Before We Were Yours(48)

“Smart girl.” The woman winks at me. “Are you a good reader?”

“Yes’m, real good. Back on…” I duck my head because I was about to say, Back on the Arcadia, Queenie had us reading all the time.

There’s a worker standing not two foot from me, and Miss Tann isn’t far off either. If she heard that, I’d be out of here quick as spit.

“All right then,” the book lady says. “Let’s see….”

“I like adventures. Adventure stories.”

“Hmmm…adventures about what?”

“Queens and princesses and wild Indians. All kinds of things.” My mind fills with tales.

“Maybe a western, then?”

“Or the river. Have you got a story about that?” A book about the river would be like going home again. It’d keep us till Briny takes us back to the Arcadia.

The woman claps her hands together. “Oh! Oh, yes I do!” She lifts a finger into the air. “I have the perfect thing for you.”

After a minute of looking, she hands me Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mr. Mark Twain, and I figure that one really was meant just for me. We’ve never had this book, but Briny has told us tales about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Injun Joe. Mark Twain is one of Briny’s favorites. He used to read those books when he was little. You’d think him and Tom Sawyer were personal friends even.

The lady in the blue dress writes my new name, May Weathers, on the card. When she stamps the date in the book, I realize yesterday was Fern’s birthday. She’s four now. If we were on the Arcadia, Queenie would bake her a little cake and we’d all give her presents we made by hand or found along the riverbank. Here at Mrs. Murphy’s, the library book will have to do. When I get back to the yard, I’ll tell Fern it’s her birthday surprise, but she only gets to keep it awhile. We’ll make a mud cake and use flowers for frosting and add twig candles with little leaves balanced on top, so Fern can play like she’s blowing them out.

The library lady gives me a hug before she sends me off, and it feels so good, I want to stay right there and hang on to her and smell the books, but I can’t.

I hold Huckleberry Finn real tight against my chest and start across the yard. Now we can leave this place behind anytime we want. All we gotta do is join up with Huckleberry Finn. There’s room on his raft for all five of us, I’ll bet. Maybe we’ll find the Arcadia out there somewhere.

Even though I have to head back to Mrs. Murphy’s house, it feels like a whole new place.

Now it’s got a river in it.

That very night before bed, we open Fern’s birthday book and start on our adventures with Huck Finn. We’ve been traveling downwater with him for almost a week when Miss Tann’s shiny black car rolls up the driveway one afternoon. It’s a sunny day and hot as fry grease in the house, so her and Mrs. Murphy meet out on the porch to talk. I skitter around the fig tree and go up under the azaleas to listen.

“Oh yes, the advertisements have already run in all the papers!” Miss Tann is saying. “I’ve had such a brilliant vision, I must admit. Fair-haired cherubs for a fair summer season. Yours for the asking! Perfect, isn’t it? All the little blonds.”

“Like a gathering of wood nymphs. Little elves and fairies,” Mrs. Murphy agrees.

“It is almost as compelling as the Christmas Baby Program. Customers have been calling already. Once they see the children, they’ll be vying against one another.”

“Without a doubt.”

“You’ll have all of the children ready on Saturday morning, then? I will expect them well dressed—dirndls and bows and all the niceties. Baths all around and scrub every one of them down to the nubbins. No grimy fingernails or dirt behind the ears. Be sure they know what is expected of them and what will happen to them if they humiliate me in public. Make an example of someone ahead of time, and be certain the other children see it. This party represents an important opportunity to grow our reputation for offering the finest. With the new advertisements, we’ll have all of the best families in Tennessee and a dozen states beyond. They’ll all be coming to see our children, and when they see them, they won’t be able to help themselves. They’ll have to have one.”

“We’ll make certain the children are properly prepared. Just let me look again at the list.” They stop talking. Papers rattle. The wind shifts and blows the azalea branches, and I see Miss Tann’s head. Her short gray-brown hair catches the breeze and stands up straight when she bends close to Mrs. Murphy.

I press against the wall and hold real still, afraid they’ll hear me and look over the railing. The wind brings up the smell of something dead. I can’t see it, but it probably ate the poison Mr. Riggs put out. Once the stink gets bad enough, he’ll find the body and bury it someplace.

“Even May?” Mrs. Murphy asks, and my ears perk up. “She’s hardly a cherub.”

Miss Tann gives a sharp little laugh. “She’ll be a help with the little ones, and she is quite a pretty thing to look at, as I recall.”

“I suppose so.” Mrs. Murphy doesn’t sound happy. “She isn’t a troublemaker, to be sure.”

“I’ll have cars come for them at one o’clock on Saturday. Do not send them hungry or sleepy or needing to use the bathroom. Perky and bright and guaranteed to behave. That is my expectation.”