Me & Emma (25 page)

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“I ain’t shooting no squirrels, I can tell you that right now,” I say. “Hey, where’s the post office?”

“Whatchoo want with the post office?”

“I just wanna know, is all.”

“Just keep on the same blacktop school’s on and you’ll hit it on the right side of the road. It’s the general store. Same place. Hey—where you going?”

“I’ll be right back,” I call to her from over nay shoulder. I’m walking one step slower than running. I can barely hold on till I get to the girl’s washroom.

Inside the first stall on the left, the one I always use, I test the metal latch that swings over and fits into the fork on the fixed part 0fthe door to make sure no one can push the door open by mistake (I’ve done it sometimes, not meaning to), which is why I always choose this stall. The next stall down has no latch and the two other stallson the other side of the bathroom have bent latches so that it seems like the door’s gonna stay shut, but then once when [ was in the middle of going number one the latch came loose and I had to reach and hold the door closed until I could pull my pants up. I bend in halfad scan’ the bathroom floor for feet in case someone was in a stall and I didn’t notice it when I came in. No one’s here. I’ve got the place to myself and about five minutes until I’ve got to be in the classroor. That’s plenty of time.

The plastic wrap on the corn bread is all tangled into itselfi0 there’s no neat way to open it up. I tear into it from the top and break offa piece and drop it into my mouth, tilting my head back so I don’t waste any crumbs. Mmm. This is good and I know I’d think thateven if I did have breakfast. Mrs. Bickett scrapes offreal corn from the cob to

put into the bread along with the cornmeal and that makes it nice and crunchy in parts.

When Gammy comes to see us I’m gonna ask her if she can make us some of this corn bread. She maybe could get the recipe from Mrs. Bickett, even. I hope I remember to ask her.

With my mouth still full I roll the plastic wrap up into a little ball

and throw it out on my way out of the washroom.

Time for school.

“One, two, three…” our teacher, Miss Ueland, calls out while she

switches the lights on and off above our heads.

“Eyes on me!” we answer her all together.

“Two, three, four,” she says back, leaving the lights on and walking to the center of the room.

“Close the door!” we say together again.

Now we’re all quiet, like she wants us to be. Miss Ueland picks one or two words out of a sentence and says them slower than the rest of the words, like she’s giving us all a chance to catch up to her. I didn’t mind it at first but now it drives me crazy trying to figure out why she chooses the words she does to slow down.

“I hope y’all did your homework,” says Miss Ueland. “We got a lot to do today so we won’t be going over it like we usually do, but I trust you’re ready to move forward.”

The blackboard’s all clean, the chalk beaten out of the erasers, and a new pack of white chalk waits in the long well that runs along the bottom of the board. Miss Ueland opens it up and breaks a piece in half, blows on it and writes presidents up on the board in pretty cursive.

“Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,” she says, “Adams, Jackson, Van Buren. Now, I know you can’t believe this but

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you’ll be able to recite those back to me—and more after them—by the end of the day todayt. It isn’t all thathard, Oren, now don’t roll your eyes at me. The first thing we do,” she says, turning to face the board, “is break down each name to its first few letters. Like this.”

Now she writes wash then ad then jeff and mad and on like this and it hits me I can write all that down and write Gammy at the same time. That way when school’s over I can tell Emma to go on without me and I can run to the post office and drop the letter in the mail

and still be home for supper.

“Caroline!”

The class laughs.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Nice of you to join us,” Miss Ueland says. The class laughs again and it occurs to me they’re laughing at me. “Now that I have your attention, Caroline, can you tell me what the next word in this pattern will be?”

I look up at the board and see all the words shortened below the whole names and a space still to go underneath “Tyler.”

“Um?” I’m buying time. Why do teachers always know when your mind wanders?

“I’m afraid ‘urn’ is not the answer I was looking for,” she says. But before I can say what I think it is, she calls on Orla Mae, who gets it right away and then smiles at me like she did me a favor. Which she didn’t. ‘Cause now I look even worse offthat I didn’t get it right away, too. Thanks a lot, Orla Mae,! say back to her with my eyes.

“That’s right, Orla Mae,” but Miss Ueland says that to me, not Orla Mae. “‘Ty’ is correct. Carrie, will you tell us what comes next? What’s short for Polk?”

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“Po?” And the class laughs again for some reason so I turn around

in my desk and say “what?” to all of them. That quiets them up good. “You’ve got the right idea, Carrie—” Miss Ueland’s being nice since she sees I’m really trying “but it’s ‘pol,’ like the northpole. That’s enough, class, now quiet down. All right, let’s keep going. Everybody got all this down or should I leave it up a little longer? Yes? Okay then.” And she erases the words before I’ve copied them down—I couldn’t tell her I didn’t have it yet or she’d know for sure I’d been daydreaming. I’ll just get it later from Orla Mae.

Miss Ueland writes the next batch of names on the board and this time I write them down as she does, but not as pretty. No one writes as pretty as Miss Ueland.

Pretty soon it’s clear I’ll be copying the whole dang lesson from Orla Mae after school, but I don’t care. I gotta write Gammy while the letter I wrote in my head last night is still fresh.

Dear Gammy,

How are you? I am fine. Emma’s fine, too, in case you were wondering. We’re hoping you can come on out for a visit and soon. Momma really misses you and we do, too. I have a friend named Orla Mae, isn’t that a funny-sounding name? She’s real nice, though. You’ll like her a lot. There’s a dog down a ways named Brownie, only she’s black and has three legs.

Please come out to see us. We need you.

Love,

Your granddaughter, Caroline Parker

P.S. Maybe Auntie Lillibit wants to come on out, too.

I write all nice with the cursive letters I learned last year in school back home. I feel better already. When Miss Ueland turns to erase the

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board again I fold it up square by square until it’s real tiny and I can squeeze it into my pocket, where it’ll stay the rest of the day till I can mail it in towr.

“Carrie? I need to have a word with you, hon,” Miss Ueland is saying to me while the others in class push past me on both sides to get

out of the room for recess.

“Yes, madam.”

“Where were you today?” she asks me once everybody’s gone. “Ma’am ?”

“] know you weren’t paying attention in class,” she says, looking down at me through her glasses, “so I’m wondering where your mind was today. It’s not like you to drift offso much.”

I shrug my shoulders. What’m I supposed to tell her ? She wouldn’t understand I had to write my Gammy.

“Ahem.” Miss Ueland clears her throat.” I also wanted to inquire after your arm.”

Without even knowing for sure what she’ll say next I push my sleeve down, but it only goes halfway down the last part of my fore-attn. Momma a|ways says long-sleeved shirts can be worn till they’ve become short sleeves, but mine’re not quite there yet.

“You don’t need to hide it, Carrie,” she says, pushing her glasses back up to the ridge that’s built into the crook of her nose for them. “I’ve seen it all week. What happened?”

“Nothing, ma’am,” I say, crossing my hand over to cover what my sleeve cain’t.

We both blink at each other, waiting to see where this conversation’s going.

She breaks first. “Are there any more like it anywhere else?”

“No, ma’am.”

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She cocks her head to the side and I can tell she’s deciding whether to believe me or not.

“Now, Carrie…” She clears her throat again and points to the desk that Freddy Sprague sits in, so I use it and she squeezes her grownp self into the one next door to it, where Ellie Frenden sits. “I know you may not believe me but I was once your age. I know how hard it is when you’re, ah—” her throat clears again “reliving in a tough place. I had marks like that, too.”

Then she stops talking. I’m supposed to say something. Jeez, what am I supposed to say?

“So if you ever want to talk to anyone, someone who’s not your parts,

I mean, well, you can come and talk to me.”

The talking’s stopped again.

“Do you have anything you’d like to tell me?” “No, ma’am.” “You sure?” “Yes, ma’am.”

There’s quiet between us, but it doesn’t feel like the quiet there was a second ago.

“Well, all right, then,” she says, squeezing her hips back up through the space between the seat and Ellie Frenden’s desktop. “I guess that’s all.”

I shoot out of the room like a bull pushes out of the gate at the rodeo.

“Hey, Orla Mae, wait up.”

“What’d Miss Ueland want with you?” she whispers to me. She’s arranging her books on the desk in the science room. The smell is all vapors and metal.

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“Aw, nothin’,” I lie. “She just chewin’ me out for not payin’ attention in her class.”

Orla Mae nods her head. “Hey, can I come up with you to Mr. Wilson’s after school, watch you shoot? Maybe he’d teach me some.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say. “But you cain’t come today ‘cause I need to get to the post office, remember? Plus Mr. Wilson don’t like new people. He didn’t even like us when we first met him. And his dog,

Brownie, well she’s just a mean old dog,” I lie again. “What kind of a dog is she?” “She’s of the three-legged variety.” “Ain’t no such thing.”

“Is, too, It’s how come she’s so mean. She’s mad she ain’t got four legs like all them other dogs.”

“All right, all right,” she keeps on, “I’ll steer clear of the dog. I just wanna see you shoot, is all. Please?”

Before I can say anything back, Mr. Tyler the science teacher pushes his way into the room like we’ve got some answering to do.

“All right, now,” he starts class, “who’s the wiseacre who thought it’d be funny to soil all my glass slides? Huh?”

NINE

,. t.ey, Mr. Wilson,” I call ahead on my way up to his rickety house. “It’s me, Carrie!”

But he ain’t nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, Brownie,” I pat the dog’s head as she hobbles down to greet me. “Go on, now.” It’s annoying when she keeps on shoving her head under my hand to be pet. “Go on.” But she won’t go.

“Mr. Wilson?” I holler up loud enough for my voice to carry through the screen door at the top of the steps but still nothing comes back.

“Brownie, git,” I say, but she doesn’t mind me. “Go ont.” I didn’t realize she was lighter than she looks so when I kick her to the side she yelps and goes a lot farther than I thought my foot would take her. She lowers her head and looks at me from the side and then limps

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over out of my way. That’ll teach her I mean business, as Richard would say.

At the top of the stairs I put my hand in a salute over my eyes so I can see in through the screen door to check if Mr. Wilson’s there and just cain’t answer for some reason, but no sign of life. What’m I gonna do for a stamp?

Before I realize it I’m tiptoeing through his front room, looking around for where he might keep them…or maybe some change so I can buy one at the post office. It’s impossible to think of where either might be in this mess. I need to get going so I get there before it closes, so after a minute or so I give up.

“Whatchoo doing in my house, girl?” Mr. Wilson’s voice booms into my bones, which I practically have to scrape offthe ceiling since

he startled me so.

“Urn, urn…”

“Urn, urn, what? What you need?” he says, a bit softer, seeing how scared I look.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I manage to say. “I called up but you didn’t answer and I need a stamp to send this letter to my Gammy and I wanted to get it in the mail today, ‘fore the post office closed, and you weren’t around so I thought I’d just come on in and see if you had a stamp laying around, but I wasn’t gonna just take it. I’ll pay you back, I promise I—”

“Now, slow down, sissy-girl,” he says, spitting his chewing tobacca into the plastic cup he’s always carrying around for that purpose. “I’ll git you your stamp just to git some peace and quiet around here.”

He hobbles over to the sideboard with three drawers and rifles through it till he comes out with a brand-new stamp and holds it out for me to take.

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“Here ya are,” he says. “You can have it…ya ain’t got to pay me back or none if’n you can tell me who ‘tis on the face of that stamp.”

It looks familiar, this face with a dark beard. Stovepipe hat. “Abe Lincoln?” I say slow-like in case I see on his face that I’m wrong and then I can take it back and try again.

“Bingo!” he says. “Man who brought this country to its knees. I reckon you be hearing all ‘bout the war ‘tween the states in school so I ain’t gonna start wit’ you now. Plus I want my house back to myself after the day I had, so go on and git to the post office.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilson!” I lick the stamp on my way out the door and fix it to the corner of the envelope I lifted from Mr. Tyler’s desk on my way out of science class. He was too busy taking care of Alver Quinten, who took the fall for the slides ‘cause Odie Rice pointed to him behind his back when Mr. Tyler was scanning the room.

Just like Orla Mae said, the blacktop leads me right to the post of-rice and I get there in plenty of time ‘fore it closes. My mouth waters when I pass the jar of lemon sticks, but I keep on going, seeing’s how I don’t have any money to buy none, anyway. Emma’d be mad as the Nutrena rooster if I came home without one for her, so I guess I’m better off all the way around.