Driving With Dead People by Monica Holloway Read Free Book Online Page B

wagon.”
    Julie nodded.
    Waving off Jamie, I turned to her. “This’ll be a piece of cake. Let’s go in.”
    Jamie walked back downstairs and I put my arm around Julie’s waist, as if she were one of the senior citizens down at Marigold Manor nursing home, and guided her into the classroom.
    “Well, hello, girls,” a sweet voice called out. I turned and saw something I had only seen about three times in my entire life: a black woman. Mrs. Eaton, my new fourth-grade teacher, was black . Her hair was the same length all over and curled under just below her ears. She wore her navy sweater around her shoulders like an elegant cape that was clasped just below her neck with a stylish red stickpin. She was beautiful.
    “I’m Monica and this is Julie Kilner,” I said. “She’s new.”
    “Are you from Bloomfield School?” Mrs. Eaton asked.
    “There’s not school there anymore,” Julie said.
    Mason County was closing many of the smaller county schools and consolidating them into one. It turned out there were three new kids from Bloomfield School in my class.
    Mrs. Eaton showed us to our seats. Julie sat in the third row because her last name started with a K , but I was back and toward the middle because of the P in Peterson.
     
    Two weeks later Mrs. Jenkins, the music teacher, told our class we’d be dancing to “Meet Me in St. Louis” for the fall music festival. There weren’t enough boys to partner all the girls, so Mrs. Jenkins pointed to me and said, “You’re a boy.”
    I was furious as I stood there in my pleated skirt and white knee socks. Do I look like a boy? I wanted to know. It had to be my crappy short haircut that doomed me.
    My partner turned out to be Julie Kilner because I was tall and she was short. We spent our time at rehearsal talking and laughing instead of dancing.
    Julie was becoming my very best friend.
     
    At the open house that fall Dad actually showed up. But when Mrs. Eaton came over to talk to him, he started stammering instead of speaking. That’s when I remembered Dad hated black people. I had forgotten that Mrs. Eaton was black.
    As we were walking back toward the car, I heard Dad say, “I didn’t know the coons were going to be there.” He laughed.
    “Don’t start, Glen,” Mom said.
    “What did I say?” he asked, grinning. I wasn’t even sure.
    “Let it go,” Mom said.
    “What, the nigger in there? I just didn’t know I was paying taxes for a nigger to teach my kid, that’s all.” Mom shook her head and glanced at me. My mouth flopped open in shock, and a wave of fury swept over me.
    I never wanted him near Mrs. Eaton again. I worried she knew Dad hated her. I worried she would think I was the same.
     
    One Saturday afternoon Mom took Granda to JC Penney’s to buy a new nightgown.
    At around five o’clock our local radio station reported a tornado had been spotted on the ground. As soon as Dad heard the news and checked the falling barometer on the dining room wall, he shoved our reluctant hind ends into the station wagon and drove seventy miles an hour toward Flora Meyer’s farm.
    “That’s where they’re brewin’,” Dad said excitedly to no one in particular.
    “Great,” I said, making Jamie laugh.
    “You’re gonna love this,” Dad said, flipping on his movie camera as he drove. He glanced at our pale faces in the rearview mirror and smiled. He knew we were petrified, which made him positively giddy.
    I couldn’t figure out which was more worrisome, seeing a real tornado or Dad losing control of the station wagon, hitting a phone pole, and ejecting us out into Curly Tillison’s cornfield.
    In the backseat Jamie was sitting by the window, then me, then Becky, and JoAnn by the other window.
    The four of us figured it was only a matter of time before we met death by car or by weather. Maybe today it would be both. If there were such a thing as death by humiliation, we would have been dead already.
    Jamie looked over at us and mouthed, “Holy