me, that’s hard to do in this town. Some folks in Freedom are so mean in spirit they don’t deserve anything better than a good kick. But Miss Delphine, she can look right through their mean spirit and find something the rest of us overlooked.

  So I told her some more about my plan. “Nobody else wants to be his friend, see, so that means he’s available for me,” I said. “I think it was kind of a stroke of luck, don’t you? Him coming to Freedom and not having any friends and all?”

  She nodded. “A stroke of luck, for sure.”

  “I took one look at him and I said to myself, ‘Bird, here’s your chance. Make friends with that kid,’ I said, ‘before somebody poisons his mind with lies about you.’”

  Miss Delphine arched her eyebrows. “Now, who’s gonna go and do a thing like that?”

  I frowned at my ugly legs again. “Shoot, we’d be here all day if I start naming ’em all.” I licked my finger and wiped dirt off my knee.

  She put her hand on top of my hand and squeezed. Her skin was pure white. Not even one little freckle.

  A bell jingled from inside the house.

  Miss Delphine stood up and ruffled my hair. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  The screen door slammed behind her. I could hear her voice from the back bedroom and then the hoarse grumble of Pop Reese. I wrinkled my nose just thinking about that old man laying back there in the bed, all teary-eyed and drooling.

  Sometimes I feel selfish being so glad that Miss Delphine had to leave her fancy job in Atlanta after her daddy had a stroke. Lucky for me her goodness is so big that she didn’t bat an eye when her sister, Alma, told her she better come home and take care of Pop. She just packed her things and came on back to live next door to me again. Mama is all the time telling me to stop pestering Miss Delphine. But I can’t help it. There’s not much of anything I’d rather do than visit Miss Delphine. Besides, she seems like she don’t mind being pestered.

  While I waited on her porch, I could hear her bustling around inside, talking real sweet to Pop. Then she came out and sat beside me on the porch again. She smelled like medicine. Her blue eye shadow glittered in the late afternoon sun. I wish my mama would let me wear glittery blue eye shadow like that.

  “I love those boots,” Miss Delphine said.

  I looked down at my dirty white boots. They had been my sister Colleen’s marching band boots. I love them ’cause they’re so soft and broken in. I was glad Miss Delphine loved them, too.

  “Celia Pruitt said they’re loser boots,” I said. “But I saw Harlem looking at ‘em. I could tell he liked ’em.”

  Miss Delphine smiled and gazed out at the magnolia tree in the front yard. Its leathery leaves spread out across the ground like a giant tepee.

  “I remember when Pop planted that tree,” Miss Delphine said. “Just look at it now, all grown up and fine as can be.” She patted my knee. “Just like Bird,” she added.

  I grinned and felt my insides swell up with love for Miss Delphine, who always makes me feel good about myself.

  “So what do you think about my plan?” I said. “For Harlem Tate to be my friend.”

  She cocked her head at me and winked. “I think it’s a good plan.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll do it. Starting tomorrow, Harlem Tate is gonna be my friend.”

  I nodded my head real big and sure, like I had confidence. Like my plan was good. Like Harlem Tate really was going to be my friend. But I was glad Miss Delphine couldn’t see what was on the inside of me, ’cause inside, I wasn’t too sure at all.

  2

  When I walked into the cafeteria, Janice Carpenter said real loud, “Red and yellow don’t go together, Bird.”

  I looked down at my red sweater and my yellow shirt and I knew she was right. They looked ugly together. Shoot, I thought. They had looked good this morning when I put them on, but now they didn’t.

  I pretended like I didn’t see those girls poking each other and carrying on. I got my tray and sat way down at the empty end of the table. All around me, kids were smooshing their mashed potatoes flat and flicking their peas. I felt a pea hit me, but I pretended like I didn’t notice.

  And then I saw Harlem. He was easy to spot ’cause he towered over everybody else. His hair was long, hanging down the back of his neck and covering up his ears. He stood there all hu
nched over, with his arms dangling clear to his knees. He had a crumpled-up grocery bag in one hand and two cartons of milk in the other.

  I waved my arms. “Hey, Harlem! Over here.”

  He glared in my direction. Some boy shoved him towards my table and then ran off.

  I patted the bench beside me. “Sit here,” I said.

  He sat at the table behind me. I turned around and put my blueberry muffin in front of him. He acted like he didn’t even see it.

  I kept looking over my shoulder while I ate, keeping an eye on Harlem. I couldn’t hardly believe it when he reached in his bag and took out a soggy-looking sandwich wrapped in a page from a magazine. Just whipped that magazine-wrapped sandwich out in front of everybody, like it was normal as anything. Naturally, when the boys at his table got a load of that, they were all laughing and poking and saying how Harlem sure was stupid and maybe he could get some brains tattooed on his head at the tattoo parlor. Stuff like that. When Harlem glared their way they hushed up fast.

  Harlem sat there chewing his sandwich, with his hair hanging down in his face. Then somebody told him my blueberry muffin had cooties and if he ate it he was liable to puke. I watched his face, and guess what? He shot me a look. Something about that look gave me a glimmer of hope. Something about that look said, “I been where you been.”

  So I counted that as a sign, and that afternoon I told Miss Delphine.

  “Don’t you think that was a sign?” I said.

  Miss Delphine was peeling apples. She let the shiny red skins fall onto newspaper spread out on the floor. “Could be,” she said. “Did he eat the blueberry muffin?”

  “No, but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “He wrapped it up in that magazine page and took it with him.”

  Miss Delphine wagged her peeling knife at me. “Now, that was a sign,” she said. “Why don’t you go on over to Mr. Moody’s and say hey?”

  I shook my head. “Too soon.” I took an apple from the stack in front of Miss Delphine and tossed it from hand to hand. “I don’t wanna scare him off.”

  Miss Delphine nodded. “Good thinking.”

  “Maybe I should give him a present.” I chewed on the end of my ponytail. Then I twisted the apple round and round while I held the stem, reciting the alphabet in my head, hoping like anything that stem would break off when I got to “H” (which would be a sign that Harlem would be my friend). It broke off at “E.”

  Miss Delphine’s gold bracelets clanged together as she peeled the apples. “How about an apple pie?” she said.

  I shook my head. “Naw. I was thinking something like a T-shirt or a wallet or something.”

  “Bird.” Miss Delphine stopped peeling and leaned towards me. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” She licked her fingers, then winked at me. “Trust me, I know.”

  So that’s how it happened that me and Miss Delphine were walking up Augusta Street, carrying an apple pie. Miss Delphine’s shoes click-clacked on the sidewalk and her dangly earrings sparkled in the sun like diamonds. I thought she looked like a princess. No, a queen. She looked just like a queen. I don’t reckon I’ll ever hold a candle to the likes of Miss Delphine. Me with my mousy ole hair and drab ole eyes and bony all over.

  “You think Harlem’s gonna like this pie?” I said, breathing in a whiff of sweet cinnamon smell.

  Miss Delphine put her arm around me. “Sure he is. And he’s gonna like you, too.”

  When we got to the tattoo parlor, we stopped to admire the sign. ELITE TATTOOS. GEORGIA’S FINEST BODY ART. SAFE AND SANITARY. CUSTOM DESIGNS ON REQUEST. Taped on a poster inside the window were pictures of arms and legs and chests and backs, all decorated with dragons, hearts, daggers, and American flags.

  I’d walked by this tattoo parlor a million times in my life and had always wanted to go inside. And now I was about to. Me, Miss Delphine, and that apple pie. My stomach was flip-flopping like crazy.

  When we opened the door, a bell tinkled.

  “Hello,” Miss Delphine called out in a singsongy voice.

  We waited. No answer. I looked around. It was kind of disappointing in there. A counter with pictures of tattoo designs under the glass top. A couple of folding chairs. Some stools. A cardboard box filled with magazines. A rickety card table covered with paper cups and chewing gum wrappers.

  A curtain hung over a door behind the counter. Next to that, stairs led up to the second floor.

  “I bet Mr. Moody’s place is up there,” I said.

  Miss Delphine looked up the stairs and called again. “Hellooooo.”

  Something bumped and scraped across the floor overhead. We both looked up. Muffled voices drifted down the stairs. A door closed.

  Then that nasty old Mr. Moody came down the stairs and squinted at us.

  “Yeah?” he said. His hair stuck up every which way and his eyes looked all wild. He didn’t have on a shirt. His chest was sunken in and covered with wiry gray hairs.

  I held the pie up.

  “I brought this,” I said.

  His eyes jerked towards the pie, then to me, then to Miss Delphine, then back to me.

  “I don’t know you,” he said.

  “I’m Burdette,” I said, still holding up the pie. “But everybody calls me Bird.” I grinned and added, “I spell it with an ‘I’ ’cause ‘B-u-r-d’ looks stupid, don’t you think?”

  I tried not to look at the brown tobacco stain worming its way down his chin.

  Miss Delphine thrust her hand out at Mr. Moody. “I’m Delphine Reese,” she said, smiling her big smile and making her dimples show. “I bet you know my daddy, Jimmy Reese. He was married to Sue Badgers? You remember her. Her daddy owned the car wash over on Macon Highway. Roy Badgers? I bet you remember him.”

  Mr. Moody squinted at Miss Delphine, then scratched his nasty old chest.

  All I could think about right then and there was how in the world Harlem could stand living in this place with that old man. And just as I was thinking that, Harlem came down the stairs, took one look at me and Miss Delphine, and hightailed it right back upstairs.

  “Harlem, wait,” I called. “I brought you this.”

  A door slammed and I looked at Miss Delphine, knowing she would know just the right thing to do.

  She took the pie from me and held it towards Mr. Moody.

  “Bird is all the time thinking about others,” she said. “She figured since you have a growing boy here now, you could use this.”

  “I got sugar diabetes,” Mr. Moody snapped like we should’ve known. He said it loud and exaggerated. “Die-BEE-teez.” Like that.

  “Then Harlem can have it all,” I said, proud of myself for thinking so fast. “You want me to take it up there to him?”

  Mr. Moody jerked his head towards the top of the stairs. “Looks like he don’t want company,” he said.

  I looked at Miss Delphine and she looked at me, and before we could get our wits about us, Mr. Moody had disappeared up the stairs.

  I turned to Miss Delphine. “I guess my plan didn’t work,” I said.

  She nodded. “Something tells me that boy is gonna be a tough nut to crack.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got to have a backup plan.”

  “A backup plan,” I echoed, looking down at the apple pie in Miss Delphine’s hands. “Yeah, I got to have a backup plan.”

  We walked home in silence, Miss Delphine’s shoes click-clacking on the sidewalk and me thinking hard about my backup plan.

  3

  All my thoughts about a backup plan went right out the window the next day when I found out about the spelling bee. Mrs. Moore told us about it in this real excited way, but at first I figured it was no big deal. Just another one of those ideas teachers come up with to get kids to study. But the more she talked, the more excited everybody got, and pretty soon a little seed of a thought started growing in my brain. Then we got these papers telling more stuff about the spelling bee, and by the time my eyes go
t to the bottom of that page, I knew that this was my chance.

  All my life, I’ve had two goals. Two things I want more than anything. One is to get noticed in this town. To make those pea-flicking kids stop and take a look at Burdette Weaver and really see me instead of looking right through me like I’m Casper the Ghost. I don’t need anything big-time. Just one short day of fame and glory in Freedom, Georgia, would be fine with me. Shoot, just a couple of minutes of fame and glory would be fine with me. Just enough to show folks my true self that they been missing all these years.

  My other goal in life is to get to Disney World. Just once.

  So when I read the notice about that spelling bee, I saw right away that here was my ticket to fame and glory and Disney World. Here’s why:

  First off, it was a sure thing that whoever won that spelling bee would be the center of attention for at least a day. Teachers would be carrying on and all the dumb kids would think you were something and all the smart kids would sit up and take notice of someone smarter than them (but ha, ha, ha is what I was thinking about that).

  But besides all that fame and glory that was sure to be heaped on the winner, there were prizes. When I read the list, my legs felt like they wanted to dance a jig right there in the middle of Mrs. Moore’s sixth-grade class. Here were the prizes:

  Third Place: A world atlas (like anybody would want that!) and two free passes to the movies at the Cineplex on Highway 29.

  Second Place: A $15 gift certificate to Record Town in the mall over in Macon; a free round of miniature golf at Starland; and a backpack.

  Of course, first place got the best prizes. All kinds of businesses in Freedom had donated stuff, and the spelling bee winner got to choose three things. Here were some of the choices: a fourteen-karat gold necklace; a three-speed bicycle; four free haircuts; a gift certificate to Bi-Lo grocery store; one month of karate lessons; two months of ballet lessons; two free guitar lessons; a fifteen-volume set of encyclopedias; a free dental exam (like anybody would choose that!); a portable CD player; a Sears clock radio with numbers that shine up on the ceiling; and about ten more things I can’t even think of now.