Me & Emma (29 page)

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crosshairs, like a rifle, so what you do instead is move your chin over so it’s nearly over the part of your arm between your shoulder and elbow. That’s right. Good. Tilt it a little more so your cheek almost touches—that’s right. If your arm’s good ‘n straight you’ll hit your target, sure as manure.”

“Hey!” Emma says, looking from him to me. “Our daddy used to say that!”

“Your daddy’d thank me right now for teaching y’all how to shoot,” he says back. “Now, concentrate on what you’re gonna hit. This can’s setting in one place but most times your target’s moving. So you got to be able to move your body but keep your arm straight while you do it so as soon as he stops a’moving, you can fire off a round.”

“Should I shoot now?”

“Wait a second,” he says. “Feel that trigger? It’s gonna give pretty easy, so be ready to push back at the power once it does. Try a shot

and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Pow!

Emma yelps like I did the first time Mr. Wilson fired one off. Nothing prepares you for that sound.

“That’s a start,” he says, once the smoke clears from the end of the gun where the bullet came out. “But see what I mean by the trigger?”

“Yeah!” she says. I can’t keep from smiling ‘cause I know how excited she feels.

“Now, you missed your target.” He’s stern like a teacher always seems to be. “You got to leave behind the notion that it’s easy and concentrate on gettin’ the job done. Give it over and I’ll show you what I’m talkin’ about. See how my arm’s steady? You got to be steady

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‘cause the trigger’ll mess with your mind, it’s so loose. It’ll make

y’arm think it can be, too. But you got to hold steady.”

Pow!

Emma runs over to the fence and holds up the can that knocked onto the ground, like it’s a trophy. “You did it!”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he says. “My arm never moved. Let the target tire itself out moving, don’t let your arm tire out doing the same. Now, try again.”

Emma runs back over, takes the gun and stretches her arm out. “Like this?”

“You got it,” he says. “That’s right, lock y’elbow. Now y’ready for

that trigger.”

Pow!

Emma runs over and sure enough, she bends down and holds the can up the same way she did before.

“That’s a mighty good shot, girl,” Mr. Wilson says, spitting off to the side. “A fine shot.”

On the way back home Emma’s skipping, she’s so happy about shooting.

“You know what happens next, right?” she says, hopping up on a

rock and jumping off of it like it’s a ride at the carnival.

“What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“We’re gonna shoot Richard,” she says, leaping over a tree stump. “He’s gonna gt shot.”

I’ve stopped walking after her. “What?”

“Yep,” she calls over to me from a mushroom she’s inspecting. “We’re gonna kill Richard. That’s what Mr. Wilson was showing us how to do.”

ELIZABETH FLOCK

I’m walking again. “You’re crazy. He wasn’t doing any such thing.”

“He was, too,” she says, skipping back over to me. “We got to kill him, Carrie.”

“We just walk in one day and shoot him? Just like that?”

“Yeah, kinda,” she says, falling into step alongside me, when the branches clear a bit so we can walk two by two. “And then we wouldn’t get throwed out of the house ‘cause the sheriff’d feel sorry for us and he’d let us stay. But even if we did have to go, with Richard dead there’d be no one for Gammy and Auntie Lillibit to hate so we could go live with them.”

I started shaking my head halfway through her little solution and now I have to speak my mind.

“It’s one thing to kill a can, it’s another altogether to kill a man, no matter how much he needs killing,” I tell her. Sometimes little sisters don’t think things through, so it’s up to big sisters to help them with that. That’s what I think, anyway.

“Just think,” she says, happily pointing to my forehead that’s got a blue-brown welt on it from Richard’s slapping, “that could be your last bruising.”

With Gammy and Aunt Lillibit gone the house is quiet again. Momma’s stopped cleaning the clothes and I’m happy ‘cause that means I don’t have to help her pin them up to the line to dry. One less chore to think about. Me and Emma decide we got to have two piles of clothes in our room: one for clothes that’re dirty beyond wearing, the other for reusables. Reusables are clothes that might have a stain 26O

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or two, but can pass offas clean if yon wear things like undergarments inside out. That’s our system.

The notice of eviction stays tacked to the door and pretty soon I don’t even see it when I come and go. It just blends in with everything

else.

Momma comes out of her room sometimes, but I almost wish she wouldn’t ‘cause all she does is cry or yell. I haven’t seen Richard in a couple of days, but I can tell from the empty beer bottles he’s been here, probably when we’re fast asleep. Maybe he’s back working again.

Things could have kept on like this, I guess, but that wasn’t the way it was s’posed to be.

TWELVE

he, two, three,” she calls out. “Eyes on me!” we answer her. “Two, three, four,” Miss Ueland says. “Close the door!”

“I have some exciting news to tell you about,” Miss Ueland says, walking to the front of the room. “Quiet down, everybody. I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

Ellie Frenden whispers across to me, “I know what she’s gonna say,” but then clamps up and looks real pleased with herself.

“Now, class,” Miss Ueland starts. “I want to tell you that I’m about to become a mother.”

The class is dead quiet. All except for Ellie, who is trying to catch my eye so she can nod like the know-it-all she is. Her uncle’s the town doctor so I guess that’s how she knows about Miss Ueland.

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“This is all very Unexpected but very exciting for me,” she continues, “and for Mr. Ueland. But we are tnotdng to the next county over so we can be in a bigger home that has room for a leaby. I know babies aresmall but they do grow, you knoW, a°cl soon we’ll need the larger

,-˘pace. “

“Does this mean you won’t be our tocher anymore?” Orla Mac asks while her arm is still raised to be called on.

“Mr. Tyler will be taking over for Me—d°n’t make that face, Buddy Lee. Mr. Tyler is a fine teacher,/3ot I’m afraid I will be leaving y’all, Orla Mae,” Miss Ueland says. “And that makes me sad, because I’ve loved teaching y’all.”

Her eyes rest on me When she says this last part, but I look away. Guess I won’t be coming to her abotat gichard after all. I knew I wouldn’t. I was just thinking.

I wish I could stay in my room like M°mma does. Sure would be easier. I Wouldn’t have to think about what all we’re gonna eat, how to get more food in the Frigidaire, gettio h°mevu’°rk done and then doing it all over again, day after day. yeab, I wish I could stay in bed all day, too.

School just isn’t the same without Miss Ifleland and sometimes I feel like I don’t even know my baby sister anyon°re’ ei t:her. Since learning how to shoot she’s on a mission. It’s like she doesn’t: need me anymore,

really,. She ” o,’vn, working things

, s taken togoing off to the river on her

out in her mind, I guess.

Instead of going to the river, I go with Mr. Wilson to Zebulon’s a lot these days, so I guess I’m doing the saroe thin Emma is, just in a different way.

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ELIZABETH FLOCK

“Come on over here, girl,” Walles calls over to me from the barrel he’s setting on. “Lemme show you a lick I bet you could do real good. You hold on to the neck with yet left hand—you right-handed, right? Good. Them lefties got bats up in their heads, they so empty. So you take the neck and hold you’ finger—that’s right, the first finger, curl it around–on the top string and then with yer right hand you’re gonna pick out a tune. Use yer first finger and yer thumb for it and hit these strings—that’s right! I’ll be damned. See? You got yerselfa melody there. Sounds good. Sonny, play me a G, will ya? Let’s lay that underneath the tune you just picked, Culver.”

“My name’s Parker,” I bare to tell him. Even though I’d rather be called Culver after my daddy.

“I thought you were a Culver.”

“I was, but Momma got married after my daddy died and his last name’s Parker so it’s mine, too, now.”

“Not Parker for that fella worked over at the mill? That the one?” “Yes, sir.”

Walles looks over at Sonny Zebulon, whose head has come up for air from the guitar he’s always bent over. They look at each other for a spell.

“How’d a little girl like you end up with a—”

“Walles,” Mr. Wilson says with a sharpness like if his voice was a knife Walles’d be bleeding. Walles knows it, too, ‘cause he stops talking altogether. “Let’s play ourselves a tune,” Mr. Wilson says, placing his own guitar across his lap. “Let’s git down to it. I’ve had ‘bout enough’a this jawin’.”

The music trickles over me like the water moves over and around the rocks dotting the Diamond River.

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Hey, Carrie? Want to come over to my house after school? Check witch box on wether you can or cant.

Orla Mac

I look over at her to smile that I can but she’s looking to the front of the room real hard, so we won’t get caught passing notes.

I check yes and then fold it back up real tiny-like and drop my pencil on the floor so when I go down to pick it up I can slide it across the aisle to her desk.

Mr. Tyler’s writing up on the board so he doesn’t see her bend down to pick it up. She unfolds it one square at a time so it doesn’t make a rustling-paper noise that tells teachers kids aren’t paying attention.

After class we stack our books and wait for each other so we can walk out together.

“Wait on me a sec,” I tell her out in the yard. “I got to go tell my sister to get home on her own.”

“Hey, Era,” my breath taking a second to catch up to my feet, finally reaching her. “You go on ahead home. I’ll be there later.”

Emma looks past me to Orla Mae, who’s biting her nails like they’re supper. “You goin’ over to Orla Mae’s?” she asks, like it’s against the law. “What’s it to you? Just go on home without me. I won’t be late.” I know she’s wanting for me to invite her but I’ve gotten too used to being on my own lately.

She shrugs and turns away and all of a sudden I feel a pang like I wish I’d handled it all different.

LI ZA B F.T H FLOCK

“You wanna come?” I holler to her, knowing the answer and feeling terrible about it.

The answer is no answer. Just a little sister walking away.

Orla Mae’s house is not much bigger than ours, but there aren’t so many trees crowding around hers, so sunlight can make its way into the rooms.

We drop our books on a table that waits just inside the door. “Hey, Momma,” Orla Mae calls out.

“Hey, honey,” the voice answers from the back of the house. “How ,vas school ?”

“Fine. Carrie Parker’s here.”

“That’s good.”

“Can she stay for supper?” Orla Mae hasn’t asked me if that’s okay, but I reckon Momma won’t even know I’m not at home.

“W’sure,” Mrs. Bickett answers. “We’ll eat in a bit. Why don’t y’all

go on and do your homework ‘fore it gets too late.”

Orla Mae rolls her eyes at me. “C’mon.”

She motions me to follow her out a side door that s offthelr front room, which has pictures scattered on every flat top—pictures of babies, weddings, and sour-looking people who don’t look used to standing for a photograph.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing to a man with a tall black hat and round glasses.

“That’s my grandpappy, he’s my daddy’s daddy. Grew up on the east shore, Outer Banks. Back before anyone even knew they were there. He was all alone there with his parents, my great-grandparents.

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Never had any schooling or other kids to play with. Daddy says he right near lost his mind when he got old. C’mon.”

Out to the side of the house is a littler shack that looks like it’s built to copy the big one. Chickens go up and down a ramp, instead of stairs, in and out of the house, pecking as they go.

“They’re the stupidest things alive,” Orla Mae says. “Watch. I’ll feed ‘em pebbles. Ha! Lookit that one—she don’t even know it ain’t food she’s eatin’. One time I fed them a piece of scrambled eggs Momma made for breakfast, and they ate them! You know what that makes ‘em? Calenbles.”

“You mean cannibals,” I say.

“Why you gotta always be smarter than everyone else ?” She throws

a wood chip to the hungry birds. “Y’always doin’ that.”

“No, I’m not,” I say.

“Yes, y’are. In class you always get the right answer.”

“You do. I figure you’re the brainiest one there.”

“Yeah.” But she says it like she doesn’t believe what I’m saying.

“Y’all even cracked a book open?” Mrs. Bickett calls out the upstairs window.

“We will, Momma!” Orla Mae calls over her shoulder.

“What did I tell you? Do yer homework! No supper till you finish.”

“C’mon,” I say. The thought of going without a bite to eat makes

me weak. “Let’s go on and do it.” “All right, smarty-pants.” “I am not a smarty-pants.” “Are, too.”

We both sigh hard on our way back into the house. Homework’s easy on account of Mr. Tyler being fooled by Fred7

ELIZABETH FLOCK

die Sprague, who told him we hadn’t yet started our English workbook when we really had so the homework he assigns us is already done. I guess Miss Ueland left in such a hurry she forgot to fill him in on what we know and what we don’t know.

It’s been a long time since I heard the sound of pots and pans clanging around in a faraway room. I love knowing someone else has to figure out what we can chew on. I wonder what Emma’s gonna eat.

“We finished, Momma.” Orla Mae gets up and goes to the kitchen so I follow. Past the Bickett faces staring out at me, reminding me I’m a stranger here.

“Good. Now, come put out the salt and pepper. And Carrie, will you—oh. What happened to yer hand, honey ?”