The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

Table of Contents

 

 

 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.
Published by The Penguin Group.
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Copyright © 2009 by Kristin Levine.

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levine, Kristin (Kristin Sims), 1974-
The best bad luck I ever had / Kristin Levine.
p. cm.

 

 

Summary: In Moundville, Alabama, in 1917, twelve-year-old Dit hopes the new postmaster
will have a son his age, but instead he meets Emma, who is black, and their friendship
challenges accepted ways of thinking and leads them to save the life of a condemned man.
[1. Race relations—Fiction. 2. Prejudices—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction.
4. Country life—Alabama—Fiction. 5. Family life—Alabama—Fiction.
6. Alabama—History—1819-1950—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L57842Bes 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008011570

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-440-69940-5

1

 

 

 

I’VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE. OH, HECK, IF I’M being real honest, I’ve been wrong a lot. But I ain’t never been so wrong as I was about Emma Walker. When she first came to town, I thought she was the worst piece of bad luck I’d had since falling in the outhouse on my birthday. I tell you, things were fine in Moundville before Emma got here, least I thought they were. Guess the truth is, you’ll never know how wrong I was till I’m done telling and explaining—so I’d better just get on with the story.

My real name is Harry Otis Sims, but everybody calls me Dit. See, when I was little, I used to roll a hoop down Main Street, beating it with a stick as I ran along. One day, two older boys tried to steal my hoop. I hit them with my stick and told them, “Dit away.” They laughed. “You talk like a baby. Dit, dit, dit.” The name stuck.

There are ten children in our family: Della, Ollie, Ulman, Elman, Raymond, me, Earl, Pearl, Robert and Lois. That’s just too many kids. There are never leftovers at supper, and you never get new clothes. We don’t even get to go to the store for shoes: Mama just keeps them all in a big old barrel. When the pair you’re wearing gets too tight, you throw yours in and pick out another one. With so many kids, sometimes I think my pa don’t even know my name, since it’s always, “Della, Ollie, Ulman, Elman, Raymond, uh, I mean Dit.”

We all live in a big old house that Pa built himself right off Main Street in Moundville, Alabama. Most of the people in Moundville are farmers like my pa. Just about everything grows well in our rich, dark soil, but especially corn and cotton. Before I even had my nickname, Pa taught me how to count by showing me the number of ears of corn to feed the mule.

Most evenings my whole family, and just about everybody in town, gathers in front of Mrs. Pooley’s General Goods Store to wait for the train. Mrs. Pooley is the meanest old lady I’ve ever met. She smokes, spits and has a temper shorter than a bulldog’s tail. But her store has a wide, comfortable porch and a great view of the train depot, just across the street. The evening Emma came, Mrs. Pooley sat in her usual rocker, smoking a pipe with Uncle Wiggens.

Uncle Wiggens ain’t really my uncle, everyone just calls him that. He’s over eighty and fought in the War Between the States. He only has one leg and one hero, General Robert E. Lee. Uncle Wiggens manages to work Lee’s name into pretty much any old conversation. You might say, “My, it’s cold today,” and he’d reply, “You think this is cold? General Lee said it didn’t even qualify as chill till your breath froze on your nose and made a little icicle.” He had about five different stories of how he lost his leg, every one of them entertaining.

That night I was listening to the version that involved him running five Yankees into a bear’s den as I wound a ball of twine into a baseball. Course if I’d had the money, I could have bought a new ball at Mrs. Pooley’s store, but if you wind twine real careful, it’s almost as good as a real ball.

The new postmaster was coming to town, and the grown-ups were as wound up as the kids on Christmas. The postmaster was in charge of sorting and delivering the mail, but he also sent and received telegrams. This meant he knew any good gossip long before anybody else. The last postmaster had been a lazy good-for-nothing: everyone had gotten the wrong mail two days late. He and his family had finally skipped town for refusing to pay their debts at Mrs. Pooley’s store.

I was excited too. The new postmaster, Mr. Walker, was supposed to have a boy who was twelve, just like me. I sure hoped he liked to play baseball. It was June 1917, and my best friend, Chip, had just left to spend the summer with his grandma in Selma.

My ball of twine got bigger and bigger till there was a small light, far off in the distance. We all jumped up and ran across the street to the train depot. There was a flash of copper as the golden eagle on the top of the huge locomotive flew out of the night sky. The whistle howled, white steam poured out of the engine and the train came to a slow stop in front of the station.

A few local men who worked in Tuscaloosa got off first. Next, a couple of townspeople who had been visiting relatives climbed down the steps. Finally, a thin girl nobody knew appeared in the doorway of the train.

The girl looked about my age and wore a fancy navy dress. Her hair was carefully combed and pulled back into a neat braid, tied with a red ribbon. She clutched a small suitcase of smooth leather. She was also colored.

2

 

 

 

THE GIRL STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF THE train as the whole town looked her over. My little sister Pearl stared at her shoes—shiny, black patent leather without a scuff on them. Pearl’s ten years old and ain’t never had a pair that ain’t been worn by two sisters before her. The girl’s mother stepped into the doorway right behind her. She was colored too and wore a yellow dress made of a gauzy material—Mama later said it was organza.

The girl and her mama stepped carefully down onto the platform. Her daddy got off last. He wore a tailored suit, walked with a limp and was just as black as the rest of them.

The man looked around and in a crisp, Northern accent asked, “Is there a Mr. Sims here?”

“I’m Mr. Sims,” said Pa, looking a bit confused.

“I’m Mr. Walker,” said the man, holding out his hand. “The new postmaster.”

It got real quiet for a moment. Everyone stared at Mr. Walker.

“They is niggers,” said Uncle Wiggens, just as loud as could be.

Pa stepped forward then and shook Mr. Walker’s hand.

“The boy’s a girl,” I mumbled. Mama poked me with her elbow, then went to speak to Mrs. Walker.

I scowled at the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Emma,” she said, and scowled right back.

Mama made me carry home Emma’s trunk in my old wagon. We had a cabin on our property that we always rented out to the postmaster and his family. I didn’t understand how one little girl could have more stuff than me and all my brothers.