Glory Be (10 page)

T
wo days later, when Frankie showed up at our kitchen door busting his britches to tell me something, I ignored him. Emma and I were reading Nancy Drew together, searching for clues in the old clock. Emma looked up once, shook her head, then turned to the next chapter.

It was the first of July, and even though I was happy that my birthday month was here, I was still red-hot-mad at Frankie. I wasn’t speaking to him, no matter how hard he knocked at my door.

“Open up, Glory! I’ve got something to tell you!”

“I know what you did,” I yelled back. “Get out of here, Frankie.” I took to reading my chapter to Emma even louder.

“I didn’t do
anything
.” Frankie pushed open the door
and scooted his chair next to the kitchen table, but he wouldn’t look straight at me.

I slammed the book shut and moved as far away from him as I could. “It was you who put up that fake sign about the pool opening. I’m not talking to you.”

Emma stood and laid our book carefully on the shelf next to her cookbooks. She didn’t turn to face us. Even with her back turned, I could tell she was listening by the way her shoulders hunched up.

“
I
didn’t do anything. But your friend, that Yankee, did something bad. She’s in trouble.” Frankie looked around the kitchen. “She’s not here, is she? That Laura girl. She and some of them other Freedom people committed a crime!”

“A crime? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Laura broke into the pool and stole something.”

“That’s a bald-faced lie, Frankfurter Smith!”

Frankie leaned up close. His voice got quieter. “Somebody went over there last night and messed with the pool lockers. And they took candy from the snack bar. Laura and her friends did it.”

“You’re loony, Frankie. Laura wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, she did. They found one of her dumb black socks dropped on the dressing room floor.” He
pushed his glasses up on his nose and slicked back his hair, looked me straight in the eye like he was telling the gospel truth. “You know how you’re always trying to get her to take those ugly socks off and go barefooted? This time your stupid friend did take off her socks.”

Emma spoke up quietly, without turning around. “Frankie, mind your manners. Glory’s friend Laura wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

“Yeah, Frankie. Laura wouldn’t break into any old lockers. You’re making that up,” I said. “You’re telling a lie.”

“Your Yankee friend’s in big trouble. There’s a police car over there now. Come see for yourself if you don’t believe me.” Frankie took a step toward the back door just as Emma turned around fast.

Emma put her hand on my shoulder. “Brother Joe will skin you alive, getting mixed up in that mess. You’re staying put, Glory.”

“We won’t be gone long, Miss Emma,” Frankie said. “We’ll just ride our bikes slow, so Glory can see. My daddy’s there. We’ll be okay.”

Emma shook her head. “No, Glory’s not going — that’s that.” She turned her back again to take
out peaches, flour, and sugar for a pie. She started peeling the peaches.

I needed to prove Frankie was lying. I was even willing to risk getting skinned alive by Brother Joe and peeled like a peach by Emma.

I hightailed it out of there before Emma turned around to stop me.

When we parked our bikes in front of the pool, Frankie had a goofy smile on his face. Across the street was a policeman talking to his daddy. Mr. Smith had both hands on his hips and his legs wide apart. He looked like he was ready to slap somebody good. He walked right in the pool gate and slammed it hard behind him, rattling the new
Pool Closed
sign.

Frankie said, “See? Daddy’s talking to a policeman. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Tell me what? I don’t believe a word you say. Laura wouldn’t break into this pool. You don’t know anything.” But when I saw the policeman holding up Laura’s black sock, I got an awful feeling about the whole mess.

W
hen I got home, I could smell Emma’s pie baking. I tried to sneak back into the kitchen, but there was no getting around her. “Don’t you ever disobey me like that again!” Emma was holding a pie server.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to —”

She pointed the server at me. “Sorry’s not enough. You’re my responsibility when your father’s away. I have a good mind to put this server to your backside.”

Emma never spanked me, but oh, did she look mad now. I felt my feet ease away from her. She said, “Yes, that’s right — take a step back, Glory. Step back in your thinking, too. Pause before you act, child. The sun rises slowly over Hanging Moss, and so should you.”

I nodded to show her I understood.

“Go — wash your hands for supper,” she said softly.

At the supper table, all of us ate quietly. I was working out how to prove Frankie was wrong about Laura. Daddy was probably thinking about preaching to the shut-ins he’d be visiting tomorrow, and Jesslyn was for sure swooning over Robbie. After we each ate a big wedge of peach pie, we headed for the front porch. Jesslyn and I pushed back and forth on the porch swing with our bare feet. Emma waited inside for her Liberty taxi ride home.

When her friend pulled up, I called out, “Hey, Mr. Miles. Emma will be there in a minute.”

I stood up just when Emma stepped on the porch, and I noticed something I’d never seen before. Two little colored kids sat in the backseat of the taxi, a boy and a girl, younger than me. When the girl’s eyes met mine, she looked like she wanted to wave at me, but stopped her hand before she let the wave rise up to where the open window let in this night’s summer heat.

Our daddy sat off to one side of the porch holding his newspaper under the light. I leaned over to read the open page.

“Is my letter to the editor in there today?” All I saw was an ad for eggs, priced at forty cents a dozen, and an
announcement that somebody was giving away kittens for free.

Daddy shook his head. “Mrs. Simpson has a lot to say about what gets in this paper and what doesn’t.” He turned the page. “You did a good thing, Glory.”

“Anything about the Community Pool? Frankie says the Freedom Workers broke in and messed up the lockers and stole things.”

“I saw a policeman there this afternoon,” Jesslyn said. “What’d you hear, Glory?”

I glanced up just as Emma started down the steps. Before I could answer my sister, Emma stopped real quick and took a step back onto the porch.

A white car pulled up in front of our house. Out came Mr. Smith. Frankie was in the backseat. He didn’t get out. He didn’t even wave.

“Howdy, Reverend.” Mr. Smith touched his hat, tipped it toward our daddy. He nodded at me and Jesslyn. He looked right through Emma like she wasn’t even there. “May I have a word?” he asked Daddy.

As preachers’ kids, Jesslyn and I know that when a member of the church shows up on our front porch — especially when the member is a deacon like Mr. Smith — we’re supposed to give Daddy some
privacy. Emma, standing with her summer straw hat set just so and her pocketbook under her arm, ready to go home in Mr. Miles’s taxi, knew what she was supposed to do, too.

All three of us stepped inside the front screen door.

Daddy spoke first. “What’s on your mind, James?”

Even though we’d left the porch, we could hear every word between the two men and could see them talking.

“It’s about Glory,” Mr. Smith answered.

“What about my daughter?”

I sucked in my breath and held it.

“You realize she’s been keeping bad company, socializing with that Yankee gal over at the library,” Mr. Smith said. “I heard tell Glory wrote a letter to the editor of the paper about the pool closing. Your daughter was probably unduly influenced by the girl from up North. Frankie thinks Glory knows where she’s staying at.”

Daddy didn’t answer right off. Emma leaned closer to the door. Even without the front hall light turned on, I saw her jaw clenching and a frown taking over her face.

“We’re trying to get word to that girl’s mama about vandalism that occurred at the pool.” Mr. Smith took a step closer. He was about a foot taller than my daddy so
Daddy had to look up at him. “Somebody broke into the pool last evening, late. Messed up the lockers and stole candy bars.” Mr. Smith’s voice got louder, near about made me want to cover up my ears. “We suspect it was the girl from the library.”

Daddy was stretching his neck, holding his head up higher to look as tall as Mr. Smith.

“I’m speaking for the Pool Committee,” Frankie’s daddy went on. “But there’s also people in the church who agree that Glory being friends with these outside agitators — why, she’s sticking her nose in where it don’t belong.”

By now, Daddy looked to be as tall as Frankie’s daddy. Maybe it was the sure way he was speaking.

“Well now, James. Truth to tell, I’m right proud of Glory. She’s standing up for what she believes is right. All of us should lead our children to do that, don’t you know?”

“What I
know
is that we can’t have these
freedom people
damaging town property. We need to stand up for things the way they’ve always been.” Mr. Smith’s bald head glowed under the front porch light. His eyes looked meaner than a snake’s.

Jesslyn grabbed my hand in the dark front hall.
She held it so hard I thought my fingers might break off.

I shivered.

Emma reached over and squeezed my shoulder, then hugged me close. For a minute, all I could hear was her whispering “Lord, Lord” over and over, like she was praying to herself. I leaned into her and listened to my daddy and Mr. Smith start up again. I was getting madder at every word Frankie’s daddy said, but I was proud of my daddy for sticking up for me — and Laura.

“I don’t believe Laura did what you’re accusing her of,” Daddy said. “She’s visited in our home, and she is a sweet, well-behaved, polite child. She’s a friend of Glory’s. That’s enough for me.”

“That so? Well, she was up to no good last night, I tell you,” Mr. Smith answered. “They found a black sock at the scene. My boys tell me she’s the only person who wears those socks. She’s lucky the police won’t press charges — this time anyway. But her mama, that civil rights worker” — Mr. Smith pronounced
civil rights
like it was a bad taste he needed to spit out of his mouth — “she needs to know what her daughter’s up to.”

I couldn’t wait one more minute in the dark listening to Mr. Smith. I knew I shouldn’t talk back to a
grown-up standing on our front porch, but that was my friend he was talking about. And this was
my
pool! And three days before
my
birthday!

I pulled away from Jesslyn and Emma, then stormed onto the porch, looked hard at Frankie’s daddy. Everything, including the lightning bugs, seemed to hold still for a minute, waiting for me.

I let out a hard breath.

“You’re wrong, Mr. Smith. Laura Lampert’s my friend. She wouldn’t do that. You’re just plain wrong.”

Jesslyn opened the door and stood close to me on the porch. Emma pushed by Mr. Smith and stopped at the bottom of the steps. She kept her eyes on her friend driving the taxicab.

“There’s more to stories than it seems at first looking,” she said. “Two sides to most stories. Folks better be thinking about that for once.” And Emma kept on walking without another word ’cept to call out into the evening darkness, “Good night, Brother Joe, Jesslyn, Glory. See you all in the mornin’.”

Mr. Smith shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut real tight.

“You’d best be leaving, James,” Daddy said.

When the light came on in the car, Frankie was
slinking down so low in the backseat I couldn’t hardly see him. Daddy held me and Jesslyn tight. “You did right, Glory,” he whispered.

I didn’t like the look Mr. Smith had when he stomped off our porch. There was a heap of hate swirling around Frankie’s daddy.

I
needed to find Laura.

The next morning, I crept downstairs before the sun peeked over the tall zinnias blooming along our back fence.
I’m at the library
was all I wrote for Emma on my note. Pretty soon, I headed straight down Church Street.

When Miss Bloom opened the library’s back door, Laura stood next to her. “Glory. You’re up with the chickens.”

“Did you hear, Miss B.? Something bad happened at the pool,” I said. Laura had a big stack of books hugged tight and a worried look on her face. “They’re blaming it on you,” I told her. “Frankie’s daddy came to my house last night.”

“We know about the incident,” Miss Bloom said. She took off her glasses, put her arm around Laura. “Laura had nothing to do with it. Everything’s fine.”

“That’s not what Mr. Smith said.” I stuffed my hand in the pocket of my shorts. “He scared me. I told him you didn’t do anything. My daddy stuck up for me, too.”

“You and your father are right,” Laura finally said. “I didn’t break into your pool. Your friend Frankie and his father are wrong.”

Miss Bloom said, “Mr. Smith’s just stirring up trouble. Laura was with me the night someone vandalized the pool. She and her mother and I were having supper together. I told the police that when they were here yesterday evening.”

Laura looked down at her stack of books, then back at me. “I’m going back to Ohio to stay with my grandparents. They’re worried. They’ve heard bad things might happen here.”

Miss Bloom patted Laura’s shoulder. “But you’re here for July Fourth. And we’re planning something special at the library next week. Right, Laura? A thank-you for everyone who helps with the July Fourth parade,” Miss B. said.

“Miss Bloom says we’ll help with that,” Laura said to me.

“Something special, indeed. This is an important week for Hanging Moss.” Miss Bloom’s eyes squinched up and a huge smile broke out. “The parade! Fireworks! And a big to-do at the library. Won’t that be fun, girls?”

Laura bit her lip like she was deciding about that.

“The library party sounds like fun. I’m not sure about July Fourth,” I said under my breath.

Miss Bloom touched my hand, then looked back at Laura. “You’ll enjoy the parade, all the floats. Bands are coming from all around. There will be beautiful fireworks after dark. We’ll all go together. You’ll be fine with me, dear.”

Yeah, and the Fourth of July, day after tomorrow, was also my birthday. Nobody cared about that, that’s for dang sure.

“I don’t know, Miss B. The pool closing. Frankie accusing Laura of something she didn’t do. Mr. Smith yelling at my daddy.” I shivered in the air-conditioned library office. I hoped this parade would have the best-ever floats and bands, but the way things were going so far this summer, I didn’t want to think about what else bad might happen.

“I’ve never been to a parade,” Laura said. “It might be fun.”

I bet Laura won’t think sitting on scratchy grass in the summer heat with a bunch of strangers singing and waving little flags is as much fun as spending her summer finding shells at the beach like her mama had promised her.

But Miss Bloom smiled again, like all this celebrating was getting better and better.