Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Read Free Book Online Page B

dust off her shorts.
    “Clear the urr-ree-uh!” Spec turns on the siren. The onlookers recoil at the blast, covering their ears, then push back to let Spec through, and he speeds off down the street toward Frog Level, where something is burning.
    “That’s a bad omen. Gonna be a shit football season, you’ll see,” Fleeta says under her breath. The drum major cues the band, but the woodwinds, still paralyzed from Spec’s rant, barely have the breath to blow out the opening bars. I look over at Etta, who sees me and shakes her head slowly. This wasn’t the grand start to her band career that we were hoping for.
    With Etta back in school, Iva Lou and I are determined not to let anything interfere with our once-a-week lunches. We’ve devised a system where we rotate our lunches between the library (pack your own), Stringer’s (serve yourself, all you can eat), and Bessie’s Diner (the classic burger joint in Appalachia).
    “You’d better set down.” Iva Lou rises out of her seat at Bessie’s to make room for me in the booth. She has ordered for me, my usual sloppy joe and Diet Coke, and has already picked at her macaroni and cheese.
    “I’m sorry I’m late. What’s wrong? Did your tests come back?” Iva Lou had a full-service physical at Holston Valley—blood, stress test, the works.
    “Hell, they told me I was fine over there. I just have to go back for a couple more things, but so far, I’m as healthy as a horse.”
    “Good.”
    “No, honey, this is about Etta. I’d rather you hear it from a friend.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a beaut. I gotta say, at least your daughter sticks to the tried and true.”
    My mind races, but I can’t imagine what could be wrong. Etta has been an angel since the Roof Incident. She went to the band festival in Bristol, which Jack and I chaperoned. Her first report card of the year was all A’s. She doesn’t talk on the phone too much and isn’t boy crazy. In a week, she and I are going to New York City to see Theodore, just the two of us. I can’t imagine what Iva Lou is talking about.
    “It’s gonna be all over town, and you need to know first.”
    “Know what?” I say in a measured tone.
    “Etta pulled a prank.”
    “A prank?” This is a word a mother hates to hear.
    “Well, here’s what happened. Ole Kate Benton made the kids run laps after a bad band rehearsal. Evidently, the kids were really slacking off, and of course, she made everyone run the laps, from the flag girls to the banner carriers.”
    “So?”
    “The kids thought this was unfair, and they rebelled.”
    “How?”
    “Etta and a few other kids ordered a ton of coal to be delivered to Miss Benton’s house over on Wyandotte Avenue.”
    “Oh, no.”
    “Yep, and she has gas heat.”
    “No.” Delivering coal to someone with a gas furnace is one of the classic pranks that local kids pull, and it surfaces every ten years or so. Basically, some kid calls the coal-delivery service and asks to have a ton of coal delivered for the winter. In these parts, everything, including coal delivery, is done on an honor system; no deposit, they bill you after they deliver. The customer sets the date (usually sometime in November), and the truck shows up and dumps a mountain of coal in the yard. The customer is responsible for shoveling it down into the basement. You can tell how much of the winter season is left as these mountains of coal diminish in backyards all over town.
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “It’s true.” Iva Lou laughs.
    “It’s not funny. It’s against the law.”
    “Oh, loosen up. I remember when I was girl, we called the Roy A. Green Funeral Home over in Appalachia, and we told them our principal died of a heart attack and to come fetch him. So old Roy got in his black Buick and drove over to the principal’s house. His wife came to the door, and Roy looked at her with them sad bug eyes and said, ‘Ma’am, we’ve come for the body.’ She fainted dead away. Now, that was a