Spelldown by Karon Luddy

Author:Karon Luddy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2007-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

15 ame·lio·rate

1: to make better or more tolerable

As I pack my pajamas into the new suitcase, I write the obituary in my head:

Imploded is a better word to describe how my head feels. But at least I have my very own Samsonite suitcase. It’s cherry red with a gray silk lining. Mama gave it to me for Christmas, traded in five books of Green Stamps for it.

It’s a miracle, but we made it through another Christmas. Gloria Jean and Wendell insisted we come to their house on Christmas Day. Mama got pretty emotional when she saw Gloria Jean had cooked the traditional meal: turkey with corn bread dressing, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans with fatback, sweet-potato casserole with marshmallows on top. She even made one of those icebox fruitcakes with graham crackers and condensed milk that you don’t even have to cook. Thank God, Daddy stayed halfway sober.

Finally, it’s the middle of January. Tomorrow is the state spelling bee. As soon as I finish packing, Mama, Daddy, and I are driving to Anderson to stay at Howard Johnson’s, about a hundred miles from here. I press hard on the top of my suitcase and close the latches. There’s a piece of callused skin on my thumb that’s aggravating me, so I yank it off with my teeth. Blood oozes from the tiny rip. I suck my thumb. The blood tastes rusty and sweet.

Since I won the Shirley County Spelldown, my nail-biting habit has gotten a lot worse. Now I’m chewing the skin around my nails. I can’t help it. Mama used to dip my fingers in garlic salt and castor oil to keep me from biting them. But it never worked. Some people pick their noses. Some smoke cigarettes. Some pray too much. Some drink too much. I chew things that aren’t supposed to be chewed. Daddy calls me Chipmunk because I mutilate my pencils.

“Did you pack your pumps?” Mama says, standing at my door, wearing her charcoal gray slacks and white wool sweater. Every hair is in place, lipstick perfectly applied, cheeks lightly rouged. No matter how much Mama gets on my nerves, I always know I’m in the presence of a lady.

“Yes, ma’am, I packed them,” I say, sucking on my wounded thumb.

“Good. What about your new tights?”

“I packed them.”

“Just wanted to make sure.” She walks back to the living room.

Mama’s been in a twitchy mood ever since last night, when she caught me reading Tanya Marie’s Enlightened Guide to Astrology and the Tarot, a thick book I bought at the dime store a while back that also included a deck of tarot cards. She started sermonizing on how it wasn’t good for me to read those hocus-pocus books. Not a single one of them even mention the Lord. I ought to get to the bottom of the religion I was born into instead of dillydallying around with that nonsense, and that since I was born in South Carolina, God intended me to be a Christian. Otherwise, I would have been born in China or India or Africa.

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