Alligator Bayou by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online Page A

month. Not like in Sicily where the women dragged us to church every week.”
    I’m surprised his thoughts are so far from mine.
    Goats wander through, nibbling at our pant legs. No one pays them any mind. In Sicily goats run free, too, but they aren’t allowed in church.
    I miss a real church. The cathedral in Cefalù has two bell towers and high ceilings and mosaics. When you kneel under the centerpiece, you know the Lord watches over you, no matter how small you are. I went there every week with Mamma. And she’d let Rocco sit on my lap. She said I was best at keeping him quiet, but I think she didn’t want him to wrinkle her Sunday dress. After she died, I took Rocco to Mass myself. But only for three months. Then I left for America.
    A pang of homesickness hits me. Is Rocco in church now?
    When the service ends, I pump fresh water from the well, and we all wash our hands in front of Father May to impress him with our cleanliness.
    We carry the benches inside to eat. I’m silent through it all, because I have little idea what Father May is saying. I think no one does, but they talk anyway, as though it doesn’t matter that they’re talking past one another. Usually Cirone and I trade glances at this point in Father May’s visit, but Cirone is lost in his own world today.
    I’m alone. I feel strange, almost chilled.
    With my eyes I beg Carlo to excuse me. He’s in charge of mealtime.
    When he finally gives me the nod, I run like mad for Frank Raymond’s. I’m always late to my lessons when Father May’s in town.
    “I’ve got questions today,” I say as I burst through the door.
    “I knew that.” Frank Raymond is cleaning the paint out of his brush. He looks at me. “Do you know what a joy it is to paint by this window in the morning?”
    I smile. “Morning light is best. You tell me every Sunday.”
    “This week I’ve been in the saloon working on that blessèd mural.” He sighs. “I’ve missed this window—this light.”
    “If you miss painting in your room, why do you call the saloon mural blessèd?”
    “Hot meals, my dear Calogero. On the house.”
    “What about your afternoons? Your experiences?”
    He laughs. “All painters need experiences in order to make art. Have I told you that before?”
    “A thousand times.”
    Frank Raymond holds his brush up to the window, then cleans it some more. Maybe he’s forgotten I’m here. That same lonely feeling I had at noon dinner washes over me again. I’m the only person Frank Raymond tutors. If it weren’t for me, he could have at least Sunday free. Does he wish I’d go away? I’d miss him if he told me to. A lot. I clear my throat to remind him I’m here.
    He looks at me, solemn. Then he goes to the table, dips snuff, and turns to me. “So, question number one?”
    “How come you talk fancy?”
    He grins. “Who says I talk fancy?”
    “Mrs. Rogers said I talk fancy—and I talk like you.”
    “I’m educated.”
    “How come Mrs. Rogers doesn’t talk like us?”
    “She never went to school.”
    “What? How do you know?”
    “After the war the federal government said everyone was allowed in the public schools. But the whites refused to send their children to school with the children of their former slaves. For about ten years white children in Louisiana got no education, until they built separate ramshackle schools for the Negroes. It was even longer here in Tallulah. And that’s right when Mrs. Rogers would have been school age.”
    I’m stunned. But that isn’t the whole story—it can’t be. “I’ve got friends now. They go to school, but they still talk different from you. And me.”
    “People from different places in America talk differently.” Frank Raymond spits in his little spit cup, then chews his snuff. “Your pronunciation is more and more Louisiana. Southern talk. But at least you still make good Iowa sentences, like me.”
    I don’t want to make good Iowa sentences. I want to talk like my friends, and