To Come and Go Like Magic (12 page)

When it’s time for the orphans’ offering, Jack puts in his quarter and passes the plate to me and Lenny and we drop in ours. Pop gives each of us two dollars a week to spend, but we have to save a quarter of it for the Jellico Springs Orphans’ Home.

I see one of the VISTA men fold up a check and drop it in the plate.

“The preacher prefers real money,” Aunt Rose whispers to Momma. “Checks can bounce.”

“I doubt they’d do something like that in a church,” I say.

“Hmph …,” Rose says. “You’d be surprised what some people will do.”

“Maybe they gave more money than you did, Aunt Rose.”

“I’m certain that’s not—”

“But what if they did? What if that check was for a hundred dollars?”

“I always give my fair share,” Rose says. “Ten percent of every penny I make ends up in this church house.”

“Ten percent?”

“That’s right,” she says. “That’s what’s required.”

After church the three strangers shake hands with the preacher and head for the parking lot.

“I guess some people are too busy for a cup of coffee,” Frances Perkins says.

We all go to the church basement for coffee and homemade jelly rolls, and there is much discussion about the way the VISTA people were dressed and whether or not that check will bounce. Finally, the preacher says to stop and everybody stops talking about the strangers. Like switching radio stations, they start talking about the jelly rolls, making it sound like they’re the most exotic pastries in the world, even though Miss Perkins has been making these same rolls on the last Sunday of every month for years.

When it’s time to leave, we can’t find Uncle Lu. We
go different directions, Jack and me and Lenny, up and down the church-house stairs, in and out of the bathrooms. Finally, Pop spots him sitting in the car.

All the way home Uncle Lu talks about the orphans in Jellico Springs. He’d raise them all if he could, he says, because he was never blessed with children. I imagine his tiny house on Sycamore Street filled with kids hanging out the windows.

At home Momma and Aunt Rose peel potatoes and flour chicken and mash egg yolks for a dozen deviled eggs. When we all sit down to eat, I can’t help wondering how much money it would take to feed a bunch of kids. I remember something Aunt Rose said.

“The required church offering is only ten percent,” I say.

“That’s right,” says Rose. “And I give every penny of it.”

“But why do
we
have to give a quarter?” I ask, looking over at Pop. “Ten percent of two dollars …”

Pop puts down his fork, stands up, and points his finger at me and Lenny.

“The two of you ought to be ashamed.” Pop’s face is red and his top lip is quivering.

I want to tell him that I didn’t really mean to take money away from the orphans and Lenny didn’t even know I was going to say it. It was just a simple question.

O
fferings 2 …

Momma and Aunt Rose are sitting at the kitchen table listening to the
Sunday Gospel Sing
on the radio. I get on my bike and head up Persimmon Tree Road, feeling ashamed about the orphans one minute and as free as a fox the next. The world is full of good and bad feelings that go on at the same time.

When I drop my bike and start down the path through the woods, I run into Willie Bright, his yellow hair flamed with sunlight.

“Where you going?” he asks.

Should I tell him? I guess he’s not the sort to blab.

“Miss Matlock’s house,” I say.

“Have you seen all those books of hers? Some of those foreign people are a lot poorer than we are,” he says.

It must make Willie Bright feel good to hear about people who are worse off than he is.

“When did
you
start going to her house?” I ask.

“The day she moved back here,” he says. “How about you?”

I shrug and look away. “A long time ago,” I say. “I forget exactly.” I don’t tell Willie that I didn’t even meet Miss Matlock until she became our teacher. I’d seen her puttering in the garden but never stopped to talk. There were all those rumors….

“I’d get in trouble for sure if my grandma ever found out about me coming here,” Willie says.

So he’s not supposed to go to Miss Matlock’s house either. I wonder if he knows something I don’t know.

“Why is that?” I ask.

“Granny says Miss Matlock’s nuts and she’s mean, too.”

“I like her,” I say.

“Well, she’s been a lot of places,” he says. “Miss Matlock’s seen the world.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m going to be just like her and leave here someday, too.”

“I’ll go with you,” Willie Bright offers.

“What?” I study this boy’s shiny face for a minute and know he means it. “Not with
me,”
I say. “I’m not taking anybody.”

We start up the hill to the house and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red feather.

“It’s from a cardinal bird,” he says. He found it under the willow trees.

I bend over to look at the feather and run upon Willie Bright’s lopsided smile. It’s like a pause on the television. The picture freezes. It doesn’t move again until he sticks the feather in my hair.

S
ign-up Day …

Every class has three groups—the As, Double As, and Triple As—slow, average, and fast. It used to be As, Bs, and Cs until somebody complained that it wasn’t right. It was like saying that one group was automatically going to get Cs. They usually did.

I’m in the Double As, and we get mostly Bs. That’s the best place to be if you don’t want to work too hard or be called a nerd or a brain or stupid.

But our three groups won’t be together next year. In eighth grade we get put in separate classes. Most of the average students, the Double As, sign up for general classes—general math, general science, basic English; advanced students take the honors courses—pre-algebra, pre-biology, all the hard stuff. The slow ones get put in general classes with special-education teachers so they
can learn how to study and get organized before they tackle high school.

The tests we took help the counselor figure out where we ought to be next year, but we don’t have to do what she says. There are no rules. If you’re an average student, you can still choose to take the advanced classes if you want to work like a dog and barely pass.

At lunchtime Ginny stops at each of the Double As’ tables.

“All the cool kids are signing up for general classes,” she says, bending over my chair. “Boys don’t like girls who are nerds or dummies.”

Since I don’t have any friends in the other groups anyway, there’s no question about which way to go.

After school Miss Matlock asks if I signed up for the advanced classes.

“No,” I say. “Why would I—”

“You’re just marking time,” she says.

“Marking time?”

“You’re not going anyplace.” She looks at Willie and shakes her head. “You too,” she says. “You both need a challenge.”

“I can’t do the work,” Willie says.

“Don’t ever say
can’t,”
Miss Matlock says.
“Can’t
never accomplished anything.”

“But I—”

“Get somebody to help you,” she says. She looks over at me and raises her eyebrows.

“I make Bs,” I say. “I’m no tutor. Besides …” I can’t think of a besides.

Maybe Miss Matlock
is
a little crazy. Willie Bright would flunk out of school if he took the advanced courses. Everybody knows that. And I’d make Cs and Pop would have a fit and ground me for the school year. And if I helped Willie get out of the dummy group, nobody in the former Double As would speak to me again. Miss Matlock doesn’t understand how life works around here. Maybe she was gone too long.

O
ld Tate and Foxy Lady …

Aunt Rose smears sulfur salve on Old Tate. He’s a brown-and-white-spotted bird dog, but right now he’s mostly pink-skinned with the mange. It makes him scratch and whine and turn in fierce circles when the itching starts, so Aunt Rose made a batch of her lard-and-sulfur mange cure.

“Don’t hurt him!” I yell at Rose. She clamps down on
Old Tate’s collar and slaps the salve all over his body with a wooden paint stick while he whimpers and twists and tries to get loose. Foxy Lady’s tied to the cherry tree, with her tail between her legs and her head down. She knows she’s next in line.

Aunt Rose drops a blob of salve in Tate’s food bowl and he laps it up like Purina. The only way to kill the mange is to work at it from the inside, too, she says. But when Rose tries to drag Foxy Lady to the sulfur pot, the dog gets loose and runs away.

I take off around the house after her and see Lenny sitting on the porch swing reading a book.

“Where’d Foxy go?” I ask, figuring he must have seen something.

He shakes his head. “Wasn’t watching,” he says.

The front yard is as quiet as a graveyard. Every now and then you can hear a dove cooing.

Rose comes around the corner of the house with her face red and her curly hair wet with sweat. “Wait till I get my hands on that dog,” she says.

“She’s gone,” I say. “Foxy’s gone.” I plop down on the porch swing next to Lenny and he gives it a shove, making the chains squeak.

Rose throws up her hands and heads back around the house. When Lenny stops the swing, I can hear short breaths between the dove coos. Frantic at first, it slows to
a soft, even rhythm. Foxy Lady is asleep under the wooden porch.

Lenny looks over at me and smiles. He turns to a glossy page in his book with a picture of the ocean. It’s the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen. Turquoise.

“Do you think the ocean is really that color?” I ask.

“Yep,” says Lenny. “I’d say so.”

“Someday I’m going to the real ocean.”

“We’ll go together,” he says.

“Nope. I’m going by myself.”

Lenny shrugs and gives the swing another push. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but when I picture myself leaving Mercy Hill, I’m always traveling alone. Not with Lenny and not with Willie Bright.

After Rose goes home, I hold Foxy on my lap and stroke her ears while Lenny paints her with sulfur salve. When I leave Mercy Hill, I might just take a dog with me.

F
lying …