with in society.
I feel the walls of my heart tightening, boxing me into this room with Mirabel.
“A quiet and generous spirit. That is what you should be striving for, Charlie Anne.”
CHAPTER
27
Oh, happy day! New shoes arrive for all of us from Papa, plus a letter with money and four lemon drops inside. His handwriting is small and pushed together, and I can only read a few words anyway, so Ivy has to read it.
Papa says that thanks to President Roosevelt, the government has a lot of roads it wants built, so there is plenty of work. Thomas is even taller now than Papa. There are new shoes for Peter, so Papa does not know about Aunt Eleanor. He wants Peter to write to him and tell him how high the corn is, and if he is measuring week by week.
I feel my heart splitting for Peter. There is a return address for Papa, and I stuff the envelope in my pocket.
I will try and write to Papa about all that happened to Peter, but first I try on my new shoes. I am so happy to be slipping them on and tying them up and walking around in them that I don’t hardly even feel the leather pressing hard on my skin. I tell them if they don’t stop snapping when I walk, I’m going to sound just like Mirabel.
I hear Mama calling out to me, telling me to come up and let her have a look at my new shoes, but I tell her no. She should have thought of wanting to see things like new shoes before she let Peter go. Now I have Rosalyn and Phoebe to show things to.
Papa’s letter puts Mirabel in a good mood. She tells me I can have the day to myself, “after you finish up that mending.”
I make tiny stitches like she tells me. I just don’t make a lot of them.
I have to wait about a hundred years to show Phoebe my new shoes. Mirabel has to walk down to the garden and see about the tomatoes and pick some cucumbers and stop at the privy so she can read the Sears catalog for a while. Then she goes and looks at the weeds we call lamb’s-quarters, because you can eat them, and she’s been thinking of canning them, just in case the hard times are even worse than we’re expecting. Then she beats the rug from the parlor against the porch, and next she goes hunting for the place where Minnie is hiding her eggs.
I head out to the butternut tree and tell Anna May and Belle the good news, that Papa is alive and well, and while I do that, I do a little looking for Big Pumpkin Face. I have not seen her in a few days now.
While I am looking inside the barn and the cellar and the hen roosts, I tell her she better be quick and olly olly oxen free and come out. But Big Pumpkin Face stays hidden, and my feet start telling me if I crawl on my belly through the high rye grass and jump quick over the stone wall that Mirabel won’t even see. I tell Anna May and Belle to be quiet, and they look at me and wonder what the dickens I am slithering around like an old garden snake for. They come over for a closer look.
“Go away,” I say, sounding very stern.
I have a big dirt stain across the back of my dress and a grass stain across my belly, plus there are rips from the blackberry bushes. I run across the road, remembering how I haven’t had a bath for several days.
Then Phoebe comes shooting out of the barn on her swing, one arm draped out beside her, and she’s wearing her red pepper red trousers, looking graceful as a swan. As she flies back to the barn and then back out again, she points her toes up, and I believe she is tiptoeing and that she could dance straight up to the moon if she wanted. I can hardly breathe.
“A turn,” I croak as she soars out past me again. “Please, can I please have a turn?”
“Watch how I do it!” Phoebe screams, laughing, and I have to watch her fly past me over and over again, probably a hundred more times, and she’s all particular about the way she points her toes.
“I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, PHOEBE,” I say, feeling another frown spread across my face. “I KNOW HOW TO SWING.”
Old Mr. Jolly comes walking up from the brier patch, carrying big clippers in his hands. He is watching Phoebe fly right over him. He has cuts on his arm, and his face is looking how my heart is feeling: annoyed, and like maybe Phoebe shouldn’t always get to be the luckiest frog in the pond.
“Phoebe,” he calls. “I believe your friend here would like a turn.”
It takes about a hundred more minutes for Miss Red Pepper Pants to slow down. I am afraid she might see the rooster on my underpants because my dress is so short and Mirabel won’t let me near my trousers in the rag box. I think I hear Mama calling me from up on the hill, telling me not to worry about my underpants. I tell her I am still not talking to her. She tells me that she understands and that she is sorry about everything.
I watch to make sure Anna May and Belle are watching me and they are. They are looking up and asking what the dickens I am doing climbing the ladder to the hayloft. I tell them not to worry. I wonder if Phoebe can see my new shoes. I tap a soft little shuffle, I am so happy. Then she soars into the barn and lands on her landing platform and hands the rope up to me.
“Do you remember how to do it?”
“Yes, Phoebe,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I know how to swing.” Then I jump onto the seat, and I am whooping because suddenly I am more than just Charlie Anne. I am Charlie Anne who can fly.
CHAPTER
28
Rosalyn comes out and tells us that she has some raspberry heart sugar cookies for us.
“Where’s your yellow trousers?” she asks as soon as we get up on the porch.
“Mirabel won’t let me wear them,” I say between one bite and the next. “She says they are for boys.”
I see Rosalyn get that shadow over her face again. “Is that so?” she says, munching her cookie. Then she stands up, goes into her parlor, and comes back with a book from the bookshelf. She hands me another cookie. “I brought this book from Mississippi. I thought we might try a page or two.”
My breathing stops. Just the cover, with the words First Reader on it, sends my memory flying back to how it used to be with Miss Moran and the terrible place under her desk she made me go when I switched up my words.
“Saw is not the same thing as was. I don’t see why you keep mixing things up,” she’d say. There were spiders and dead flies under there and Becky Ellis would laugh.
“No,” I say to Rosalyn, standing up. “I don’t like that book very much.”
Both she and Phoebe are looking confused. “Thank you for the cookies,” I mumble, and I hurry out, because even mending is better than that book.
I go look some more for Big Pumpkin Face. I look everywhere. All around the grain bins and the apple barrels and the chicken coop, up in the loft (three times) and down by the pigpen. I call to her over and over and over.
I stop and give Minnie and Olympia and Bea a good lookover to make sure they don’t know where she is hiding. Olympia wants a handful of corn, but I tell her she’s not getting any on account of her being such a tight-fisted old hen. That’s what Papa used to say.
I am thinking about Papa when Big Pumpkin Face meows from the hayloft. “What are you doing up there?” I say, hurrying up the ladder and not paying a bit of attention to Olympia, who is making mad looks at my back.
“Here, kitty. Here, kitty,” I say to the dark corners, and then very big purrs come out from deep inside a stack of hay. I kneel down and look into the dark tunnel between bales, and smell a lot of hay all at once. It is the best smell in the world, just like dried-out sunshine. I sniff lots of times as I’m trying to get my eyes to see better in the dark.
I lift the bales out of the way, and when I do, one of them is singing happy news. I pull the next hay bale with soft hands, and the next ones I just push a little out of the way. And there she is! Right in front of me is my Big Pumpkin Face, looking all proud, because nestled up to her are three new kittens.
I scream a very big whoop. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be a mama? I would have made you a nice basket.” I sit back on my heels and watch. “I thought you were eating too much, you big bugbear.” I scratch h
er a little behind her ear, but she pushes closer to her babies, so I stop. I reach over and rub a little black kitten, but Big Pumpkin Face mews that I better knock it off right now, so I stop and sit back on my heels. I don’t try and pick up the kittens, even though I want to more than just about anything.
Big Pumpkin Face is singing happy mews to them and I don’t want her to stop, so I just watch them and remember how I used to like to climb up on my mama’s bed, right between her and Papa, when I had the middle-night scares. Every so often, Big Pumpkin Face licks one of the babies. I think she looks happy to be a mama. My mama used to look as happy as Big Pumpkin Face.
The sun is shining through the window of the barn and splashing all over me and the happy new family, and as I sit on my heels and watch them, I hear Mirabel calling me and yelling that they are going to walk to Evangeline’s and where am I, and I think, who wants to go to the store when you can stay and watch new kittens. The sun warms my skin. It has been a long hard summer without Papa. I curl up on the hay, watching the mama cat and her kittens. I feel myself falling asleep, and I hear Mama telling me that everything always looks better after a nap.
CHAPTER
29
You can tell Rosalyn is worried she did something wrong, because I wake up to Phoebe calling for me and carrying a big basket of something that smells so warm and buttery that Big Pumpkin Face and I can smell it way up in the loft.
“What’s in there?” I want to know.
“It’s for you. Can I come up?”
Well. Phoebe is bringing two tiny pies, each with a crust that smells like butter, and each has a mountain of glistening strawberries on top. I take a bite and can’t believe how happy my tongue is. Rosalyn knows how to cook. She has the same things as Mirabel, but she turns a pile of strawberries into strawberry tarts and Mirabel makes strawberry fool.
Phoebe sees the kittens and gives a little happy yelp.
“Big Pumpkin Face, this is Phoebe. Phoebe, this is Big Pumpkin Face and all her new kittens.”
Phoebe says lots of things like Oh, my! and How cute! and You are so lucky, Charlie Anne, and then she picks up the little orange one that looks just like Big Pumpkin Face and rubs it behind the ears. I am surprised Big Pumpkin Face lets her, but she does.
We sit admiring the kittens and I eat both strawberry tarts and my belly is sticking out.
“Rosalyn wants to know how come you got so upset and how come you don’t want to read that book?”
I pack the little tart plates back in the basket and wipe my hands on the bottom of my dress. I tell the bad thoughts to go away, that I don’t want to be thinking about them right now, that I don’t want to remember the underneath of Miss Moran’s desk, or the even worse places.
“The words jumble up when I read.”
“Like what?”
“Like bed and dad. It looks like the same thing.”
“Yes,” says Phoebe, “they are close,” and while she says this, I am thinking about Miss Moran.
“How come you don’t know the words they, what, where, does?” Miss Moran is saying. I am standing for my reading drill and everyone is watching. Mama has already gone straight to heaven and I am very lonely. I look out the window.
“Stand up straight, Charlotte Anne,” Miss Moran is saying. “Self-composure and self-confidence are most important. Straighten that back. All right, now read.”
I look at the book I am holding, First Reader, where the letters are jumping like corn popping. Miss Moran sighs, again and again and again.
“I am losing patience with your lack of attention, Charlotte Anne.”
I squint my eyes and stumble on the words. Miss Moran stops me. “How come you don’t know this when we practice every day? Are you just fooling with me, Charlotte Anne?”
“No, ma’am, I am not.” I see the blackboard giving me comforting looks.
“Well, I think you are fooling me,” Miss Moran says, walking closer. “I think you are trying to make a joke of my class to get a little attention. Otherwise, why would your sister be so much better at reading than you? She’s not that much older. Now you just go stand in that trash bucket over there until you remember what we’ve been practicing every day for the last week.”
Even Ivy is looking all sorry for me as I walk over and step into the trash bucket. But no one is sorry as me when we have our spelling bees.
“Spell bad. We do not like bad little girls.”
I have no stomach anymore. It has already fallen all the way down to my feet. I am hot, and sweat is pouring down my face, and sweat is making my back itch, but I’m afraid to scratch it because Miss Moran will get mad. I can’t remember how to spell bad. I can’t remember if it has ds or bs. I can’t remember what the first letter is, and I can’t remember what the last letter is, and I can’t remember what is in the middle.
bs and ds look the same to me. I think they do a little dance, and one day they are one way and another day they are a different way. I tell them to stop fooling with me, but the bs and ds, they just don’t listen.
Miss Moran is already plenty mad. “Spell bad, Charlotte Anne.”
I take a gulp of air. Thomas is looking all sad for me. Even then, his legs were so long he couldn’t keep them under the desk.
I take a deep breath and feel tears coming. “D-a-d.”
Miss Moran throws her cleaning rag at me. All she has to do is point outside. I already know what she means.
I pick up my lunch pail and go outside to the woodshed so I can think about things. I sit on a pile of oak logs the rest of the day, and while I am there, it starts to snow.
“Was it really like that?” Phoebe wants to know. “Was it really that bad?”
“Yes, it was.”
We look at Big Pumpkin Face and are quiet.
Then Phoebe sits back on her heels. “You have to sweep out all the bad memories inside of you and start over again,” she says. “That’s what Rosalyn says.”
“Bosh.”
“Bosh?”
“Bosh.”
I scratch Big Pumpkin Face right behind the ears, just like she likes. She starts purring.
“I have lots of bad memories, too,” whispers Phoebe.
CHAPTER
30
“My mama was tall, taller even than Rosalyn,” Phoebe says as we both watch Big Pumpkin Face get up for a minute and stretch and then lie right back down next to her kittens.
“That is why you are tall,” I say.
“Yes,” says Phoebe, settling back against a bale of hay. “Now stop interrupting. It’s a long story, and I don’t like to stop when I get going.”
“Okay.” I settle back against a hay bale, too. My stomach is very uncomfortable from being so full of strawberry tarts. I lie down on my side.
“Well, my mama and Rosalyn lived together when they were little and they were best friends, and when they grew up, they wanted to go to college together, but my mama couldn’t go to Rosalyn’s school because she was colored.”
Phoebe reaches over and pats one of the kittens and Big Pumpkin Face lets her.
“So my mama worked hard and saved her money and went to a different school, one for colored girls who wanted to be teachers.
“She and Rosalyn stayed friends and wrote to each other and planned how one day they would open a school where everyone could sit side by side, no matter what color your skin was.”
The sun is getting really warm, and it is beating through the window and making me a little sleepy again. Plus Phoebe’s voice is so gentle and soft, like breathing. I have to force my eyes to stay open.
“When Rosalyn finished school and came back home, my mama already had me by this time, and during the years when I was little, they planned the school they would open someday. And then they did, right in an old school way out in the woods that no one used anymore, and Rosalyn took out a notice in the paper announcing the school and that all were welcome, and on the day we started, no white children came.”
“None
?”
“Not a one.”
“What dopes.”
“Yes,” whispered Phoebe. “A whole bunch of little colored children came, but not a single white one. And then things started happening.”
I am wide awake again. “Like what?”
“Like someone threw a dead chicken in the schoolyard one day when I was helping Mama wash windows. And someone started nailing notes on the door telling us to move out of town, that no white child would ever get taught by a colored teacher. They called Rosalyn all kinds of dirty bad names for being friends with my mama.”
Tears start down Phoebe’s face. I pull her close and tell her she doesn’t have to tell me any more if she doesn’t want to. We can still be friends without telling each other all the bad places that need sweeping out.
I feel her collarbone poking into me. Her little braids are digging into my neck.
“We found out some of the men who owned stores in town started threatening the colored mamas and papas and telling them that if they sent their children to that school, we would all see it go up in flames.
“Mama got really mad because her grandmother had been born a slave in Kentucky and had seen it all. She said we weren’t going back to any of that, no way, no how. She would rather die first.” She wipes her eyes, and keeps going.
“My mama and Rosalyn were like sisters, they loved each other so. One day we all walked to the library in our city, but my mama and I couldn’t go to the shelves where Rosalyn went because they wouldn’t let us read the books set aside for white people. Rosalyn checked out the books, and we read them together outside under a big sycamore tree.”
“What books?”
Phoebe smiles for a tiny bit. “One was David Copperfield.”
“Good book,” I say.
“Yes. Well, anyway, there were water fountains in town, one for whites to drink and one for colored people. When no one was looking, I drank from the one for whites.”
The Wonder of Charlie Anne Page 10
