Flavors by Emily Sue Harvey Read Free Book Online

Grandma’s in my later life because he was always disappearing out the door to go tend crops. Same with the stair-step order of adolescent-teen males who did not already hold cotton mill jobs: Cletus, Tommy Lee and Alton Dean.
    â€œWhat day is it?” I asked Nellie Jane, who lay near me. She sat up and stretched, taking her own good time to answer me.
Mornings were not her best time. Rarely did she condescend to give me an immediate reply.
    â€œWhat difference does it make what day it is, Lazy-bones? You still gotta get up,” she grumped. I can still, more than a half-century later, hear her voice. It was not mean, even in name-calling irritation. It was more a weary monotone. Only when fear or injustice upset or riled her did her voice rise to high-pitch or strident. And this departure endured for only brief moments, usually dissolving into deep, silent weeping, mostly done in private.
    From the radio, Farmer Gray crooned cheerfully, “A good Thursday to you. It’s gonna be a warm day. Lots of sunshine.”
    â€œToday’s Thursday,” I said.
    Nellie Jane rolled her eyes and drawled, “Oh, you are so-o smart. ”
    I didn’t pay her any attention. “I’m so glad school’s out and I don’t have to wear shoes and I’ll be in the seventh grade next year. Mr. Cogdill will be my teacher,” I announced in dreamy anticipation.
    Nellie Jane sniffed and cut her eyes down at me. “Ol’ man Cog-leg?”
    Since, in middle school, we attended the same district school, she was familiar with who he was.
    â€œStop calling him that. He can’t help it if he limps.”
    â€œYou can’t wait ‘cause you’re gonna be his pet ,” Nellie Jane intoned, as though it were a curse. She watched me close, pushing some obscure button deep inside me, one that stirred up something wild, that flailed about desperately denying Heaven-only-knew-what.
    â€œNot so!” I sputtered, not sure why her taunt bothered me so.
    â€œTeacher’s pet,” she sing-songed in her hushed way, knowing Grandma wouldn’t hear her. Grandma never heard her.

    â€œStop saying that.”
    â€œS’the truth.” She climbed to her feet, blasé about the whole thing.
    â€œIt’s not so the truth!” I blared, nettled to the bone.
    â€œHush your mouthing, Sadie,” called Grandma from the kitchen.
    Nellie Jane sauntered away, calm and composed. I watched her go into the back bedroom and slam the door behind her. I knew she would change from her nightshirt to a dress before going to the kitchen to help Grandma with breakfast. She’d done her sponge bath the night before, a ritual I’d not yet grasped without being forced to. At home, we had indoor plumbing and a bathtub, a more simple process than the sponge bath.
    Besides, at home, Mama always ran the water and made me hop in and checked to make sure I soaped up all over, then rinsed. At home, it was an adventure. Here, in Melton-land, a bath got lost somewhere between supper, ghost stories and pallets.
    Why does she say those nasty things about Mr. Cogdill? Was it to make me mad? Nellie Jane did just love to make me mad. I decided then and there that she just pretended she didn’t like Mr. Cogdill because when he was nice to her at school, she was always nice back to him. She knew I really, really liked him. He always spoke to me at school and called me by my whole name, Sadie Ann. That made me feel real good that he remembered my name all the time.
    I couldn’t wait till school started again and I could show him how smart I was and share some of my poems with him. I’d taken to writing them that past year. Mama and Daddy liked them and I suspected he would, too.
    â€œNellie Jane!” Grandma called. “Git in here.” I could hear her knocking pots and pans around in the kitchen and smelled
bacon frying. I stuck my foot up in the air and wiggled my toes. One was