Read Leaving Carolina for Free Online

pockets and onto the grass. I grab ’em, but bits of yuck are stuck to ’em. They’re not good for eatin’ now. Aunt Adele would be happy
.
    But I am not happy. Not anymore. Is this why Mama has to try to be happy? ’Cause people say ugly things about her? I wish she would take me home and Daddy would speak nice to her and I’d sit a-tween them and they’d hug on me. I wish…I wish God hadn’t listened to Mama’s prayer. I wish it had rained!
    I shake the sticky bunnies off my hands and jump up and stomp them into the ground until the pink mallow squishes out from a-neath my white shoes
.
    “What are you doin’?”
    I jump back. Bart’s big sister, older ‘n me by two years, is standin’ there like she went poof! I sniffle. “I—I didn’t see you there.”
    Bridget makes a snorty sound. “My mother says you’re in a world all your own.”
    Is that bad too? “My bunnies fell out of my pockets and got dirty.”
    She crosses her arms over her chest. “And you thought you’d teach them a lesson by grinding them into the ground and killing the grass, hmm?”
    She’s mad at me, and I don’t think she’s ever been a-fore. Usually she just ignores me
.
    “Why, I bet they ain’t biodegradable.”
    Bio—? I don’t know that word. But Daddy would say she sounds like a hick if he heard her use the “ain’t” word. Pickwicks aren’t supposed
to do that or make one-syllable words into two or turn all them “-ings” into “-ins.”
    “That mess will probably get stuck in some poor bird’s throat and kill him dead.” Bridget shakes her head, and her thick blond braids swing pretty like Maggie’s curls. “You’re a litterbug, Piper.”
    And plump. Her mama said so. I start to cry again
.
    “Did you find out what’s wrong with your cousin, Bridget?”
    I peek a-tween my fingers at Uncle Obe comin’ up the hill, his hair orangy red in the sunlight
.
    “All’s I know is she’s a litterbug.” Bridget frowns. “And a crybaby.”
    “Did you hurt yourself, Piper?”
    I shake my head, and Bridget says, “Litterbug!” and runs off
.
    As Uncle Obe comes near, I see a boy’s with him, about Luc’s age, with hair so short he’s almost got none. He’s starin’ at me—not mean-like, though when he looks to where Luc is, his face gets kinda ugly
.
    Uncle Obe puts a hand on his shoulder and says somethin’, and the boy stays put. My uncle comes over, squats down, sets his elbows on his knees, and lets his big hands flop a-tween them. “Did Luc take your eggs?”
    I nod. “And the rainbow egg I was gonna give Mama.”
    His eyes look up the hill. “Your Aunt Adele and Aunt Belinda are makin’ a right spectacle of themselves. Gonna give the town a lot to talk about.”
    “I wanna go home.”
    “All right, but not without your share of eggs.” Uncle Obe gets up. “Come on.”
    I shake my head
.
    He puts on a thinkin’ face that makes him seem old, like maybe
forty, and then holds out a hand. He never did that a-fore, him not likin’ company. “Let’s go talk to that floppy-eared rodent—the, uh, Easter bunny. He’s in my garden.”
    I wanna go home, but I wanna see the bunny, so I put my hand in his. As he walks me up the hill, I remember the boy. Maybe he wants to meet the Easter bunny too. But when I check over my shoulder, he’s gone. “Who was that boy?”
    “My friend’s son, just here for today.”
    I wanna ask who his friend is, ’cause I don’t know that he has any, but Aunt Adele calls to Uncle Obe. I hook my thumb around his thumb and hold tight so’s she can’t take him away like Bart took Aunt A-linda away
.
    But Uncle Obe turns aside like he don’t wanna talk to her. “Was supposed to be a frog strangler today, but the sun came out and not a cloud in the sky.”
    I nod. “Mama prayed the rain away. God listens to my mama.”
    I think he smiles, but I can’t be sure ’cause his mouth don’t ever move much. “I’m sure everyone in Pickwick is grateful to