Darby

Author:Jonathon Scott Fuqua [FUQUA, JONATHON SCOTT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7426-7
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2014-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

After dinner, our telephone rang, which was real rare. Daddy answered it in the hallway. Shortly, his feet clicked on the stairs and he stood in my doorway.

“Darby?” he said, holding a glass of water.

“Yes, Daddy?”

“You get to have Beth stay for the weekend.”

Excited, I put down my book. “Really?” I said, smiling.

“Yeah,” he answered weakly. Then, looking like he was thinking real hard, he turned away.

On Friday after school, me and Beth sat in the back seat of the Chevrolet and watched McCall’s friends leap off the car. Once we were unloaded of boys, we picked up speed, flicking up rocks against the fenders. Outside of town, we shot along between the fields and distant, distant trees that remind me of pussy willows brushing back and forth. Driving, McCall glanced into the rearview mirror and asked Beth a question. “Are your parents scared for you to stay home?”

She answered, “It’s just that they wanna know who threw the brick.”

“What’d the note say?”

“Daddy didn’t tell.”

McCall drove on, then asked, “You think your daddy could punch out Mr. Dunn?”

“Yeah,” Beth told him. “I expect he could beat up anybody ’cause he boxed when he went to the Citadel college.”

To be nice, I grabbed one of Beth’s hands.

She squeezed mine back.

McCall asked, “You think it was the KKK?”

Beth shrugged. “I suppose.”

McCall banged a palm against the steering wheel. “Do you know what your daddy done to make ’em mad?”

“I don’t,” she answered, her voice so soft it caught up in the breeze and seemed nearly to disappear.

At Ellan, me and Beth marched up to my room and changed from our school clothes. Collecting some books and paper off my shelf, we carried them downstairs, where Annie Jane gave us sugar cookies for a snack. Pulling on our coats, we dashed down to the backyard, where we went into the Darby and Beth School. Shutting the door, we swept the floor. Then we wiped down two bashed school desks we pretended our imaginary students sat in. Up at the front of the class, we put the books and paper on a rickety table and got ready to play like we were in a schoolhouse full of kids.

Taking a piece of chalk, Beth wrote arithmetic problems on a shard of broken blackboard.

With a stick, I tapped on one of the desks. “Attention. Attention, class. Hey! Hey now, Rodney Phipps, you best listen when I’m talking. You hear? You of all people. You didn’t do your arithmetic again, so you shouldn’t oughta be wasting your time.”

“That’s right,” Beth said, “you’re gonna fail now. We got no choice. As hard as your mama and daddy work to bring you up right, it’s a shame you’re letting ’em down.”

Circling one of the desks, I talked in a sweet voice. “Now, Emily, you’re a different story. Last night I looked over your test from yesterday, and I see that you got everything right. Isn’t that something? See what studying your homework can do for you? It can make you real smart.

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