I drop the mop pole and it clatters onto the floor. Emma leaves the rag she’s been wiping with and we hightail it out of the kitchen, through the back door and onto the trail in back of the house.
“Get out!” Momma’s still hollering from inside. When we’re safe onto the trail we stop at the same time and listen to hear if she yells anything else. All I can make out is her crying.
“Let’s go find Orla Mae,” Emma says after a spell. “How we s’posed to know where she lives?” “I don’t know, but we can try.”
So we set out offthe trail, along the side of the house with Momma crying inside, down the path that brought us here in the beginning and out to the main road where we saw the Bicketts drive in from. I cain’t believe it took us this long to find our way out of the forest into the real world, but I’m glad we finally did.
At the edge of the road the sand mixes with soil and then the blacktop starts up, nice and smooth like it’s just been tarred over. Clean yellow lines cut down the middle of it.
“Right or left?” I ask Emma, since this was her big idea.
“Let’s shoot for it,” she says.
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“Rock, paper, scissors,” I say, turning my hand from fist into flat for paper.
“Scissors!” she says, her two first fingers chop-chopping into my
hand. “We go left, since we ain’t been that way yet.” “It’s ‘haven’t,’” I correct her. “Huh?”
“‘We haven’t been that way yet.’” “That’s what I said.” “You said ‘ain’t.’”
“No I didn’t,” she says. “Did, too.” “Did not.” “Emma.”
“Car-rie!” she whines right back at me, stubborn as a mule. “Oh, come on,” I sigh, “let’s go to the left then.”
It doesn’t take long before we come up on another opening in the trees big enough for a car to make tracks through, but there’s no telling whether this is Orla Mae’s road.
“You can’t see anything from here,” Emma says, standing on her tippy toes in case whatever there is to see up the driveway is higher
than her head. “We better just walk up and see what we see.” Three steps in and the barking starts.
“Dog[” a man’s voice calls out from far away. “Brownie! Get!” I’ve turned to leave but Emma calls out, “Sorry!”
“Who there?” the voice is getting closer yet. “Brownie, get up front. Brownie!” The dog’s still barking up a storm.
“It’s just us,” Emma says. I roll my eyes at her. Like he’d know who “just us” is.
Then he’s standing there. Right in front of us. Holding a shotgun
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that’s almost as long as his whole body. He’s the kind of old where you have no idea what his birth age is. He could be a million years old as far as we know. His hair’s greased back, all shiny and gray, and his face has more lines in it than there are blades of grass in the world. If he’s wearing a belt you wouldn’t know it ‘cause his belly hangs so far over where his waist is s’posed to be. He’s scary-looking, especially the way he’s scowling at us, which makes his eyebrows almost meet in the middle, above his nose, which, by the way, takes up a whole lot of his face. It’s the fattest nose I’ve ever seen and it has bumps all over it.
“Brownie! Quit!” And, just like that, the dog shuts up good. “Who you? Whatchoo want here?” He’s still scowling, but his eyebrows are working their way back to where they belong.
“I’m Carrie and that’s my sister, Emma, over there by that tree, and we just moved in a bit up the road.”
He doesn’t speak or move. He just looks at us, waiting. “Who’s your family?”
“Our momma’s Libby Parker and our stepdaddy’s Richard Parker.”
“You the Rutherfordton Parkers? Now, what was his given name? Sam, I believe.”
“Not sure, sir.”
“What you mean you not sure? You don’t know who your family is?”
“It’s not that,” I explain. “It’s just that we don’t know who my stepdaddy belongs to. My daddy was a Culver. From Toast. His daddy, my granddaddy, sold farm supplies out of there, too. Anyway, that was our name, too, till he died and Momma got a new husband and then made us get a new name.”
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“Culver,” he thinks on the name. “Culver. From near the Yadkin side?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I knew of your granddaddy—he used to play a mean banjo, he did.”
“I remember Daddy talking about that. He kept his banjo after Granddaddy died.”
“Sure enough! Jordan’s his given name?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right.”
“So, this Parker fella, you don’t know who his family is? Where
he come from ?” “No, sir.” “I see.”
“Number twenty-two. That’s our house. Number twenty-two.”
“The old Farley place.” He nods like he knows it. “Whatcha want here?”
“Um, well, we were just looking around,” I stammer.
“We looking for the Bicketts’,” Emma calls out from behind a tree.
“They down the road farther,” he says. I can tell he’s still suspicious of us. He’s looking at us like we’s ghosts.
“Okay, well, we’ll just be going on then,” I say. Brownie the dog’s back and sniffing my hand. I haven’t looked down at her because I’m scared to take my eyes off the old man in case he changes his mind and points that shotgun at us square. He looks at his dog and his face softens up, the lines unfolding a bit, so I look down at her, too.
“What happened to her leg?” I ask him. Brownie’s two front legs are fine, normal. Same with one of her back legs. But strapped across
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her back, right above her tail, is a harness thing that’s holding up a wooden leg to take the place of a missing one.
“Got caught in a trap,” the old man says. “Years back. Had to saw it off her.”
I kneel down to pet her, since now she seems like she wants to make friends with me. Emma’s by my side, petting her, too. She’s cooing her name over and over again and she looks like that’s just fine with
her.
“Ain’t never seen her take to strangers like this,” the old man says. He’s tilted the shotgun away from himself, forming a triangle with the ground. “I tell you what. You got pig fat in yo’ pockets, something?” And then he smiles. And just like it was the scariest frown I ever saw, his smile is the sweetest on account of all the lines framing his mouth, highlighting it.
“Just like a human, that dog is,” he says. “Ain’t got no one else round but her and me and I’ll be damned she doesn’t make the best comp’ny I ever had. I fashioned that wood leg for her after the accident. Couldn’t stand seeing her try to get used to skippin’ around the yard out front. I got’s one, too,” he says, lifting his pant leg for us to see his own wooden leg.
“Are you a pirate?” Emma asks him. I’m glad she does ‘cause I’m wondering the same thing. Then again I don’t know if pirates are for real or just in stories.
The old man smiles again. “Naw. Just lost m’leg is all. Name’s Wilson.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson,” I say, knowing Momma’d be proud my manners are getting better.
“Y’all come on by see Brownie when you want since she’s taken a shine to ya, from the looks of it. Aw-right, dog. You let them get on 170
ME & EMMA
their way, hear?” He pats his good leg so the dog’ll come to him. She does, but not without some more pets from us before we straighten up.
“Which way to the Bicketts’?” Emma asks him.
“End of this path you turn left, pass three more of the same, and
on the fourth you’ll see ‘em. Can’t miss ‘em.”
“Bye I” we call out.
He doesn’t say anything, he just turns to go back where he came from, but Brownie sits and watches us go, her tail wagging a half circle in the dirt. If a dog could smile that one’d be doing it right now. And I don’t have any earthly idea why it makes me mad that a dog can be so happy but it does.
“Let’s go to Orla Mae’s tomorrow,” I say to Emma when we’re back by the blacktop. “All the sudden I don’t feel much like going over there.”
“So what do you want to do, then?”
“We better go back and see what’s what,” I sigh.
“Aww,” she whines, letting her head flop back up at the sky, her
arms dead against the sides of her. “But I don’t want to.”
“I know. Neither do I, but we have to.”
“You reckon we’ll be gettin’ a proper supper?” she asks. “After the honey thing?”
“How should I know?”
We walk along the blacktop a spell and then she speaks up, her voice sounding old. “Hey, Carrie? You think Momma’ll ever like me as much as she likes you?”
I don’t reckon she will but I can’t exactly say this to Emma without her feelings being hurt. I mean, it’s one thing to know in your
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heart your momma doesn’t like you that much, it’s another thing to
have someone like your sister spell it out to you clear as day. “Sure,” I say, wishing it were true. “What do you think it’ll take?” “Huh?” I say over my shoulder. “For her to like me,” she says.
I cain’t come up with anything so I just keep my mouth shut, like Gammy says to do iPn you ain’t got anything good that can come out of it. After a spell of walking some more I look back at her.
She was almost finished wiping the tears offher cheeks.
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.)ff[ush!” Momma hisses at us from across the kitchen table. “You be waking Richard up with all your chatter. Now. Look at what I’ve written. Two-hundred and fifty minus ninety-seven. How you suppose we get that?”
“Momma,” I whine at her. “That’s so easy! Take one from the five, making it a four and the zero a ten and then minus seven from the ten, which is three, and carry a one over from the two to make the four a fourteen and minus the nine from the fourteen. Then carry the one that used to be a two down and the answer is one hundred and fifty-three. See? Easy.”
Momma puts her forehead into the palms of her hands and oesn t say anything. But then, from her bowed head she says, Miss Caroline Parker, I have one nerve left and you have worked it to the bone.”
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Her head tilts up and out of praying position. I know this look on her face means she’s starting to forget me again, starting to creep back into the world inside her head. So I talk fast while there’s still a chance she’ll hear me.
“All I need is for you to sign the sheet that says I did what I was s’posed to do,” I tell her. I swear, Emma has it so easy, all she has to do for homework tonight is draw a picture of our house and the four of us out front. Then she has to count how many chair legs there are in our whole house. That’s so easy.
Momma reaches for the sheet from the teacher. “Give it over.” And she signs it and I’m done for the night.
Donford Elementary School is about half the size of our old school, with half the number of kids there, too. Every morning since school started four weeks ago, we walk to the blacktop and turn left and wait for the bus in front of Mr. Wilson’s house. Brownie waits with us every day, rain or shine. I watch from the window seat of the second row while she turns and waddles back up like an old lady, hobbling on her wooden leg back to her spot at the foot of Mr. Wilson’s front stairs until we get home at the end of the day. Mr. Wilson says she knows the sound of the bus and heads down the path to wait until we step off.
“Carrie Parker? You pay attention, now. I saw that note you passed and I will not embarrass you by reading it out loud, but next time I won’t be so kind,” Miss Ricky says.
Here’s what I wrote: Orla Mae, do you like Johnny or what? He keeps looking back at you to find out. Check yes or no at the bottom. And then I drew two boxes, one with “yes” spelled out on top and the other with “no.” But now I’ll have to wait until after math class to find out what
EMMA
her answer is since I can’t risk Miss Ricky getting hold of it and reading it out loud.
Orla Mae rolls her eyes at me from across the row, but I can’t tell if that’s a yes or no. I hope it’s a no on account of the fact that I like Johnny but she knew him first so if she likes him then she has dibs on him.
“So that’s how we do long division,” Miss Ricky says, closing her teacher’s workbook. “For homework y’all need to do practice sections fourteen and fteenall the way through. If you don’t show your work
I will count offofyour homework grade. Is that clear?” “Yes, Miss Ricky,” we answer her. The buzzer sounds and we’re free.
“So? Do you?” I ask Orla Mae while I pile my books on top of one
another in order of their size—biggest on the bottom, smallest on top. “What if I do?” she says.
“That means you do! I lnew it!”
“I didn’t say that,” she says, shushing me so Johnny won’t hear on his way out of the room to the hallway where it’s loud and echoey. “I
think you like him.” “I do not!” “Do, too.”
“What?” Emma scoots up to us outside of the main door to the outside. She always catches up to us when we’re in the middle of a conversation.
“Nothing,” I mutter to her, hoping she’ll scoot away. Now that I’m popular it isn’t so much fun having a baby sister tagging along everywhere I go.
On the bus Orla Mae and I sit together and Emma climbs into the seat right behind us so she can spy on everything we do and say. She
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sits by herself since there are only three other people on the whole entire bus and they spread out across the rows by themselves. Orla Mae and I are the only ones who sit two to a seat. There’s Starlie Tilford, who lives kindly close to school but not close enough to walk. And there’s Will Lawson, whose father is the big boss at the lumber mill. Finally there’s Oren Weaver, who smells bad and had to go to the principal’s office because he threw the chair that almost hit Coralie Coman in the head one day during snack.
Orla Mae’s daddy is one of the bosses at the mill on account of the fact that his own daddy worked there all his life. Turns out she was right about Richard having one of the worst jobs of all.
Richard leaves for work every night after supper. We’re careful not to say a word during the meal ‘cause these days there’s no telling what’ll make Richard madder than he already is. Momma doesn’t sit with us. She’s at the sink or wiping the countertop or passing over some plate of vegetables that won’t get eaten by Emma or me but will get shoveled down by Richard. Then she’s packing up some food for him to eat later on at the mill.