I can’t think of a single day where being on that dusty road wasn’t a time-honored occurrence. Every time, I’d always think to myself, I’ve never thanked Pete for getting me all riled up about the prospect of crossing a streak of red ribbon called a finish line. The tenseness of the moment would be so taught it wouldn’t seem able of being snipped, he had said. But by the lightning speed of your body you’d go tearing through it and the ribbon would lash you, with a sting just long enough for you to know you’d won. It couldn’t have been better said by anyone but Pete. He was gifted in the rare art of knowing things so good and well and I could never keep up. But I so desperately wanted that lashing, winning feeling of a scarlet-trimmed finish line; so much that I could almost imagine it hugging my body in happy returns when the dusty road was all said and done beneath my feet. I even started having good dreams. Ones where I was the hero of the day. In those cases Fear didn’t have to do anything but look on with the satisfaction that at last I learned how not to be afraid. I got to thinking it was waiting all along, leaning against me like it was in a casual old speakeasy on the Western front. A speakeasy about how long I would take to be older and not have to be rescued every single dad-gum night.
In my dreams I lived and breathed the orange clay track before me. I never stopped staring at the horizon of ribbon. When the blanks fired I shot off the starting block fast as an impala and never stopped, never stopped, never stopped until my body sliced through the horizon and I was a heap on the track and people started running up to pat my cheeks and kiss them. I thought to myself, where be my competition? I looked all around me and there was only the white sky bearing down on the clay and grey steam rising up from my leaden feet. But I didn’t feel leaden, I felt all royal and queen-like, looking backwards at the ribbon now hugging the ground with caboodles of friction. There were no other runners on the track. I turned back around and saw Pete looming over me, smiling with closed lips. Everybody else had run off to carry on with whatever lives they had shortly set aside, I supposed. I asked Pete, where be my competition? He said, it’s you, Bronwyn. Don’t you get it? You’re the only one competing.
And then I wake up, cursing myself to high heaven, wishing I could have had the dream where I didn’t get all confused and I won and that was the end of it. Besides, I didn’t like the Pete in my dreams. The Pete Upchurch I knew would give it to me straight, not puzzle me with senseless allegories.
Once the spoken-about mosey down south was decidedly put into instigation, my running dreams ended quicker than they had begun, and Fear returned, with a good amount of exasperation involved, I’m sure. What we had to do was simple, but I simply didn’t want to do it. When I would say that to Mama she’d tan me, sure, but I didn’t let so much as a tear dribble out of my eyelids. I wouldn’t allow it. And I never did. Even if I was to steal a dollar or two out of Pop’s wallet to go to Coin Laundry and buy a Coke, I’d take the objectionable stings as they came. I approximate that it was about this time that Pete and me launched into mischief. Stealing a dollar wasn’t impressive, Pete said. Anyone could steal a dollar. It took a real Charlie Chaplin to prioritize in risks. And so we planned and convoluted in the confines of Pete’s ten-by-twelve bedroom, brewing up a storm of what I called tomfoolery, a word which unbeknownst to Pete I had found in the dictionary Mama kept on the top shelf of her hutch desk but what he thought I knew from brains alone.
Pete and me ended up with the most confounding idea we had ever outdone ourselves with. I was nine, and he was eleven. One-and-a-half-years’ difference of sheer inventive power. It would have some number on Pop and Mama, busy scrabbling about painting walls and giving the shed a once-over with the sand block, but we didn’t care none.
“We’ll need a meter-long plank from Harvey’s, a packet of nails, possibly screws, and those little see-saw undersides,” Pete had said. Half of this stuff was alien-like to me. A see-saw underside? For that bit I figured he just couldn’t name the flat timber spikes that went under the boards. Not that they were called flat timber spikes. Whatever they were, they’d be mighty hard for a skinny nine-year-old to acquire without bumps and bruises involved. And I doubted I’d be discreet enough to not get caught. For a minute I just wanted to burst out of the house and speed away like I liked doing. But I couldn’t leave my brother just when we’d come up with the biggest thing of our lives. Not Pete. Mayhap Charlie, but not Pete. Pete had shown me the goods of running, which I’d not soon forget.
“I reckon you’ll be coming with me?” I said, not wanting to hear a no. If I heard a no, my love for Pete would most definitely be muted for a long, long while.
“Well…since you’re still little, I reckon so,” he said. I let my breath go, until he said, “I’d rather be there to tell you when to leave well enough alone, since you obviously can’t do it your darned self, than get caught and be hauled in for a good Mama’s-hidin’.” Then that little goblin grinned and took off before I could catch him and give him a what-for with my fists.

Our good plan failed us, of course. Even my greatness at running couldn’t save us from the enormity of the whoopings we received. It wasn’t even a hiding any more. It was a full-on, belt-snapping whooping, where tears are in abundance and you can’t keep them back. And Pop was the deliverer. So it was already caboodles worse than Mama’s. Pete and me had snuck over to Harvey’s in full awareness of the daylight, and went inside and stuffed nail packets into our waistbands. Luke Harvey didn’t see us from behind the shop counter and we had thanked Sweet Jesus for that, thinking we’d finish like planned. But that thing called karma didn’t mean a thing to us, since we didn’t know about it yet. Boy, I wish we had. We’d have saved our skins, to be sure. The planks were a problematic thing to even think of stealing. I said to Pete, “Mayhap this wasn’t the greatest idea after all,” to which he offered over a curt shhh with more shoving than necessary down the general area of my throat. I shut up quick. When Pete does something like that, you know he’s far too caught up in the web he spun and far too obstinate to wrest free. It annoyed the living daylights out of me, to say the utter least. And I hated him for it.
We ambled on back to Pop’s shed, lugging the wood and feeling ten pounds weightier. Pete told me to bring out Pop’s big hammer, the one we were always told to leave alone. Could break a foot, that thing could. It was metal-plated and roughly the size of the bottom half of my body. But I couldn’t let Pete down. I dragged it with all my might and landed a meter away from where we’d laid the planks down, letting up swirls of brown dust. Pete’s absent-minded description had left us without a see-saw underside, so we couldn’t be very flexible in building the thing. I knew it wouldn’t work anyways. If we had gotten it it’d have worked just like a see-saw and I knew that wouldn’t be quite right. So my mind brought up a thing called improvisation. A beautiful word. A verb, I think it is. And it works wonders for child-minded mischief. ‘Course, my dictionary didn’t go very far in lengths back then.
I told Pete, “How about we use Pop’s buzz-saw and shave a foot or two off that plank there, and then drill in some nails underneath?” I knew Pete was thinking that’d make this whole jumping thing more perilous once we got it finished, since the plank would be shorter, but we didn’t have anything else. The only thing we did have, and less of now, was time. I think that’s how he sought out the sense in my plan.

“Yeah…I see where you’re coming from there,” he said finally. “You’re bout right. Let’s do it.”
And so we did. I dragged out the buzz-saw, nearly doing away with my tiny little fingers in the process, and as I was coming up to Pete I heard a snap, short and terse-like.

“The darned plug,” Pete grumped. “Quick, shove it back in the corner.” I did like he said and clambered out with the hand-saw. Once he saw me with it he snatched it summarily and told me to stand clear of the plank. I offered over my grand idea of each of us gripping a side of the saw for leverage, and he asked in response why I figured he was in charge and not me. Watching Pete handle a saw was a humorous undertaking, to be sure. It took eighteen slices to even get a groove in the stubborn, mulish wood. Foolish and mulish, like you, Pete, I remember thinking. When the plank gave and a segment plopped to the earth that’s when we heard the shouts and yells from the house. Pete froze, the saw blade wiggling in his hand, and I think he even said one of those curse words that Mama forbade us from saying. Pop dashed up and snatched the blade right quick from Pete while Mama shook my shoulders and asked what we were doing. There was a glint of fright somewhere, sitting there in the corner of her black eyes, as she glanced at Pop clutch Pete’s face while his mouth belched fountains of spit. He was asking questions, I think. Asking where we got the nails and screws and where in high heaven we got the plank. But generally unmovable Pete was shocked to the bone and didn’t say a word, so Pop let go and assessed it himself.

“Luther, look at the packaging,” Mama said in her granular voice. She’d let go of me, I guess, and strolled over to where we laid our trash.
“This stuff’s from Luke Harvey’s place.”
I supposed by that point it didn’t matter where anything had come from. He delivered a spiteful look and caught us both by the collars of our shirts. Pete glared at me in a petrified way and that got me feeling a strange sense of strength around my head or thereabouts. I was too dogged to be moved by the onslaught of pain. I just kept thinking to myself, when it’s over, it’s over. I could have told Pete. I could have whispered to him while Pop was busy shuffling to the back room to retrieve his strapping leather girdle. Don’t give him the satisfaction, I could have said. Yes, we are the wrongdoers. We are the receivers of karma and all those darned things we can’t possibly understand in the fullest. But the world can’t say what we can and can’t do. Mama and Pop can, but the world hasn’t got a thing on how smart we are. For the record, our idea was a circus act. Since Pete was heavier by fifteen or sixteen pounds he’d leap off a ladder while I stood on one end of the plank. I’d go sailing in the air and he’d run off the ladder and catch me before I could get broken bones of any sort. Of course five years after it was looked at as being nonsensical and a thing where you have a good laugh at yourself as you were in all your farcical glory, while drinking a Mellow Yellow with a friend or two.
I’m not up to thinking my speech would have done so much as a sliver of help to Pete’s trepidation. These days he keeps as far away from the word tomfoolery as possible, the whooping scared him so much. The only good thing to surface was the joyous thing that the nightmares left me alone, for good this time. Mostly because of the fact that for once I wasn’t scared about something that should have made me leap out of my own skin. Mostly because I finally figured out that it was my skin I’d be leaping out of. It was the first murder I ever committed. The first radical kill; my fear, shot in a Western show of revolvers and pistols. But frankly the notion that I’d have to do it again was considerably tragic. I swear, it was the big move that done it. The prospect of leaving a place as familiar as my own two legs and driving miles and miles to some foul place where I’d decide I wanted to go back. No more nightmares, sure, but I’d bring them all rolling back if only we could stay. There could be possibilities for Charlie, of course there could. She could save the world right from our wood house with the refreshed paint and splintering lath. It could be done.
Our dear old house was betrothed to a crusty woman with wrinkly, gristly skin and her crusty husband encumbering a singed beard. Said he was a veteran, the man did. Before we left we all got up to talking and I found that stricken place in my heart to love these timers. I got to liking the old man the most. I think his name was Truman. Said he liked to be called by his surname. They invited us inside for a chat and some coffee and cookies, the same coffee and cookies we’d made for them as a welcoming gift in the form of palatability. It showed we weren’t getting any younger in our good taste. As I said I liked the man the best of both; he showed a little magic with his Liberty Head silver dollar, making it appear out of Pete’s ear and from the delves of my hair. Then he got to talking about his piloting, how the cockpit of his P-47 Mustang felt like a slice of his Mama’s home-cooked pie, proverbial and deliciously tantalizing. That’s when his wife Judie guffawed and slapped his knee with love in her eyes. I supposed she knew how evocative he was being; mayhap even how much of a tall tale this was, even for two saucer-eyed children.

Being on the road was a mistake, no doubt. Even though Pete swore off to tomfoolery things like that have a way of coming back, ‘especially in congested areas like on the vinyl seats of an ’85 Volkswagen rust bucket. I remember watching Charlie drift off then prodding her side till she woke up with groggy, red-rimmed eyes, asking with sleepy frustration what was the big deal. I would only point to Pete and say, “It was him! He did it!” to which Pete would say, “Liar!” and we’d cat-fight over the seats and across Charlie’s lap. It was the most conventional of child bickering and most likely in rides where the destination doesn’t show itself till the late hours of night-time. Mama and Pop were lucky enough to capture a few moments of quiet time where Pete and me would be staring out at the cows and sheep and miles of vacuous, brilliant sky. But in those moments awful thoughts were brewing up inside of me. The dusty road where my feet had come to at last find agreement with each other was now long gone, all the way back in Arkansas. I’d likely never see it again. Now here we were, crossing countryside land with not a living soul in sight, off to a place I’d never thought to think of. And for what? I wondered. Because Charlie’s all big and grown and she need space to help save the world. But how can she save the world? How she figure the world’s going to listen to her? She just a girl from Abilene.
But then there was another thought in there somewhere, a little one I didn’t want to believe out the obduracy that I didn’t ask to be put in that car, that I didn’t ask to leave the only thing I knew to be set as a pawn somewhere else; a thought that mayhap there’d be an orange clay track and a red-ribbon finish line that I’d get to cross as a privilege for being kidnapped away.

The place was called Prudence. More candidly unspoken than Abilene; people came to telling that they take pride in being a quiet portion of the States. There were the essentials, sure, but not stopped with big city folk and large buildings and clean-swept streets. Pete’s first words were a wary question: “This is it?” We’d woken up out of a fidgety sleep to Mama’s hand shaking our knees. But to my shock Mama chuckled and said, “No, sweetheart. We’re stopping at the Motel Six for the night.” I scrambled off a quick prayer of thanks to Sweet Jesus and squinted through the compacted darkness. From above us a vast sign declared, “MOTEL 6: YOUR NUMBER-ONE STOP FOR SLEEP ON THE GO.” It glowed with a sea of rainbow colors; lime and burgundy and electric orange. If I’d been awake I’d have seen it towering over the sky from a long ways back, trading color streaks every second or two. I glanced over and saw that Charlie was still sleeping. She’d gotten a good haul, for sure. She’d not be disappointed to be woken. But like the boy who cried wolf she didn’t believe a word I said and kept right on sleeping. That is, until Pop’s stringent voice rang out from the front seats ordering her awake. I had a good smile at that one.
Inside there was a man, a strange man with china-white skin, who handed over the brass key to our room. He and Pop struck up a talk right quick. It was something about politics and the implausible grievances it offered to us all. Then it was about the city, how the people took pride in it being clandestine.

“We don’t get too many tourists ‘round in these parts,” he said. “Best it keep its enigma, if you get me.”

“Yeah, I getcha fine,” Pop said. He sounded a little strained. “We ain’t tourists, though. Just from outta town, passing through.”

“Oh, is ya? What ya’ll up to, huh?” He looked at Pop, and it could’ve been just me, but he seemed to expect to be told a viable answer else he’d not let us in, or not let us stay in Prudence at all. It was then that I reminded myself he’d already bestowed the key.

“Moving on, is all,” Pop said. There was an evil, breaking silence. “Nice talking to you.”

“Me as well,” said the man in a slight voice. He watched our every move as we hoisted our belongings and dragged over to the staircase. Once out of earshot, up the stairs at door three-eleven, Mama chopped up the silence with her voice.

“I didn’t like that man, Luther,” she said. The tremor in her voice delivered a paroxysm of fright through my body. Was my Mama scared? I’d never seen the like. A Mama’s supposed to be the protector and the one who braves the evil. Not the one upset by it. I wanted to leave, and I wanted to leave right then. I didn’t care if no one followed. I just wanted out. Goodbye Pete, Goodbye Charlie, Goodbye Mama, Goodbye Pop. Goodbye Prudence. See you in heaven, I thought. But I didn’t leave. I stayed and kept quiet about it and forgot why Mama was scared. When I forgot about that I forgot to be scared with her. A lot of good it did, being afraid and worried like I was. That is to say, it had none.
The sun woke me the next day in place of Mama’s cold hand. I’d shared the bed with Pete and Charlie, and having scooted over to the far side my legs and feet were aching. I poked my stomach just for the pleasure of seeing it ripple like water. Mama and Pop weren’t up yet. The sight of them was heavenly, watching their arms wrapped up and their faces catching the sun’s glint. I looked over at Pete and Charlie. Pete was scrunched in a ball facing away and Charlie was splayed out underneath the sheets, facing away. Charlie, with her bronzed caramel skin looked nothing like a sister to Pete. They were different colors. I matched Charlie’s more than anything. That was a strange thing, I figured, since I was always out in the thrashing sun, and more than Pete, at that. Sometimes things just don’t make sense like they should.
I slid out of the bed and dressed in the balled-up jeans and blouse gathering wrinkles on the floor. If I was hungry, by God I’d have food. Frankly the notion of leaving didn’t scare me none. I’d be back in one state or the other, and soon. Mayhap equipped with muffins and fruit. That was favored. I slipped out and pattered down the black staircase and went into the lobby. All around me were chairs for sitting and coffee tables with no steaming mugs atop the glass, which is what I’d figure if something were to be called a coffee table. The dang nerve, I thought. I looked over at the desk where the man had been the last night and sighed in guilt-flooded relief when I saw he wasn’t there. Mayhap he’d be eating breakfast. In that case he could tell me where to get some. That’s when I decided to go searching for him, despite the fact that he scared my Mama and gave tenseness to Pop. With tender-feet I went on back behind the counter, where sat a room with its door gaped wide open. I peeked a look around the corner before heading in. I saw rows of shelves lining a white wall. Heard grey linoleum floors producing echoes under my feet. Felt astringent air close and heavy on my skin.

“Hello?” I said. It was just like in the movies. A curious little girl going into a place where what she found would be entirely on her. But I could hardly blame myself. At the time I thought it necessary. Bizarrely, though, I didn’t give a second of thought about my hunger. Isn’t too important, when curiosity is right there before you and there is a chance you can find something that’ll be etched in your mind, never to go away. But I’m being idealistic. I’d never imagined a crazy thing as that when I walked into the room. I wanted Lorna Dune shortbread cookies, not a whole bunch of senseless allegories. Like my dreams. If I’d been thinking of it, I’d have thought to myself, stop being the Pete Upchurch you hate from your dreams. You just a silly girl looking for food. And you’re from Abilene, not from Prudence.
No one answered my soft little hello. It echoed across the room and bounced off the shelves, greeting the blankets and pillows lying there. I reached up to touch one particularly fat pillow I’d seen, wanting to see the hole burrow into the middle. I suppose I couldn’t help wanting to see something stupid as that. A little inane, I was. That’s when I heard the man-like voice behind me. It wasn’t just like a man, though. It was one. The man from the last night. When I turned I wanted to scream but didn’t, knowing I’d be fooling myself. He should’ve been more surprised, seeing as it was a strange little black girl rooting about in his utility closet. To be true I felt defeated. I’d gotten nothing but trouble. And I could see it already: Pop’s belt crashing down on my backside, red marks creeping up my body.

“What’re you doing back here?” he had said.

“I—I was—”

“Come here, you.” He got a hold of my collar and tugged me out of the room, a little harsher than I’d have liked from a man his size. It only meant he was capable of anything and that wasn’t good news for me. The man plucked up a paper and shoved it right up to my eyes. Stunned into submission I did nothing. Didn’t kick his shins, scream for Mama, nothing.

“See this here?” he said. “Can you read that? Huh? Can you read it?”

“Yes, yessir,” I said.

“Read it. Out loud so’s I can hear.”

“Uh—” I swallowed, squinted and read. “Jerry Rand’s farmed—I mean, famed—Motel Six. Your number-one stop for—”

“That’s right. Says Jerry Rand’s Motel Six. Not Tamaqua’s Motel Six. Cause that’s your name, right? Tamaqua?”

“My name’s Bronwyn Upchurch,” I said. It’s a shame I didn’t understand these things, about stereotype and how they hint at a thing called bigotry. I just didn’t know, my darned self. Wish I had, like a load of other things. All I could register was the man’s beady-eyed stare and his callused hands on my shirt-collar.

“Well, I suggest you get on out of here, Tamaqua, before I get you out in my own fashion.”
He released me and I scurried away quickly. Never again would I be so bold.

When we had left the Motel Six the man said nothing about our encounter to Pop or to Mama. Just watched as we stumbled out the door and kept watching until our car was far out of sight. My shock at being captured by the man was something of a realization for me, and no matter how much I tried to look past it, it kept on sidling up to me, whispering.
It was a realization that being as intrepid as I had been would not work any longer. I’d figured such a while back but it didn’t strike me as important then. It’s what led to all my getting into trouble and all my whoopings. So right then and there, leaning against the car door and leaving smudges on the spotted windows, I decided to make another radical kill: the nerve I had to commit such dim-witted acts.
I remember smiling to myself that day, thinking how fun it was to be mature like this. I was practically a Charlie’s-age grownup, making her own life-amending pronouncements. I was so pleased that I almost woke up Pete, who was lying with his dark head in Charlie’s lap, so deeply asleep that he wouldn’t have noticed if a tornado barreled through the ugly little town we were now in the process of leaving. I didn’t think we’d ever come back. If we had, I’d have had a word or two to say to that Jerry Rand.
I fell asleep without knowing it a quarter-hour later, waking up to the engine’s consoling hum and the sun bursting through my eyelids. I peered timidly out the window and was stunned to my core to see a large carnival Ferris wheel looming big and tall over the horizon.

“Pete, wake up! Pete!” it was a hushed whisper, but fierce and demanding. I slapped his leg with the heel of my palm. The action jolted his bones, startling him awake.

“What?” he grumped, frowning. I seized his elbow unsympathetically and yanked him in the direction of the window. Pete gasped, eyes swelling like brown-and-white balloons.

“Mama, where are we?” I asked, while Pete continued to gape. He couldn’t quite believe it either. We’d both heard about such spectacles in the books we read at school, but had never seen it with our own two eyes. It was as much fantasy as each of us could muster to think that the wheels would be twenty feet tall to the naked eye, though some of that could have been due to our shortness in stature. But to see its full size was impeccably brilliant.

“We’re in Georgia,” Mama answered, her voice encumbering a smile. “Welcome home, children.” I beamed and stared out the window, battling heads with Pete, who wanted to see also.
We passed miles-long peach orchards and cattle farms, oohing and aahing over the things we very well knew we’d already seen; somehow this time was different, with the knowledge that this place, leaking with grandiose, would be the place we’d call our own. The place we’d store steadfast memories. The very place we’d, most hopefully, gather like one of those good old families round a warm fireplace and share laughter and toast to our successes.
I ventured a quick thought about Truman, whose first name I’d never been privileged to know, and his wife Judie. I wondered how they were getting on in our bygone piece of joy. I wondered if they’d already discovered the discreet rupture in the bathroom piping.
We drove out a little ways from a curved green sign announcing the town limits of Appling and advanced further and further into what we all called home back up in the North: content loneliness. People regularly define being lonely as a bad thing, but I say different, and with fierce conviction, at that. Being lonely means no nosy passersby to worry yourself with, with the exception of the occasional traveler looking to get a piece of what you have. It’s a good thing.
In the town there were churches with towering steeples along the roadside, sometimes hidden away behind gatherings of trees and sometimes in plain sight near general stores advertising cigars and cigarettes.
Our house was a coupla miles from the nearest Texaco or intermediate school, up a winding, snaking road caressing lumbering giants called mountains. While Charlie dozed, Pete and me gaped at the orange-colored trees gaping back at us, restrained by the road and its metal balustrade. Meanwhile my heart bounced around in my chest, in fearful anticipation of the house. But I could tell Pete was oodles more eager, by the way he wiggled in his seat and stretched his neck to take in every facet of everything, even the purplish pebbles in the dirt, which he pointed out with intense zeal.
I caught Mama and Pop grinning to each other as we went on and on about the wide sky and the mountains and the trees, and I could read their smiles like a novel: we made the right decision, eh? Darn right we did.
Minutes later the car banked left and struggled up a sudden hill, screaming as it went. Pop brought the car to a quiet standstill on the concrete drive and we all swung open our doors, with the exception of Charlie, who Mama was working hard at. I left her to her business and stepped out the car, followed by Pete and then Pop.
“Would you look at that,” Pop said breathily. He folded his arms and stared hard. I had to lean my head back to get a good look, the house was so large. It was three-storied and boxy looking, with jutting balconies overlooking a sea of green grass. One the house, everything was white, except the black-glass windows looking like hollow caves against a white hill.
“Evelyn, you’ve to see this,” Papa was saying. I caught a glimpse of him dragging Mama out by the cranny of her arm before Pete tugged on my shirt sleeve, beseeching me.
“Bronwyn, can you believe this?”
“No, I can’t, just like you,” I said, smiling, remembering what I’d thought about each of our differences in skin. “We’re one in the same, Pete.”

My room was large, even larger than my petite niche back in Abilene. The room’s end was shaped like a five-sided figure, with three looking-windows peering out to the vast lawn. I saw immense probability in that lawn, something to keep Pete and me quite busy for the remainder of the summer.

A bronze-wire bed frame and a white mattress lay facing the left wall in the center of the room. Mama said it’d been left by the old owners, “for our expediency,” as she’d kindly put it. I found it uneasy to think that some young child had lain in the very spot I’d be nestling my body. If I looked properly, I could just see the indentation of a small body in the middle or thereabouts, sunken in by time.
The whole house was murky inside. All the electricity had been shot, as Pop saw after checking the circuit-breakers.

“Well, Clare, looks like we’ll be needin some wax-candles,” Pop had quietly to Mama, while Pete and Charlie shrieked about the size of their rooms, and I was busy dropping eaves, hiding round a corner.

“There’s a General Store about five miles from here,” Mama said, even quieter than Pop. “I don’t know how soon we’ll be getting an electrician, so we should get a good bundle for the long run, just in case.”
My heart sagged. No light for weeks? The furniture was mighty nice of the family, sure, but leaving electricity would’ve been even nicer.

“Take Charlie with you, if she’ll go,” Pop said, his voice still deep. “She’ll be glad to help with the load, or should be. I ain’t gonna tolerate indolence from that child after all this trouble.”

I wanted to ask, “What does indolence mean?” but then they’d know I was spying. I could only take a gander in guessing that it meant sitting around, or in Charlie’s case, sleeping. I beamed to myself. You’ve hit the bee on the stinger, Bronwyn. Pop doesn’t want Charlie to be lazy. He wants her up and moving so she can go and be a difference.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mama said. Then they stopped talking and rounded the bend, quicker than I could scamper away, or at least hide in the squat closet beneath the stairs, which had already been scrupulously explored.

They caught me, red-handed, my knobby knees shaking and my eyes wider than a dinner-plate.

“Bronwyn, what are you doing?” Mama asked admonishingly, her hands balled in fists on her wide hips. Pop gave me a curious look.

“I…I was—”

“Aren’t you supposed to be unpacking?”

“I know what we can do,” I blurted. “About the lights. In the mornings, we can… open the shutters.” To be true the answer just leapt out at me and rose up in my face; I hadn’t been thinking it when I started listening. But Mama didn’t know it, and Pop certainly didn’t.

“She’s right, Eve,” he said, and ran his hand over my head a single time. He did this when he thought I’d said something smart. Although, for this initiative, it didn’t take much brains.

“Open the shutters in the day, close ‘em at night, then light the candles.”
Mama let in a smile.

“Yeah. I’ll admit. But next time, Bronwyn,” she said, “If you have something to say, don’t nose round. There’s no need for that. Hear?”

“Yes, Mama,” I said. “I hear.”
After escaping that debacle I moseyed upstairs to my room and dished out my books onto the timber bookcase by the window. A novel place for a bookcase, I suppose, when you want to select a book and sit out on the cushions lining the sill to read, and take in a sliver or two of knowledge.

I was sliding the books into neat places when I heard footsteps near the door, observably Pete’s light, hushed ones. Without moving I said,

“I’m busy, Pete.”

I heard him scoff, and I grinned at that, knowing I’d made him a bit put out with my discovering he was there sneaking behind me. Other times he’d succeeded in scaring me, but I’d vowed to never again let it happen.

“How’d you know?” he asked, and I let silence answer. Figuring he wasn’t going to get an answer, he said, “I’m bored, Bronwyn. I’m aching from sitting in that darned car, and my feet hurt.”

“How’s that my business?” I said, fingering the spine of my Betsy book before sidling it in beside Ramona Quimby.

“It ain’t, but that’s not the deal,” he replied. He strolled up beside me and sat cross-legged on the floor, lifting a book from the cardboard carton.
“Look, you know how we decided to put a stop to that dumb stuff we were off doing?”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“I figure it ain’t gonna do no harm to carry that vow in this place.”
I turned and stared deeply at his eyes.

“So, what’s your point?”
He moistened his white-chapped lips and set the book in my flat, outspread palm. I didn’t like him touching my books.

“My point is, that there’s loads better things to do here.”
I sighed. I loved Pete most of the time, but not right at this moment. There was something behind those eyes, something he knew and was craving to divulge. And I was darn sure I knew.

“Pete, I’ve sworn off to foolishness just like you have,” I said. I watched him, checking if I was wrong about him. Mayhap he didn’t know.

“I think you need a little warning, is all,” he said, looking at me closely. “If you get into trouble again, Mama and Pop are gonna blame me for being the ringleader. I ain’t letting that happen. Hear?”
A sick feeling spread through my stomach like glaze and butter. Pete knew what happened at the Motel Six. He knew I left the room and got caught by the big man. How he did, I couldn’t be sure. But all I did know is that I had a newfound respect for the boy. Mayhap he was vouching to protect me. Could be for selfish reasons, could be to keep me right for the future. Those things he didn’t divulge. He just kept on looking and looking.
“Yeah,” I said gruffly. “Whatever you say, Pete.”
He thumped me on the back.

“Atta girl.”
I wanted so desperately to tell him I’d already sworn off inanity, but didn’t want him to be let down. He was trying to be all big-brotherly, thinking he could make a difference, and mayhap he wasn’t too far off in thinking that. But still, I knew.

When he left, after a short smile, I thought back to the fact that if I’d woken him in the car and said, you know what, Pete? From now on, I’m gonna be smart and do right, the whole state of affairs would’ve been side-stepped. But since I didn’t, Pete had gained something. Something small, but something nonetheless: the knowledge that he’d grown up, big enough to teach his kid sister the way to be good and righteous and holy and all those other complicated things. Because he’d learned. I can’t be sure if it happened after the whooping, or if he’d cultivated it all this way and time, but it was there.
“If Pete can grow up so big,” I said to myself, glaring fiercely out the window, “Then so can I. I don’t have to be ten years old anymore.”
And I wasn’t. After all this time being a ten-year-old from Abilene, I wouldn’t be anymore. I’d be a sixteen-year-old from Appling. It was a crazy, stupid, daunting idea, but by God I’d be that girl.

Charlie wasn’t at all pleased to be dragged along to the General Store, to say the positive least.

“Why can’t Peter do it?” she’d whined, her eyebrows slanted. I never did understand why she couldn’t just call him ‘Pete’ like the rest of us. She sought out every opportunity to be different and it annoyed me to stark pieces.

“Or Bronwyn. Take Bronwyn. She doesn’t mind, right, sweet-heart?”
She cupped my cheeks in her hands, the way she used to do when I was a toddler. I suppose she never got the picture that I hated it, even when I let my head go slack. Still, she thought it mollified me. Still, she was wrong.

“Cut it out, Priscilla,” I said, glowering. She shot me a wicked stare but let go. I felt triumphant, knowing I’d struck back lucratively, by calling her by the one part of her name I knew she always hated.

“Charlie Upchurch, I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Mama said, looking stern in the mauve lily dress she’d changed into.
“You are coming with me. The last thing your father and I want for you to do is to lay back and do nothing, after all this effort in moving here.”

“But I’m not! We’ve been driving for two entire days, and you don’t expect me to wanna sleep?”

“That’s what you were doing in the car,” Mama shot back. Go, Mama, I thought.

“But those little freaks kept waking me up! Why aren’t they getting punished?”
Pete scoffed. I scowled and felt like chopping the black shock of hair hovering above her eyebrows. Mama, however, was livid. She walked in real close to Charlie’s face and said in a chilling voice,
“If you say something like that about your sister and brother again, I will slap you purple, child. Now come with me and get in the car. You and I are going to have a little talk, while we drive to the Store.”
Pete turned to look at me, eyes wide and mouth curved inwards. I shared his fascination.
Lucky for us we didn’t have to use the candles long. An electrician by the name of Gene Percival came out to our house and fixed up the circuit breakers. He was “winded by the sight of the house,” he’d told Pop, and congratulated him on the buy.
“Old man Haggerty used to live here,” he’d said. “Big man. Tough as nails, but old as that there chaise longue.” He pointed to the long russet sofa in the living room and Pop forced a panting laugh.
I’d been standing there listening, wondering when someone would be polite to my Pop in some way lacking insults, when a question squeezed out of me.
“Did the old man have a daughter, young as me?”
Gene Percival dragged rough fingers through his beard and said, “Come to think of it, he did have a little girl. She was as sweet a girl as you could get. Her name was Grace Evelyn. It’s a shame, though, what happened to her.”
I gasped, expecting the worst.

“Did she die?” My imagination ran away like a rogue bull. “Was she run over by a truck? Did she get lost in the woods? Did a—”

“Goodness, child, no,” said the man. “Nothing like that. She just ended up going along without a college education, ‘cause her daddy couldn’t afford it.” He hitched up his jeans and grinned at Pop.

“Inquisitive kid you got there,” he said. I folded my arms, knowing he was using big words to stump me.
“It’s a good thing to have, curiosity. Keeps a person sane in this crazy world.”

After the man left I pictured in my head what Grace Evelyn could’ve looked like, up in my room on the second floor. I’d nipped a black hair from the mattress only minutes ago, to give it some provisional thought. Mayhap she had fair skin and round eyes; mayhap porcelain skin and eyes hidden by folded eyelids.
Or, maybe, she was like me.



*
*
*

Summer was fast ending. I’d be going to school, and so would Pete. For Charlie it was obvious. She’d go off to Northeast Appling High School and be a senior, doing whatever it is seniors do, on the Fourth of September. Mama called it “brick and mortar school,” different from reading books and learning times tables at home. Everything was touchable, and not just the pencils and words.
Pete and me would be in West Appling Middle School, called WAMS by the locals, eleven miles the opposite way. Pete would start seventh grade and I’d be in the fifth, unless the teachers thought I wasn’t too bright and decided to plunk me in fifth, a ten-year-olds rightful place.
On the last day of August it was bright and hot, not nearly as hot as summers in Abilene but close enough. Mama left the shutters open and unlatched the screening. Every seven minutes I hung my head out the door and let my tongue out like a dog, lapping up the passing breezes. Mama kept telling me to leave well enough alone. I didn’t listen.
School would begin that Tuesday, the day after, on September the First. I wasn’t excited. The only one who was eager was Pete, who kept speeding into my room and bouncing on the floor in his blue airplane pajamas, yelling about kids and lunchtime and teachers and electric pencil sharpeners and all sorts of other implausible nonsense. His being there only reminded me of the P-47 Mustangs Truman flew. And at that moment all I wanted to do was fly away.
*
*
*

The kitchen was hectic. Open mayonnaise on the counter, oozing to the floor, roast beef slices sunbathing on the bar top, orange peels scattered on the white linoleum. I came downstairs all done up with my hair in a taut bun, wearing the long flower shift Mama bought for me from the Consignment Store.

Pete followed soon after, wearing black slacks and a yellow button-down.

“Well, at least you don’t look like a tootsie roll,” he said, buttoning the cuffs. I giggled and twirled in my dress; as much as I could, at least. I kept quiet about my nerves, knowing he’d give another lecture. I’d get too many of those on the drive to West Appling, and so would Pete. We’d do each other a favor by taking it as it came.

Mama shoved each of us our paper bags and told us to kiss Pop goodbye. A quick rush of fear swept over me as I kissed the sleeping lump in Mama and Pop’s room; the last moments at home were coming to a rude end and I was anything but ready to encumber this new-fangled thing called brick-and-mortar school. What did it mean? What were all the veiled secrets? It was nothing but moronic to think that it would come easy. I’d have a lot to learn.

In the car, as I thought, Mama briefed us on the simplicities. They came in bolded headings: Don’t Accept Cigarettes. Don’t Drink Anything from Unidentifiable Flasks. In Fact, Don’t Drink Anything But Water. And Always, Always Listen to What the Teacher Says.

“…If you want the teacher to respect you, you must respect the teacher. If this is the only thing you remember from my speech,” she said, laughing slightly, “Then take it and portray it with care.”

We both promised. My heart still thudded.

The walls of the school were vast around my small body. I was fearful to know that I wouldn’t have Pete to protect me; he’d be on the upper floors for the seventh grade. I’d be alone, by myself, prowling the corridors.

I was a good bit misplaced with my shift; other children wore blue-jeans and tee shirts with solid colors. In my misplacement I found a way to consider it: I was surrounded by colors. That girl there, the one with the blonde freckles, she could be named Lena. Lena Lavender. Ugly shoes, though. The boy, with the green shirt, he should be Gerald. Or Gareth.

I clutched the paper bag closer to my chest and attached myself to the side wall. I looked up at the door plates. 310. 311. 312. As newcomers to Appling but latecomers to the welcome conferences, I was operating under Mama’s instructions to seek out Room 315.

313. 314. My heart thudded and thudded, whapping against my chest so hard I thought it’d eventually leap out and splatter on the floor.
315.

My feet stopped outside the enormous wood door. My knees wobbled like pine trees, the good old pine trees back in Abilene, where there was barely enough wind to rock them.

Before I could push open the door a tall woman swung it open and stepped out. I could tell she was surprised to see me by the crass way her eyes bugged out.

“Oh, hello there,” she said, in a gruffer voice than I’d imagined possible for a woman.
“I was just about to go looking for my last fifth grader. A girl named Bonnie Upchurch? Are you…?”

“It’s Bronwyn,” I said quietly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Bronwyn,” I repeated.
She looked confused. I suppose she’d never heard a name as eccentric as Bronwyn, especially not attached to a girl of my color. The calamity at the Mote Six was beginning to make sense to me.

“Excuse me, but I am not named Tamaqua. Or anything like that. My name is Bronwyn Dolores Upchurch.” Feeling convinced but wanting to go further, I kept rambling. It was clever for stalling, I realized.
“I am ten years old, but I reckon I should be eleven. Or even older. See, I have a sister named Charlie, and a brother, named Pete—”

“Look, sweet-heart,” the woman interrupted, “I’d love to hear what you have to say, but we really must be getting started. The other children are waiting.”
She took my shoulder and gently steered me into the room. Brisk air pricked my face. Twelve wooden desks in rows of four spanned the length of the room, housing twelve bored fifth-graders in jeans and solid colors, some of them boys and the rest girls. The boys looked neat and fresh-trimmed, hair nicely combed and button-downs pencil-straight. I bet that boy’s shirt is still hot from the iron, I thought, shuffling to my cubby and stowing away my paper bag.

One girl with caramel skin wore a short skirt, which came above her thighs as she sat. Her little skinny legs flapped beneath her desk and I watched them as I slid into my own. I made a life-amending pronouncement to keep away from her, as far away as I could manage; Mama wouldn’t want me to befriend her. I could hear her scraggly voice in my head: “If a girl’s skirt is that small, her likelihood of unnecessary sin is that much greater.” I didn’t understand how that translated properly, but I wanted to please Mama. That was my agenda and by God I’d stick to it.

Miss Clarissa Friedman was her name, the teacher’s. Mama was especially delighted to hear that I hadn’t been retained to the fourth grade, after my description of her.

“She’s got stark green eyes and skin like china,” I’d said. “She’s so white I don’t think paper could stand a chance against her.”

Mama laughed, clearly stunned at my boldness, and said, “Now, now, Bronwyn,” but I knew she enjoyed it, by the flicker of light dancing around in her eyes. I offered her my best fish face and she took it, laughing again.

Once Miss Clarissa Friedman took me in, I acted out as the other children did; raising hands for Social Studies, proffering answers for Mathematics, and slipping on goggles for Science. When school let out Pete had come down the stairs wearing a somber gaze, as I left Miss Friedman’s room smiling myself stupid.
Pete wouldn’t say a word to either me or Mama on the ride back home, glaring out the window as if there were something out there so darn fascinating that he couldn’t look away. It wasn’t until the Volkswagen squealed to a stop in the driveway that Mama noticed the fat tears leaking then spilling out of his eyes.
I’d noticed them back when we were passing the largest cluster of trees on the bend, but chose not to say anything thinking he’d lash out at me. I knew I would if I were him, to be sure. My temper was shorter in lengths than that girl’s skirt, whose name I learned was Murphy Lorenzo.
Mama rubbed his shoulder in soft, circular rubs until finally, Pete said in a cracking, breaking voice, “the boys think…” he swallowed dryly. “The boys think I’m… gay.”
“Gay?” Mama’s voice rang back with equal distress, though mixed more with forceful shock than anything. We sat there for a moment, baking in the surprise, then steered him inside, and after muttering the same dismal sentence to Pop he disappeared into a room with him. I was left in the dark about any occurrences after. So I climbed up on my favorite kitchen barstool, the one colored burnt cinder, and joined Mama for a snack.
That day I remember the taste of lemon juice on tart apples on my tongue. The taste is so distinct I can almost recall it like a sight. It’s just so, right there on the edge of my cheek; so close I can feel it slipping down my throat.
But I’m being imaginative.
I think something changed in me that day, and it wasn’t just the realization that not everyone would accept my brother as I did. I’d convinced myself that I could be different. Maybe a spark of it struck when I was speaking to Miss Friedman, and again when I spoke to Mama. And yet, I never even considered the prospect of changing that very thing.
Maybe I’d be accepted as an equal. Maybe I would never encounter rough patches in school. And maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to remain myself, although a slight bit different. I lay in bed that night considering this, grinning profusely at the thought. I could hear Pete’s footsteps from the hallway, marching back to his room, sniffing. What had happened I still didn’t fully grasp.
When I asked Pop what was the matter, he’d made the dejecting proclamation that I should keep my distance from Pete for a while. I asked why, of course. But he refused to answer. “Boys’ business,” he’d said.
Whatever. I could survive without Pete. We wouldn’t be having foolish fun anymore—that was already ascertained. But the simple, blunt truth of it was that I truly loved Pete. He was my right arm, and I was his left. You couldn’t slice that with a knife, or so I thought.


*
*
*
On the Fourth Mama drove Charlie to Northeast Appling. I took close notice that Charlie’s black jeans were tighter than necessary. Mama seemed not to care, waving her off without a second glance. She was still sore over their little wrangle, I supposed.
When the low roofs of WAMS came into view Pete heaved a sigh which he tried to contain but failed to. Mama looked over at him with clear concern but said nothing. I’ll bet Pop told her to keep out of his business too, I thought, glowering.
“Ya’ll have a good day, hear?” she said. I nodded, so she’d feel useful. Pete popped the trunk and seized his rucksack. After a second thought he pitched mine in my direction, and I caught it gratefully, feeling a swell of hope. But I didn’t try to thank him. I knew he’d disregard it with silence.
I hugged my rucksack and stood for a moment on the pavement, feeling the metal zippers dig into the section of skin exposed beneath the hem of my long shirt. I watched Murphy Lorenzo dash into the building, flip-flops clacking and blue skirt fluttering in a sudden breeze. This skirt, I noticed, reached closer to her knees. I wondered whether she’d heard my thoughts.
Out of my peripheral vision a tall boy in track shorts darted up the walk and across the dewy lawn. His long, bony arms swung in time with his feet, which after looking twice I realized were bare. He disappeared inside the building. I brisk-walked towards the door and slid between before it could close, entering into the once-again middle school bustle.
The boy hadn’t been carrying a rucksack, so I figured he must have pattered along to his class without shoes, and with grimy feet. Unless he was a sixth grader and had a locker, like so many of the others. I doubted the sixth grade teacher would be tolerant of stinking feet.
Smiling at the thought, I continued on to Room 315, toying with the idea of a sweaty boy in grubby track shorts being admonished in front of his classmates, who, unfortunately, wouldn’t be lenient in teasing.


*
*
*

I had never done PE before. It was the first mention I’d ever heard of such a thing. We had an instructor, Mr. Georges, who told us right off that we were not to pronounce the s in his name. I could tell he would be no-nonsense.

“Now, I don’t want any troublemakers or smart-alecks,” he’d said. “This is Phys Ed, and it’ll stay Phys Ed as long as I’m coach.”
A boy muttered beneath his breath and a girl beside him snickered. This didn’t escape Mr. George’s sight, just as I knew it wouldn’t, after his dramatic declaration.

“Today we’ll be doing a game of volleyball. I want it quick, clean, no messes. Quentin, Damon! You two will help me pack up the net afterwards, huh?” He peered at them tauntingly, threatening them to mutter something else. They stayed quiet.

Before us was a long lattice made of elastic spanning the length of the gymnasium. With its standing-poles it stood two heads taller than me. For a moment I considered reaching up to strum an elastic string but decided against it, remembering my recent revelation. I was no longer inane.

“Divide up into teams,” Mr. Georges said dismissively. He pointed to a box spilling over with colorful jerseys. “Five per. You guys know the rules. Red and Blue teams go first!”

The children who knew each other began congregating, leaving out a select few: the girl with the oversized knees and sluggish frame, whose name was Frieda Clementon. The cross-eyed boy with pale, freckled thighs. I’d never heard him speak. Then there was me, not too multifaceted but not too ordinary. The only person who’d spoken to me was Miss Friedman, and as she was a teacher she hardly counted. I could feel tears welling in my eyes. No one wanted me, not even Pete.

I’d probably go about school learning about people from what I read from test papers and desk tags, not from their own mouths. The outcasts looked on sadly as the Red and Blue teams were chosen and jerseys were thrown on. Laughter echoed and bounced off the walls.

I folded my arms and drowned in jealousy of the outcasts. At least they’d been given a label. I didn’t have any sort of labeling whatsoever. I was just simply there, and time wasn’t getting younger.

I sidled to the corner of the gymnasium and sat cross-legged on the polished wood floor. Red team and Blue team took to their opposite sides of the net, pushing and shoving and being issued reprimands from Mr. Georges.

“Red team! In position!” He took up the metal whistle dangling from his neck. I watched it perch between his lips before he squeezed them together and a high-pitched sound ricocheted through the gymnasium.

A small girl whose blonde hair was tied back with a ponytail holder tossed a red ball high above her head and sent it over the net with a powerful slap.



*
*
*

Before the day was over I saw the shoeless boy for a second time, this time wearing flat-soled sneakers. My previous accusation that he was a sixth grader turned out to be correct; as I passed him in the corridor I saw him heave out a heavy-looking rucksack from a metal locker and sling it into his shoulder, all in one quick motion.

He had large, pear-shaped eyes, a shade of ginger I’d never seen before. His round chin protruded vaguely from his jaw, which was clenched as if seized up from a contraction. Though still brown his skin was much lighter than mine. He sprinted away down the corridor, his eyes dead-focused on the door. The bustle of children parted without even realizing it, clearing his path. I wanted desperately to know what his name was.

I realized with earnest that Pete might know who he was, since they were both on the second floor. That very time would have been the opportune moment to be older, after seeing a very intriguing boy and wanting to know his name. The simple idea of peering at a desk tag wouldn’t be enough this time.

As I rode home with Mama and Pete and Charlie I toyed with the idea of asking Pete about the boy. It was a heart-pounding thought, of going up to Pete in the midst of his antagonism and asking him a selfish question. Besides, Pop had told me to keep my distance from Pete. Pop wouldn’t say so unless it wasn’t discretionary. I chewed my fingernails and watched the back of Pete’s head bobble and lean from the movement of the car.

The bend was always my favorite part of the car ride home. A strip of aspens curved on the roadside, sprinkling small flowers onto the grass orange from a splash of autumn leaves. It was as if the sky remained deep blue; if it rained the shower of fog-like water was thin and fleeting. You could see the sky’s immensity as it overlooked the mountains in the near distance.

When we arrived, straightaway Pete left the car, followed by Charlie, who was sitting next to me. I could hear her call over to Pete, asking if the door was unlocked. He muttered a short response and I felt a twinge of envy, despite the insolence of it. At least he had spoken to her. It was more than I had gotten, although I hadn’t tried to speak. I assumed it was a given that he’d speak to me, even when it wasn’t necessary.

I seized my rucksack and darted inside. After dropping it onto the chaise lounge I went straight for the kitchen, trailing Mama, who’d just entered.

“What’s for snack today, Ma?” I asked. I’d just recently taken to calling her Ma, thinking it was more mature than Mama, a calling I’d used for years. Though, sometimes I felt…uncomfortable, which is a rather harsh feeling for the simple act of changing the way you address your mother. But I couldn’t explain it, the feeling. I suppose it just needed getting used to.

Mama began pulling things from the refrigerator and laying them on the counter. I grimaced; the number of oddly shaped vegetables was steadily increasing. I reached over the counter and poked one, while Mama was still bent over the vegetable drawer. It wobbled. The skin was rigid and coarse. A rutabaga, no doubt.

She turned just as I drew my hand away and said, “I’m making a dessert today, sweet-heart. A special one I think you’ll like. Best keep our appetites and skip snack today, huh?” Disappointed as I was, I agreed and left without countering. To be true I felt like crying. I could feel the beginnings of tears forming in the corners of my eyes.
Mama just didn’t understand that our snack together was one of few stolen moments we had to be who we wanted. The one moment I had to show how I’d changed. Up in my room, sitting on the cushioned sill, I realized with livid anger that she figured I was solely interested in the sweets and was trying to cull it by bribing me with the prospect of dessert.
I slipped off the sill and made for Pete’s room, then stopped abruptly, noticing myself. I couldn’t run to Pete. I couldn’t even run to Charlie, suffering from her most recent bout of teenage angst. But with Pete it was more complicated than that.
I climbed back onto the cushion and struggled to curb the tears, but they ignored my wishes and flowed freely. The boy no longer seemed so important. School no longer seemed as daunting.
I could only think about Pete’s and my first shared beating, and how good the stings felt against my naked skin. If it meant I’d get to have him back, I’d take the objectionable stings.
Yeah; I’d take them as they came.

September the Sixteenth. Pop had finally replaced the chaise lounge with an acceptable sofa, black and curved, contouring the shapely den. Gene Percival’s words had gotten to him, I suppose. Charlie and Mama were getting on well, at last. It was well past time for that.

It was still the same with Pete. Peter. After a long while I figured the informalities had come to an end and that I’d have to accept the obvious truth lying before me: that things weren’t meant to be as they were. Our childhood was a phase, a phase long passed.

I was beginning to create a label for myself in school. After a private conversation with Mama I discovered that deciding whether or not to talk to Murphy Lorenzo was for me to decide. I’d be the one to shape my path going forward. If I had any indication that she’d be a bump on the already dust-covered road, then it would be up to me to go roundabout.

I later realized that Mama’s strictness with Charlie had been an experimentation—to see how Peter and me would respond, after watching how it affected Charlie. Charlie, and her relationship with Mama. She’d been unruly, though short-lived the glee of being spiteful. I supposed her and Mama’s “talk” had something to do with it. At least I’d picked up a thing or two.



*
*
*

Murphy Lorenzo had three older brothers, all of whom had gone to WAMS, but who were now juniors at Northeast Appling.
“They’re the sort who appreciate comedy,” she’d told me while grinning, the light catching her braces. The bands on them were colored like a rainbow.
“One year Tim got the ‘Class Clown’ honor, then the very next year Erick got it, then the very, very next year it was given off to Paul. My daddy was so proud. My daddy works at the Water Tower, you know. They haven’t got much to do there, so comedy is the thing he’s most good at.”

She continued on and on about what each boy planned on majoring in, their athletic ambitions, and much of her personal family history, all of this during the recess session of last period. When she offhandedly mentioned the school’s track team in light of her brother Erick, who’d captained three years ago, a thought sparked.

“Say, Murph,” I’d said, “Do you happen to know a boy who goes around without shoes in the school sometimes?” I was about to clarify, when she interrupted, saying,

“Oh, that’s Dallas Russell. He goes for a run barefoot round the track behind the soccer field before school. Barefoot. Can you believe that? He’s WAMS’S best 500 meter sprinter.” She cocked her head at me. “Don’t you know him?”

“No,” I replied. “I only just saw him a coupla weeks ago.” I silently congratulated myself on my slyness. I hadn’t let on that I admired the boy, and still I’d acquired a name. Dallas Russell. He looked like a Dallas. And he was a runner.

It wasn’t long before I came to remembering the dreams I used to have, about feeling the lash of a finish line and the taste of sweet triumph. Almost as soon as I thought of it I revived the love I’d left behind in Abilene, the love that had clung onto me by strips and pieces.

The day after I learned Dallas’s name was a Tuesday. Mama left us in front of the school as usual, and like before I paused on the walk to wait for Dallas to glide up the lawn. But moments passed, and then long minutes, and he didn’t emerge, face expressionless, skin slightly glistening from sweat.

I was well aware that I’d most likely glommed on to Dallas solely because of Peter’s absence, but that wouldn’t keep me away. Besides, I didn’t want to think about Peter. Despite the fact that I had to continuously remind myself, our friendship was a thing of the past.

Feeling let down I shuffled into the building and into the throng. Familiar faces floated past, but I hardly noticed them. I could only make out the silhouette of their bodies.



*
*
*

After Phys Ed, in the changing room, Murphy skipped up to me in her usual ebullient way, a smile etched into her small face. I was a bit surprised to see her; she’d been absent since lunchtime, and I assumed she’d gone home with a cold or stomachache of some sorts.

“Bronwyn, you’ll want to come see this,” she said, her eyes gleaming. I could hear excitement in her voice. There must really have been something worth seeing, if she’d gone all this way to seek me out. I tugged up my shorts and took her outstretched hand, without responding. Murphy was the sort of person who, when pressed, would refuse to divulge the surprise. I could accept that; my interest had been peaked.

She led me by hand out of the building and past the bright green soccer pitch. The sun beat relentlessly down on our heads. Sweat collected in the junction between our palms and on the back of my neck. So much for freshening up, I thought spitefully.

When I saw it, the orange clay track, my infatuation was completely renewed, in a way lacking hindering restraints, unlike my remembrance the day before. I could once again feel the wind and the memory of hair swirling all about me. The briskness of the air against my face. The featureless faces offering over congratulations, in my dreams. The allegorical Peter Upchurch.

My knees gave and I went down, overwhelmed by the suddenness of it. Images began whacking me at random. Images of me and Pete in all our farcical glory; stealing from Luther’s, spiting Charlie, dashing down the road. The dusty road, as unclear to us as our future.
My body convulsed, ridden by arbitrary shivers. I couldn’t even see the group of lanky boys stretching out their muscles on the track, a sight which came to me after I was dragged from the spasm. Murphy had pulled on my arm, calling my name, and somewhere within me I could hear the faraway voice coming closer and closer. Finally it resonated soundly in my ear, and I looked up to see a very startled Murphy Lorenzo.
“Bronwyn! Are you all right? You passed out or something!”

I sat back on my heels. Setting my eyes on the track I could finally see the assembly of boys, some glancing at us pryingly and others listening to the woman in front of them, who was speaking fiercely.

“If you want this position, if you want to be a Bulldog at WAMS, slacking won’t get you anywhere,” she was saying. “You must be on time and on point. We’ll be competing against exigent teams this year. For those of you who have been on the team before, you should do well to know that getting on won’t be as easy. Last year Coach Georges thought your talents all coincided with one another, and he made no cuts from the roster. But this year, from what I can see…”
The woman continued on, captivating the boys’ attention, and mine as well. I felt Murphy tap my shoulder.

“Bronwyn, look,” she said. “Over there, by the fountain. It’s Dallas.” I followed her gaze and immediately went rigid. A strange burning sensation filled my stomach and toppled over, lifting me off my heels. This was why Murphy had brought me here from the changing room; to see Dallas. I resisted the urge to beam and instead nodded at her gratefully.

“Wanna go over to the bleachers and watch?” Murphy said, re-grasping my hand, which had slipped from hers when I collapsed. Murphy was also the sort of person who spoke her next intended action through questions, out of courtesy. It could be maddening, or it could go unnoticed.

I stumbled after her, trying to catch Dallas’s eye. But it was a futile effort. I knew very well that he was well-focused on the woman speaking, just as he’d been focused on reaching the door as he glided through the corridors. Murphy managed to drag me to the second row of bleachers and set me down just as Mr. Georges ambled onto the track, hands folded prudishly behind his back, watching the boys sprint one by one to a white chalk line.

“Let’s go, boys! Pump those legs! Move those hips! Stride comes from the hips!”

“That’s Coach Georges,” Murphy said, unnecessarily. “PE instructor, too. His daughter ran here, like, a decade ago. She goes to USC now, as an ethnomusicology major. Ethnomusicology, of all things. Personally, if I had to choose, I’d—”

“Not now, Murph,” I mumbled. “Let’s watch the boys.”
She smoothed her skirt and cleared her throat soundly. I could feel her eyes on me.

“Right. The boys.”

I turned and focused on the track. A blonde boy with matted hair was preparing to run, shaking out his legs and arms and panting under the hot sun. A number of the boys had clustered together to watch, making jokes and laughing amongst themselves. The strapping, short woman called out and he began to dash sloppily around the curve of the track.

I clutched my knees as he passed the bleachers. He was scowling strenuously, his feet kicking up behind him, and his arms cutting the wind. The boys behind him applauded, yelling out stirring encouragements. “Come on, Jonathan! Almost there, Johnny boy! Let’s go!” He shot a glance behind him to smile gratefully. That’s when, all of a sudden, the boy’s left foot dragged on the track and his knee hyper-extended. He buckled and went sprawling to the ground, his ankle curled beneath him unnaturally. There was a collection of horrified gasps, followed by the instinctive reaction to see if he’d been injured.

“What are you doing?” Murphy asked, as I rose and quickly descended the steps. I ignored her and scurried towards the boy still crumpled on the ground in a contorted heap. I kneeled beside him and brushed the hair from his forehead.

“Are you all right?” I asked, though not expecting an answer; I wanted him to feel reassured more than anything. That’s why I was the first to react. His scowls had grown deeper, sounds of pained moaning escaping his mouth.

“My ankle,” he whimpered. “My ankle. It hurts. It hurts. Oh, God. Jesus.”

“Shh,” I said. “Don’t worry; we’ll get you to the hospital.”

“Jonathan! Jon!” My head spun around almost involuntarily. Mr. Georges was rushing towards us at a quickened pace, arriving only to shove me aside with rough hands and cup the boy’s face. The remaining boys jogged up, followed by the short woman and then Murphy. Backing up from the flock, I shared a knowing look with Murphy, who stared back at me with unrequited surprise.



*
*
*

“Miss Dean says they’re a boy short now,” Murphy told me as we sat cross-legged on the dewy grass, back at my house. She plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers.
“Eleven instead of twelve.”

“But there were more than twelve boys at the tryouts,” I pointed out. There had been at least twenty, by the looks of it; the woman, apparently named Miss Dean, had many to choose from. But Murphy let out a belching laugh.

“Don’t you listen?” she said. “Miss Dean said that spots weren’t guaranteed this year. Besides, there’ve never been twenty-three boys on a single team in WAMS track history.” So, it had been twenty-three. Murphy was more observant than I’d realized. Perhaps there was something useful about her, something that would make me consider side-stepping her oftentimes annoying mannerisms.

I felt a sudden pang of empathy towards the boy. All he’d wanted was to fulfill his passion. Feeling in danger of crying I turned away from Murphy and looked to the sky. A collection of bushy, dark clouds was beginning to congregate. It seemed to peel open, little by little letting out a patter of soft rainwater.

“I’ve gotta go, Bronwyn,” Murphy said curtly. “My mom doesn’t like it when I stay out in the rain.”
Without waiting for an answer she raised and mounted her blue bicycle resting on the grass.

“See you at school,” she said.

I rose and walked slowly towards the house, unconcerned about the rain soaking into my hair and matting my clothes to my body. It felt gentle and cold, like a chilled sheepskin blanket. I stopped before I reached the porch stairs. I stretched out my arms and let my mouth fall open, catching the water in my mouth. It dripped down my eyelashes and splashed onto my cheeks. I felt an engorging in my stomach, rising up to my throat.
I needed to shout. I needed to scream. I needed to spill my secrets to the sky and listen to wise advice. But I couldn’t; I was tongue-tied, not knowing what to say. I felt as if I needed to convince myself of something, that perhaps I was right to do everything I’d done, that perhaps I’d precipitated every good thing that had happened since our arrival to Appling. But what had I done for myself? I’d eradicated gratuitous fear. I’d sworn off to foolish waywardness. I’d finally grown up.
But somehow I didn’t feel complete. I still felt like the ten-year-old child I was aching not to be. And this time, this singular solitary time, it wasn’t just because of Peter. I needed him back, but I wouldn’t get him right away. What I was doing was not producing a different result. I would have to do something first; to give in order to get. A bolt of lightning crackled against the sky. It stretched its arms to the ground somewhere in the distance. It was so clear, against the blackening sky. I smiled, and then it faded quickly, as the sudden realization came scurrying up to greet me.
I knew what I needed to do.

The very idea was insane, Mr. Georges had said. Eccentric. Completely irrational; and yet it was that very thought that made the idea all the more electrifying.

“Well, surely, you’ll have to consult with Miss Dean,” he’d said. We were still in the gymnasium; I’d offered to help tidy up in exchange for a moment of his time. He’d accepted, though cautiously, and now he looked at me as if he’d never quite seen the like before. A small girl, with a small body and equally small legs, wanting to compete against the boys. It wasn’t even a matter of co-ed, he’d said, pacing. It was a matter of how fast I could run.

“You’re certainly very brave, my girl,” he remarked. I handed him the carton of flags, used in our brief game of Capture the Flag, and he stowed them away in a utility closet.
“We’ve had injuries before, and yet no one has ever volunteered to take their place. Not as long as I’ve been coach and instructor here, and that’s been over twenty years.”

“Twenty years!” The number was staggering. I felt a slight urge to ask him what he’d majored in in college, but after glancing at his strained face decided against it.

“Yes, twenty long, rough years.” He gave me a fleeting look. “I know what you’re thinking; that’s a long time to be a gym coach at a middle school, right? But it’s my passion. I love to work with kids.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Georges, I have nothing against that. I’d want to live out what I love to do, too.”
He grinned, revealing a row of jagged white teeth.

“That’s great to hear. Because you,” he said, shepherding me towards the door, “Are going straight to Miss Dean’s office—right by Doctor Little’s chorus room, I’m sure you’re familiar with that—and you’re going to present your case just like you presented it to me. Okay?”
I turned and looked up at him. He was still smiling, his face bright and curious. Behind his eyes there was a hint of, will she do it? Will this completely wild plan play out? For my sake he willed its success in my favor; I could tell by his keenness. But there was something else as well. Something I couldn’t quite discern. Maybe it was the prospect of failure, just resting there, not wanting me to see.

“Thank you, Mr. Georges,” I said. “I really appreciate it. A lot.”



*
*
*

Entering Miss Dean’s office, I came to the abrupt conclusion that she was, in addition to being a coach, the sixth grade English teacher. Textbooks lay in all corners of the room, some hanging open and others standing on bookshelves. On her desk was a neat stack of spelling papers, waiting to receive red marks. Miss Dean sat behind the desk wearing a green jumper, regarding me from behind wide eyeglasses perched on the very edge of her nose.

I’d presented my case, like Mr. Georges had said, and she’d taken it in slowly, examining my face as if I were trying a joke. But I wanted to tell her how much it meant to me, how much I’d striven for this unrelenting passion. How much I wanted to convince myself that I needed this; that I needed to move on from my state of emotional stiffness.
Looking back I’m sure she would have laughed, saying that all I wanted was the glory I didn’t deserve; the glory of a person desiring the indulgence of being a hero. But I hadn’t said it. I’d only pleaded her to let me take his place. “Watch me run,” I’d said. “I’ve been running, for a long time, practically forever.”
It soon occurred to me that I wasn’t even stretching the truth; runners chase dreams, and I’d been chasing my destiny for the longest time. But I hadn’t yet reached the red-trimmed horizon of ribbon, as I’d called it, reaching across the track and willing me to slice through. I’d only gotten halfway, and I had crawled.
But I couldn’t say this, none of it. She’d only stare at me incredulously, thinking but not saying that I didn’t belong here.
“So, what do you think?” I asked, my body seized with hope. She sighed and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her desk.
“Bethany, I…”
“It’s Bronwyn,” I said, struggling to sound respectful but feeling goaded. To my relief, she chuckled in response.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry. Bronwyn, right.” She plucked off her eyeglasses and replaced them with a black visor.
“Honey, you have to understand that it’s never been done before. As such, it’s not an easy decision to make. Girls and boys have their different strengths.”

“I know,” I said. This time I couldn’t help the intrusion of irritation in my voice.
“Mr. Georges said so. And I know so. But what I need to know is, why can’t it happen? Why can’t I do this?”
She sighed again and rose from her slump.

“Come with me,” she said. “We’re going out to the track. And I’m going to fetch Dallas Russell.” Still bursting with questions but staggered from her comment, I followed silently as she clicked off the light and left the office. I trailed behind her, sometimes clipping her heels and being issued curt rebukes.

We jogged upstairs to the second level of the school. The corridors were vacant, housing only dust and debris from shoes and rucksacks. There was a faint musty smell in the air, most likely sweat from the sixth- and seventh-grade Phys Ed session. I wondered with vague interest who that instructor was.

We stopped outside a classroom door and I took a step backwards, to lessen my proximity to the door. When Dallas Russell stepped out I didn’t want to be the first face to appear in front of his. He needed to see Miss Dean, to lessen the confusion I’m sure would arise initially. But he would be no more bewildered than I was. Whatever Miss Dean was doing, I was certain it would answer my question, but I didn’t yet know how or in what exact way.

A portly woman in a spattered white flower dress materialized at the door, gripping a fragment of chalk between her fingers. Once she saw Miss Dean’s face the frown hovering above her eyes faded.

“Oh, what a surprise! How do you do, Michelle?”
I smiled at the mention of Miss Dean’s first name. I’d have to tell Murphy straightaway, assuming she didn’t already know; she seemed to take great pleasure in knowing absolutely everything.

“I’m well, Nancy, and yourself?”

“How can I help you?”
Miss Dean scanned the room, placing her hands on her hips.

“Nothing too disruptive, I’m afraid. I was merely wondering if I could snag Mister Russell for a minute or two; he’s needed on the track.”

“Oh—yes; yes, of course. Mister Russell? Dallas?” The woman began to call out his name and a dark head rose from its gaze at the brown desk on which he sat. His stupefaction told me he hadn’t been listening.
“Uh—yes, Mrs. Rockwell?” The class chortled as he bumped his desk in a hasty effort to stand. The portly woman uttered a sound and motioned to Miss Dean.
My eyes widened at the sound of his voice; it was the first time I’d heard him speak, despite the time that had passed since I’d first seen him. As much as I wanted to doubt myself, and block the vile thought from entering my mind, his voice had an unbelievable resemblance to Peter’s.

“Dallas, welcome back,” Miss Dean kidded.
“I needed someone to take out to the ballgame for a couple minutes, so to speak, to get an opinion on something.” She paused, to let her words sink. “You game?”

“Let’s see what you got,” he said confidently. “I’m game, anytime.”



*
*
*

Believing introductions were in order, I shook hands with Dallas and explained myself for a third time. It was this particular time that my words came less fluent and broken with distinct stutters and pauses. As we walked I caught my legs vacillating and forced myself to walk straight. He’s just a boy, I told myself. But no matter how desperately I tried, I couldn’t accept him as being just another lanky, skinny, middle-school boy. He was different.

When we reached the track I finished my explanation the same as I had with Miss Dean—with a sensible question: “Why can’t I?” The entire time we’d walked, Dallas had been watching his feet, with an expressionless face and stiff arms. I could hardly make myself believe that he’d been listening at all, until we’d stopped and he’d asked,

“What’s in it for you?” He crossed his arms and looked directly into my eyes with a cold stare. The nature of the gaze stunned me.

“What’s in it for me?” I repeated, drawing saliva into my throat with a forced swallow.
“Didn’t you hear? I already told you what’s in it for me. I get to run.”
What was he asking?

“I heard you fine. What I want to know is, why do you want to run?”
My mouth went dry. I knew what he was doing; he was digging. He didn’t believe my answer had been a good enough justification. He knew, somehow, that there was more.
“It’s something I…just…I don’t know,” I stammered. My heart pounded, in fear of the clandestine thoughts I was in danger of letting slip. I glanced over at Miss Dean. Her face was pointed up to the sky, watching the planes glide overhead.
“I ran when I was younger,” I said. “Back when I didn’t live here. In Abilene. Up north.”

He held his gaze but didn’t answer.

“My brother; you might know him, his name’s Peter; he got me into it. It was the best thing I ever did, running was. But I stopped and fell out of it, and now I have another chance to be like I was again. I don’t want that to go away.”
My vision blurred and a small tear trickled from the edge of one eye. I had said it. I had told them. In the most unadorned way, but it wasn’t the manner that mattered. Not even Mama knew. But these two strangers, whom I’d implicitly befriended in the past few moments; they were the ones who understood me.
“Miss Dean thinks I should try you,” Dallas said gently. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gripped it kindly.
“A short little sprint, down past the last set of bleachers. Sound good?”

I nodded and swiped away the tear. Behind us Miss Dean clapped her hands together.

“All right then, let’s get this show on the road,” she said. My mouth stretched into a small simper.

With a throbbing heart I took my place alongside Dallas on the track. The clay beneath my thin-soled sneakers felt firm, yet smooth. I pressed my feet and felt a wave of heat rush through my body, stirring my tired muscles. I took a long breath of the crisp, bracing air.

Dallas stood with one foot placed in front of the other and his arms bent at the elbow, one behind and one in the direction of his forward foot. I followed suit, taking in the sight of my sturdy legs and his skinny ones. It was a disheartening sight; clearly he’d trained and noticeably I hadn’t.

Miss Dean shouted a call and Dallas began to glide, his stride as graceful as a gazelle. But as I started off, my legs propelling forward as fast as they could go, I quickly noticed that despite his capability Dallas was not pulling ahead. To test my theory I slowed slightly and his pace lessened to match mine. I sped up again and he emulated. I could hardly believe it. Dallas Russell helping me. His skepticism was staged. He wanted me to take the boy Jonathan’s place.

When we came to the last set of bleachers we slowed to a jog, me completely winded and bending over and Dallas righting me with a forceful hand.

“Stand up,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “If she sees you like this, you’re toast.”
I took his advice and stood up straight, gulping breaths of air to calm my racing heartbeat.

“Excellent run, Bronwyn, excellent!” said Miss Dean, appearing from behind us. I turned and felt a smile tempting my face. Restraining it, I swabbed my sweating face with my shirt sleeve.

“Yeah, she did great,” Dallas said, with amped enthusiasm. “She matched my pace like nobody’s business.”
“ You wanted a second opinion?” he continued. “My decision is, she can handle the heat. First girl on a boys’ track team, and a great runner, at that. I can tell she’ll be a hard worker, maybe even more so than some of the guys.”
I swelled with pride. Even though we both had effectively cheated—him by deliberately sprinting alongside me and me by not addressing it—I felt that I still deserved this moment of satisfaction.
Dallas believed in me, that much was obvious. My elders had thought up the practicalities, slotting in the science of humans and human nature. But Dallas had rebelled against it, and so had I. And that was all right.



*
*
*

Murphy had me retell the entire proceedings from the first minute to the last as we sat on my lawn, with every possible minute detail included. She even asked about things like the clothing Dallas had worn and which visor Miss Dean had sported.

“It was a black one,” I’d said, feeling frustrated. “What does it matter?”
“And the shoes? What about Dallas’s shoes?” “Murphy…”
“You know—or actually, you probably won’t—he wears shoes of two different colors, and I’m not sure if they’re the same brand, but—”

“Murphy!” I yelled.
The birds in the trees around us took flight, startled by the resounding echo of my voice. Murphy’s crystalline eyes were wide and horror-struck. That’s when I, like a revelation, saw her in her purest form of innocence. She couldn’t help her character; to her it was a gift and to me it was a nuisance.

“Murphy,” I said, softening, “I know you mean well and all, but sometimes…” Sometimes I just want to strangle the living daylights out of you, I thought. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“Never mind. Can you just listen for a moment, please, Murph?”
She shifted uncomfortably, smoothing her skirt. The hypocritical nature of her hard stare was infuriating. If she didn’t like to be interrupted, why did she do it? It was perfectly all right for her, but not me?

“I deserve at least a small bit of thanks,” she said, “for bringing you out there in the first place. If I hadn’t, guess where you’d be? Not on the team, that’s for sure.”

“It was only just confirmed by Mr. Georges,” I replied. “Half an hour ago. And I could hardly get a word in, with all your jabber.”
A smirk ghosted her lips but she refused to let it be seen in its entirety.

“Well? I’m waiting,” she said stubbornly, crossing her arms and scowling. “Do you see me talking? No, you do not see me talking, since you’re so keen on me being quiet and listening to absolutely every word you have to say, even if I don’t understand it, or I don’t get what you feel, or get why it’s being said, or—”

“Thanks, Murphy,” I interrupted. There was a naked pause, and then an eruption of laughter which rang across the lawn, scattering birds and squirrels and frogs and causing two small girls to collapse onto the grass in a fit of sheer puerile happiness.