Me and Rupert Goody by Barbara O'Connor

Author:Barbara O'Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

Back at the store, Curtis Rathman and Rob Sanders were waiting on customers. That kind of got my goat, but I guess they was just trying to help. I told them how Uncle Beau was and then asked about Rupert.

“He’s locked hisself in that old shed back yonder and won’t come out for nothing,” Curtis said. “You better go check on him, Jennalee. He’ll listen to you.”

Just then my brother Vernon came busting in. “Jennalee, where you been?” he snapped, real bossy-like.

“Uncle Beau got struck by lightning,” I said.

Vernon’s face softened and he moved closer to me. For a minute I thought he was going to hug me, but then he looked down at my feet and said, “Damn.”

“Like you care!” I hollered. Everything went all blurry through my tears and I blinked real hard.

Vernon ruffled my hair and jiggled my shoulder. “Aw, come on, Jennalee.”

I slapped his hand away. “You don’t know nothing about Uncle Beau,” I said, throwing my arms out at Vernon. “For your information, he ain’t hot to trot!”

I glared at him. The corners of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile, and I balled my fists up just in case he did. But he set a serious look on his face.

“You got to go on home,” he said. “Mama’s been looking for you all day.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I got to look after the store.”

“Me and Rob can take care of things here, Jennalee,” Curtis said. “Besides, it’s closing time anyhow.”

“I got to bring in the bargain table and give Jake a doughnut and button the door.” I knew my voice was sounding a bit riled up. I tried to tone things down a bit. “Uncle Beau said he don’t want nobody but me to mind the store.” There. Nothing like a bold-faced lie to tone things down.

Curtis looked at Rob, who looked at Vernon, who looked at Curtis.

“You can’t run the store by yourself, Jennalee,” Vernon said.

“I can, too!” They didn’t know nothing about the store. I was the one who did the pricing and emptied the bottle caps and dusted off the Indian souvenirs.

Vernon took my arm, but I jerked away. “Get on out of here!” I hollered.

Jake jumped up and trotted over, wagging his tail. He cocked his head and looked at me like I’d gone loco. Seeing his sad eyes made me remember Uncle Beau laying there in a hospital bed with chicken hair and I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

I sat on the couch and cried till I was plumb cried out. When I could finally look up and take stock of things around me, Curtis and Rob were gone and Vernon was trying to pull the bargain table through the door.

“Not like that!” I jumped up and showed him how to do it. “Vernon, I know how to do all this,” I said. “Y’all just messing things up being here.”

“You ain’t running this store by yourself, Jennalee,” Vernon said. “So you can help me do it or you can get your skinny butt on home.

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