Read Singing Hands for Free Online Page B

couldn't help switching at a nearby clump of brambles and letting loose an evil stream of words—all the ones I had seen scrawled in the bathroom stalls at South Glen, the ones Barbara had taught me, the ones I had overheard when the garbage man had accidentally rammed his truck into a parked car on our street. Over and over I said them.
    "Gussie!"
    I froze with my switch in midair. Nell was standing on the edge of the clearing with her hands on her hips, the straps of her purse looped over one elbow. Her face was pink and sweaty. "You were practically shouting," she cried.
    I let out an exhausted sigh and sat down hard on the nearest log. Nell stepped closer until she was standing over me. "Sunday school couldn't have been that bad," she said. "My class wasn't so awful."
    I didn't answer.
    Nell put on her cheerful voice. "Maybe next week will be better."
    "I'm not going next week."
    "Of course you are," she said quickly. "You have to ... especially after all that cussing." Nell snickered at her own joke. "But, gosh, next time you feel the urge to cuss like that, can't you whisper, or at least do it a little bit quieter? Or—or what about signing? You could
sign
the cuss words instead of saying them!"
    "Sign them," I repeated flatly.
    Nell nodded, her face shining with the exciting possibilities of her new idea.
    "You think there are really signs for those words? And how am I supposed to learn them? Ask Daddy?"
    For a brief second, her smile faded; then it reappeared. "You can fingerspell!"
    I held my hand over my head and spelled out the D word. "Nope," I said, dropping my fist limply into my lap. "Not nearly as good."
    Nell let out a big puff of air. "I give up," she said. She leaned over the spot on the log next to me and tried to brush away the dirt and crumbling bark with the bottom of her purse. Finally, she carefully lowered herself to the edge of the log and perched there, looking around at the scattered trash with disgust.
    "This place gives me the creeps, Gussie. There must be people sleeping in these woods at night. And
look,
" she said, reaching down to pluck up the folded front page of a newspaper lying near her feet. She dangled it between two fingertips. "This paper is only from a couple of days ago. See! It's the story about that kidnapper who escaped from Atmore Prison Farm."
    She glanced anxiously over one shoulder, then the other. "This would be just the kind of place where he would hide," she said, and cringed. "This is probably the paper he was reading to find out how close the police are getting." She dropped the paper as if it had burned her fingers.
    I rolled my eyes. "Not Birthmark Baines again," I groaned. Practically everyone in Birmingham was beside themselves with fear that the escaped convict, Horace Baines, who happened to have a large red birthmark splashed across one cheek, would strike again and steal their sleeping children from their beds. Three years earlier Baines had kidnapped the five-year-old son of a bank president in Montgomery and held him for ransom. Fortunately, the police had caught up with him when he was barely a mile down the road with his briefcase full of money.
    But two weeks ago Baines had sneaked out of the prison on a delivery truck, and was supposedly armed with a homemade knife and dangerous. He had last been spotted on the outskirts of town, hiding in an old woman's shed. She had called the police, but by the time they arrived, Birthmark Baines was gone.
    My parents didn't seem too concerned—a fact that appalled Margaret, especially since Daddy wasn't there to protect us most of the time. Obviously, no right-minded kidnapper would ever target a family like ours if he had hopes of getting a decent ransom. Still, every morning Margaret rushed to fetch the newspaper from the front walk to read the latest reports on Baines, and every night she double-checked the doors and windows to make sure they were locked tight. One evening she even woke Mother up, saying