“That may be, but I don’t know many folks with twenty dollars to spare,” said Libby.
Faye waved a hand, calling me to her. “I’m sure it’s not your fault, Genuine, Penny gettin’ so worked up,” she said. “She works in real estate, and the market’s bad, you know? When people get stressed, they take things out on folks who don’t deserve it. That’s probably what it was.”
Whatever it was, when Faye closed up shop, I still had three biscuits and my wallet was empty. I was gonna have to come at this differently.
5
A Fine Notion
WHEN TRAVIS TROMP TRIED TO LATCH ON TO me in the hall the next morning, I went right up to Sonny and asked if he needed help washing blackboards again.
“You seem a little chewed up today, Genuine,” Sonny said as he pulled a piece of fruit from his locker.
“A little.” I was, after all, a wish fetcher with nary a wish to fetch.
He held up his orange. “Want half?”
“I’d love it!” I said, maybe a little more dramatically than the moment called for. But I really did love it—the orange and the fact that Sonny was sharing it with me, of his own free will.
Later, Scree gripped my sleeve and dished, “Oooh, the look on Travis’s face while you ate that orange! Dear goodness!”
Maybe, I thought, just maybe Travis needed a wish biscuit to help him find a girl who’d love him back. Then he’d be less angry and wouldn’t pester folk so much. I decided it was a good idea, and I told myself to remember: Biscuit for Travis. But you know how it is when life gets lively. Sometimes things slip your mind. Because, that day came a treat that brightened my spirits right up. While Mister Strickland was calling roll, Missus Forks, the school secretary, led a new student into the room.
“Class, I’d like you to meet Jura Carver,” Missus Forks said. “Go on, Jura. There’s a desk right next to Genuine, over there.”
I waved a hand. She saw me and let out a huge breath. Her shoulders—which she’d been holding so high they might have been earrings—relaxed.
“I am so glad to see you!” she whispered to me.
“Are you all right?” I whispered back, wondering where Jura’s mettle had gone.
“Ladies, let’s don’t make me separate you on Jura’s first day, hmm?” Mister Strickland frowned at us, but I could tell it was just his way of making Jura welcome. “Genuine, will you get Miss Carver a set of books?”
I ran to the back of the room and selected the most decently clean math, history, English, and earth science books on the shelf. Even though we were almost done with Shakespeare, I grabbed a Macbeth, too, so Jura could follow the last of the discussion.
“Um,” she said as she examined the math book.
“Yes, Jura?” our teacher inquired.
“I’m in algebra,” she replied.
Mister Strickland paused. “Are you?” After a moment, he brightened. “Well, good for you. We’ll see what we can do about that. You won’t mind a little review today, though, will you?”
“No, sir,” she answered.
And then she didn’t say another word until lunch.
I showed Jura to the lunchroom and motioned for her to go on in first. She looked right and left like she expected a truck to hit her. Figuring she was only a bit addled in new surroundings, I started to take the lead, but she set an arm in front of me, so I couldn’t pass.
“Jura, what’s—”
“Do you think—” Jura whispered, casting her gaze over our classmates. “I mean, these kids, you’ve known them for a while?”
“Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper,” I told her.
“And they’re . . . pretty nice?”
“Mostly,” I replied. “You don’t want to knock Martin’s eraser off his desk the day after his pa busts him for skipping school. And Scree’s been known to talk from both sides of her mouth. But there’s no harm in ’em.” I considered Jura’s worried expression. “You’ve been looking awfully wary today. What’s got you so creepified?”
“Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess.” She twisted the strap of her satchel. “I know this isn’t my old school, but I still half-expect somebody to sneak up on me and stick something sharp in my back.”
“Like a knife?” I asked, alarmed.
“Usually it was a comb or something, but they’d let me think it was a knife. They tormented me pretty bad.”
People tormented smart, sweet Jura? “That’s wretched! No! There ain’t a person at this table would do such a thing! I promise!”
She unclenched a little. After we collected our very sloppy joes from the lunch line, I led her to the seventh-grade table, and we sat.
“Where you live, Jura?” asked Donut, his mouth full of food.
Everyone swiveled Jura’s way. In Sass, people tended to turn their neighbors into landmarks. If you were looking for Cribbs Bee Farm, “Down by the Sweet place” was no less correct than “Beside the bridge over Squirrel Tail Creek.” (Of course, I knew full well that anytime someone gave directions that included “Down by the Sweet place,” they also served up an earful about ol’ Dangerous Dale.) “I’m not sure exactly. Off of . . . um . . . Briggs Road? Biggs Road?” Jura waffled.
“She’s Trish Spencer’s kin,” I filled in. “Her ma works at Dandy Andy’s.”
“Oh!” the whole seventh grade replied at once, satisfied.
Turning to Jura, I whispered, “She did get the job, right?”
Jura nodded back.
And that was it for Jura’s welcome into our circle. She might always be a newcomer in Sass, but she’d never be a stranger again.
“You’re too pretty, Jura,” said Scree, who graced us with her lunchtime presence because Micky was out sick that day. “You should be a model.”
This was high praise from Scree, who was herself a pageant fiend. I should say, I don’t mean that disparagingly; she really was nutty about it.
“What’s wrong with you, Sonny? You sick?” I heard Martin ask.
I looked at Sonny with all the womanly concern I could muster. His cheeks flared red, almost as if he was blushing.