Read A Place at the Table for Free Online Page B

think I cain’t read?”
    “That’s not what I mean! I mean, A ) accept that you are a sinner. B ) believe that Christ died for your sins. C ) confess that you need Christ Jesus.”
    “I like that, smart boy. I’m gonna tell it to my daddy next time he come visit. He a preacher at Emmanuel Missionary Church in Birmingham, Alabama.”
    “There she go telling lies again,” says one of the other boys.
    “You shut up. He too a preacher.”
    “Maybe so, but he ain’t visiting you.”
    Keisha pounces on the boy, knocking him to the ground and pounding on his arms and shoulders with her fists.
    The big woman stands up faster than you would have believed possible and charges over to Keisha, plucking her off the boy by the back of her shirt and then turning Keisha around to face her. “Girl, you better watch yourself! Cain’t go knocking down everyone that hurt your feelings. Now you better start acting like a lady, or I’m gonna whup you till you do. You hear?”
    “Yes,” mutters Keisha.
    “Yes what?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Now you sit yourself on the porch with me and behave.”
    Keisha’s head is bent as she trudges over to the porch and sits down on its top step. I follow, sitting next to her.
    “You sure you’re saved?” I ask.
    Her eyes are wet. She looks away. I have the sudden urge to touchher, to pet her arm and tell her things are going to be okay. But I keep still. After a minute she turns and looks at me. “They just jealous cause I’m a prophet,” she whispers. “I got a secret church to show you. Don’t you tell no one. You stay in that red house three doors up?”
    “It’s my grandma’s house. It’s not where I live all the time.”
    “You gonna be there tomorrow morning?”
    I nod.
    “Good. I’ll meet you out front at six a.m. Don’t be late.”
    “I don’t think my meemaw gets up that early.”
    “Smart boy don’t know how to open the front door?”
    •  •  •
    After supper, the Billy Graham hour, a big slice of chocolate cake with milk, a bath, stories, songs, and prayers, I lie in bed, unable to sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Keisha, so tall and lean with that bright pink ribbon in her hair. I wonder if she really is a prophet, like Elijah or John the Baptist. Except I don’t know of any girl prophets. Girls aren’t even allowed to be in the Royal Ambassadors. They have their own group, the GAs, which stands for “Girls in Action.” But they aren’t like the RAs at all. They don’t participate in the turkey shoot or build race cars or go on overnight camping trips or learn how to tie eight different kinds of knots or do any of those things. From what I can tell, mostly they just have bake sales and pray for the missionaries.
    But maybe it’s different if you are colored. Maybe colored people have women prophets. Meemaw says that there are more and more Negro families joining her church at Second Avenue Baptist and that the choir has started switching off each week between singing white hymns and colored ones. Meemaw says you would not believe how much livelier the music is during the weeks when they sing the colored hymns, that Negroes just have something whites do not when it comes to song. So maybe Keisha is a prophet. And if she ismaybe God loves her especially, the way God loved Joseph especially, even though his brothers sold him into slavery. Maybe I could get Keisha to say a special prayer for me. Maybe I could ask her to pray to God that I might be more like the other boys. That I might find a way to make friends easier, and for people to like me more and not tease me so much.
    But then I think maybe God’s already heard my prayer. And maybe God is answering it. Maybe God sent Keisha to be my new best friend.
    •  •  •
    I wake in the morning to find Moses curled up in my arm. I stroke his soft fur with my finger and listen to him purr. And then I hear a tapping noise. I look up to see the shadow of a head through the window shade. I try