Freedom Train by Evelyn Coleman

Author:Evelyn Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

“No wait! Wait!” Ronnie yelled. “You gotta put your hand over your mouth. What’s wrong with ya? The spider can see you plain as day whilst you holding him up like that.”

“So?”

“You can’t let the spider count your teeth, ’cause you know if he counts your teeth, you gonna die.”

I just stood there looking at him. “What?”

“Trust me, just go on. I know it’ll work. Say the pledge, put the spider in your right hand—that’ll make it seem better—and keep your left hand over your mouth while you do it.”

I shook my head and started over. But even with the writing spider crawling in my right hand and my left hand covering up my teeth, I was still stuttering.

I couldn’t take no more. I said, “Ronnie, don’t you get it? I can’t say this pledge right even in front of you and a stupid spider.”

“Don’t worry. I got other ideas. Now, on to the second part. You know stuff like this gotta be in threes.”

“Stuff like what?”

“You know. Magic stuff. Come on.”

“Where to now?” I asked, letting the spider go free. I wasn’t even believing I was going on with this.

“Butterflies, Clyde. You know how you always say you feel like you got butterflies in your stomach and you gonna throw up?”

“Yeah,” I said, waiting to see if this could get any weirder.

“All we need is to put some butterflies in a jar, and then just before you get ready to talk, you look at them and you see, ‘Hey, they ain’t really in my stomach.’”

“Yeah, well, it’s winter, there ain’t no butterflies.”

“Then, we use a substitute, maybe moths or some other kind of flying bugs might do.”

“It’s dead cold out here. Ain’t no bugs.”

“Okay then, we’ll move on. We save that for if’n you ever have to speak in the spring or summer.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Shook my head. It could get weirder. “And my throwing up?”

He smiled. “That’s the easiest one of all, that’s why it’s tied into number two instead of having a part on its own.”

“Okay,” I said, sighing. “Tell me.”

“You throw up all you got in you before you speak,” he said, shrugging.

“You want me to just start throwing up. Gee whiz.”

“It’s easy. I do it all the time when I don’t want to go to school. You just stick your finger down your throat like this,” he said, demonstrating.

I jumped back. “You’re crazy. I ain’t throwing up. And don’t you throw up neither.”

“Awright,” he said, pulling his finger out of his mouth. “On to number three. The last part give me the most trouble. At first I was thinking we could get a chunk of ice when the ice truck come by and wrap it inside something and put it around your neck to keep the sweat down. But then I remembered you said you wasn’t sweating ’cause you was hot. So that’s when I come up with the best idea of all.”

I dropped my head. “All right, let’s hear it.”

“We gonna find somebody with a baby.

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