Grandma Dowdel 02: A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

Author:Richard Peck [Peck, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humorous, Juvenile Fiction, Young Adult
ISBN: 9781440672729
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

At school we practiced for the Christmas program all month long. Miss Butler couldn’t sing either, but she was a feisty director. After we’d run “Lo, How a Rose” into the ground, she took it off the program. And she wasn’t satisfied with our “Once in Royal David’s City.” She took the Christmas program personally, as teachers do.

We had our stage props now: a radiating tinfoil star and one of those mangers you see in Nativity scenes and nowhere else. Baby Jesus was a battered doll with eyes that opened and closed. It was Ina-Rae’s. She said she’d had it when she was little, but the rumor was that she still played with it.

I had a sheet shawl and drapings. Carleen Lovejoy looked straight out of Hollywood in her satin gown and wings as head angel. But other people whined that they weren’t nearly set for the big night. In a rehearsal both Johnson boys went bone-white and fainted. They had bad cases of stage fright, though they were only shepherds.

Grandma naturally took no interest, even when I complained to her about Carleen Lovejoy’s halo. It was all tinsel and practically lit up. Grandma was busy. But then I wouldn’t have taken her for a Christmas kind of woman anyway.

Still, one day after school I found her poring over mail-order catalogues. She handed me the one from Sears, open to “Fashions in Footgear for the Junior Miss and the Younger Active Woman.”

“Pick you out a pair,” she said.

“Grandma, do I get a Christmas present?” I said, to test her.

“You need shoes,” she said. “Otherwise you’ll be binding your feet in rags to get through the winter, like Valley Forge.”

I considered every pair on every page, trying them on in my mind. A lot rode on my decision. These shoes had to go everywhere I went. And there’d be room in the toes, which made my heart sing.

Grandma had long grown restless when I finally made my choice. They had to be practical, with a closed toe. And still being fifteen, I wanted something a little older, with a Cuban heel. I knew they’d have to lace up, or Grandma wouldn’t go for them. I checked off a pair—gunmetal gray to go with everything.

Grandma considered my choice. The toothpick hovered. “That them?” she said at last. “Whoooeee, two dollars and seventy-five cents.” Her eyes filled her spectacles. “I remember when you could shoe a whole family and the horse for that money.”

But then we drew paper patterns around my feet to send back for the right size. She filled out the order form with the toothpick aslant in the corner of her mouth. She stamped the return envelope. That’s the only time I ever saw her use a stamp.

Later, I caught her studying the catalogue from Lane Bryant: “Winter and Spring of 1938 Modes for the Fuller-Figured Woman.” But I stole away without a word.

The days slipped faster off the December calendar. Tension mounted at school, and both Johnson brothers were often absent.

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