Darby (5 page)

The next day, as McCall drove us home from school, I sat in the back seat while his friends jumped off the car like always. I didn’t say anything about how girls were better than boys or how I should sit up front. Instead I stayed quiet so I could concentrate on being ashamed.

At Ellan, I changed into a play dress and ran out back. Stumbling through the rows of cotton, I sat half-hidden and looking at Evette’s front door and the tiny garden that her parents had planted full of scrappy vegetables. I sat for more than an hour, picking at cotton leaves and throwing pieces of dirt before I finally saw Evette and her younger brother start toward me down the long, unpaved road that connects their house to the highway.

As they got near, I could hear her brother, Joebean, say, “He got his ankle broke and both wrists, and his whole face and neck swelled up.”

Evette answered. “He wasn’t thinking. You get caught grabbing one a them chickens and you might get kilt.”

After a few steps, Joebean answered, “Yeah, he almost did.”

When they were close by, I stood so they could see me. “Hey, Evette.”

She stared for a second before answering real softly. “Hey, Darby.”

“I gotta tell you something.”

“What’s that?”

Swallowing, I looked at my shoes. “I . . . I was gonna say
sorry,
is all.”

Jumping the wood steps to their house, Joebean passed through the rickety screen door. Evette watched it slam.

I told her, “I’m real apologetic for yesterday.”

“We done it to each other,” she said. “We was both mean.”

“I wish we were friends again.”

“Me too.”

“You wanna be?” I asked, blushing.

She acted like she was thinking. “Yeah . . . that’d be nice,” she answered.

Relieved, I said, “And we can write articles together, and I’ll know the reason why my story is in the newspaper. I promise.”

“That’s all right, Darby. You don’t gotta say anything like that.”

My eyes filled with tears. “You wanna go play right now?”

“I can’t until after I change,” said Evette.

“I’ll wait. Then, if you want, we can go swing or something? You want?”

She smiled, and replied, “All right,” and ran into her house to change into play clothes. And finally I stopped feeling like I had the measles and was stuck in a dark room, worrying all by myself.

In late October, when you stand on Ellan’s front porch, it looks like the sun crashes out of the sky and sinks into the far-off trees like a daub of butter melting on a piece of bread. It’s a real strange sight, making it hard for me to think that the earth is spinning. Sometimes, I sit down and try figuring it out in my head, how the earth and the other planets are circling the sun and twirling separately all at the same time.

For once, though, as the sun sank, I didn’t think about that sort of thing. Instead, I wrote my article about Great-Uncle Harvey. Writing wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time, either. At least I didn’t hate it. Anyways, right off I said that Great-Uncle Harvey is blind but has real good senses and can hear just about anything, even me when I’m trying to sneak up behind him. I said that he can tell birds by their voices and that his fingers can read bumps that are like a blind person’s alphabet. I explained how he dresses good and how his shoulders are broad, and that he rides in a rolling chair and nearly always has since the measles made him blind. Recollecting our walk beside McPherson’s Pond, I wrote that he sometimes has dreams of seeing his daddy’s hands and that he can’t tell if it’s a memory or if he’s recalling them wrong on account of the way they’re so cracked along the tops. Most of all, though, I said that Great-Uncle Harvey was real nice and that he didn’t let being blind make him ornery.

Closing my newspaper notebook, which had only a few more pages left, I stared at the sun melting away as the fields of my daddy’s farm turned purple and the sky above became darker and darker pink. I wished I had a dress made of such good colors. I thought that I could go to every party wearing that dress and that all the boys might like me, and that all the girls would wish they owned it, but they wouldn’t. It would just be mine.

Leaving off the steps, I passed into Ellan’s hallway with its fake wood walls. Then I went into the kitchen, where Annie Jane was getting dinner together. “Hey, Annie Jane,” I said to her.

“Whatcha doing, Darby?” Annie Jane put her fists atop her hips.

I slumped against the tabletop. “I just wrote a newspaper story.”

“Well, good,” she said, but I could tell she didn’t care.

“I’m writing it on Great-Uncle Harvey.”

“He a good story,” she agreed.

Nodding, I watched her remove two loaves of bread from the oven. She held the two tins with dishrags Mama had made out of grain sacks. “Can I have a slice of that?”

“Child, no. Mr. Carmichael’d get upset. There’s ten minutes till dinner. You gotta hold tight.”

My stomach growled, and I shuffled away and leaned against one of Ellan’s tall walls. Outside it was so dark blue it looked like fountain pen ink. “Annie Jane, you think I’m pretty?”

Tossing a towel over her shoulder, she said, “Darby, you a beautiful little girl, that’s for sure.”

“You think I’d be prettier if I had a purple and pink dress?”

“You’d look purty in a paper sack, child. You don’t need no lavish dress.”

Atop the dirt drive, I saw lights splash, then rise up and hit trees, the smokehouse walls, and even the chicken house behind it, and I knew my daddy was back from town. A few minutes later, he creaked up the steps and into the kitchen. Spotting me, he waved the
Bennettsville Times
in the air. “Your story’s inside,” he told me. “I had people coming in the store all day, telling me they saw it.”

Nervous, I asked, “Did they laugh?”

“They were real impressed,” he promised, relieving my nervousness and distracting me so that I forgot about the dress. He showed me my article sitting at the bottom of a page. In bold letters it said, “Seems Toads Aren’t So Awful.” Then in small letters it said, “By Little Darby Carmichael.”

I smiled. “I was just hoping to tell the truth about something.”

“Well, you sure did.”

My aunt Greer and Mama wandered in alongside each other.

I squealed, “Daddy’s got my newspaper story!”

They came to take a look at “Seems Toads Aren’t So Awful.”

Jacob carried Great-Uncle Harvey up the steps and placed him at the kitchen table for dinner. Great-Uncle Harvey asked, “What’s all the commotion for?” as he felt around for his napkin and water glass. I told him about my story.

“Now that’s really something,” he declared.

During dinner, which McCall was late for, my whole family treated me like a motion picture star, like I was Mary Pickford instead of Darby Carmichael. It was nice. I let them all say something good, and I wished they’d keep doing it. Even Annie Jane got into the act. Before leaving for home, she stopped over and declared I was
a pure genius,
which was real wonderful to hear, even though I know she can’t read.

At least three times a week, McCall drives us to school fifteen minutes early so he can get the lowdown on people. On those days, me and Beth rush to our classroom and tell each other secrets and stories about everyone we know. That’s how it always goes. The thing is, the day after “Seems Toads Aren’t So Awful” came out wasn’t normal. I didn’t care about any gossip. The first thing I wanted to know was whether Beth had read my article.

“My daddy did,” she answered.

“Why didn’t you?”

“’Cause I fell asleep so early I didn’t get a chance.”

I nodded. “So what did your daddy say?”

“He thought it was cute.”

I looked at the floor. “He didn’t think it was professional-sounding?”

Beth said, “He thought it was nice and funny.”

“Oh,” I mumbled as my eyes watered up.

“He thought it was real smart, too. He said, ‘Darby’s so smart.’”

I lifted my head a little bit. I knew she was lying, but I didn’t care. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Beth asked. Then she made her perfect smile, which is something she has. As a matter of fact, last Christmas I asked God for her lips instead of mine. The reason is, Beth’s lips are just right. They’re sort of plump, and the bottom half kind of puckers while the top part has an exact triangular notch in the middle. They’re beautiful, that’s for sure. If she sneaks her mother’s fancy shoes, she looks like a picture show star.

Our friends Helen and Sissy and Jack-Henry and Boog and Shoog came in and sat down like a pack of wild animals, causing their desks to skid and scrape on the wood floor. A few minutes later, the kids from the Mill Village, the Lint Heads, stomped up the steps and through the door. Since their daddies weave cotton in a factory, they’re considered low-class. That’s why me and my friends didn’t say anything to them.

My school, the Murchison School, was built by a lady named Harriet Beckwith Murchison, who once taught music in Bennettsville before finding a rich man to marry and becoming rich her ownself. She had the biggest, showiest tastes, too, so our school isn’t just the handsomest in Marlboro County, it’s also made of the best stuff. Mama often says Mrs. Murchison was an angel for giving kids such a wonderful place to learn inside of. I suppose she’s right.

The thing is, even though it’s got all the newest and best, there is one fancy thing the Murchison School doesn’t have. There’s nowhere to sit and eat inside. I guess Mrs. Murchison figured that people could walk home for lunch, not reckoning that farm kids from way out in the county would attend. So while my friends go on to their own houses, I have to eat at this apartment building around the block. All the teachers live there, since state law says in order to teach, they can’t be married and have got to be from out of town. McCall, he doesn’t take to that arrangement, so he skips food and goes off to catch bugs or birds or to read a book. In a way, I’d rather do that, too. My problem is that my stomach gets starved.

The day after “Seems Toads Aren’t So Awful” was in the paper, though, I didn’t mind eating with the teachers and farm kids. It wasn’t like usual, where I had to be mannerly and not say anything unless I was spoken at, which normally isn’t too often. Every teacher at my table, all five, praised my story and me for taking such a big interest in language and writing. They didn’t quit, either, so that the whole way through my meal I had to concentrate on seeming humble.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said a million times. “I just wanted to tell the truth.”

“Well, you did a wonderful job,” one of them promised me.

Another teacher said, “I hope you’ll keep getting better.”

“I’m gonna, ma’am,” I answered her.

She corrected my English. “You are going to,” she said.

“That’s what I meant,” I told her.

“Fine,” she replied, and took a bite of the salty ham.

“You’ve raised the bar for all of your peers,” my teacher, Miss Burstin, announced.

I thought about what she had said. “I hope no one gets mad at me for doing that, ma’am.”

“Don’t you worry about others,” she instructed.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, but as soon as I thought about it, I did worry. I didn’t want to make anyone look bad.

“I’m going to give you an extra-credit grade,” Miss Burstin told me.

I stared at her. “What grade are you gonna give me, ma’am?”

“Why, Darby, an
A,
of course.”

Smiling, I said, “Thank you, Miss Burstin.” Then, because I was worried they’d see how their compliments were swelling my pride, I tried not to smile.

Tip-tapping through the dry, skinny streets of Bennettsville, me and Beth headed to her house. Cheerful, we danced along with our elbows locked together like a chain. Even though my mama would’ve gotten mad, I grabbed the sides of my dress and lifted them a little so that I could kick a foot high in the air.

“How did that look?” I asked Beth.

“So beautiful,” she said.

“You do it.”

She shook her head. “If my mama saw me, I’d be in trouble for a week.”

“That’s why it’s fun,” I told her, and did it again.

“You look like a Broadway dancer.”

“I wish I was,” I said, high-kicking about.

“Not me,” Beth announced. “If I could make a wish, I’d make one to live in England.”

Letting go of her arm, I asked, “Why?”

“’Cause they got kings and princes and such there. In America, we won’t ever get a chance to meet those sorta people. My daddy says that instead of having a monarchy like they got, we have a democracy run by normal people. We don’t have kings or queens or anything.”

Hearing that got me a little sad. Since the first grade, me and Beth had always wanted to be princesses and have jewels and whole rooms full of expensive clothes. “Maybe we can move to England after school?”

“Maybe we’ll both find a prince?”

“I bet,” I told her. Then I tried to act like I was from London. In a fancy voice, I said, “Mrs. Fairchild, what are me and you gonna play today?”

She raised up her shoulders and gave me an expensive look. “We could make penny peeks, Mrs. Carmichael.”

I said, “Then maybe we can ride in Chester’s royal goat cart and have Mercury pull us to my daddy’s store?”