Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood Read Free Book Online

smiled at me and told me he was glad I would be one of his students. The smile I gave back to him was so-so at best.
    Mama took me shopping for clothes and things Friday night. By the end of the evening I owned two new pairs of blue jeans and some bright white tennis shoes and three new shirts and a cherry-red sweater with white trim at the cuffs and collar. Iknew all that took a big bite out of Mama and Daddy’s budget and I knew it was nice of them, but even so, it was hard for me to really like any of it, even the red sweater, because it was all for the purpose of going to school.
    I didn’t want to go to school for a thousand reasons, one of which was that it was going to be so hard to be away from my chickens. There was too much happening. On Sunday, Fiddle had looked at me and crowed, a half strangled
erk-erk-err-err
.
    I ran to where Daddy was working in the barn and told him, “Daddy, I was right, Fiddle is a rooster! He just crowed! He really did!”
    Daddy grinned at me. “Isn’t that something.”
    “It is! It’s amazing! Daddy, I
can’t
go to school now.”
    His look turned skeptical. “And why is that?”
    “Well, because. Because Fiddle’s a rooster, and he’s crowing, and he’s going to get better at it, and if I’m at school, I won’t be here to hear it.”
    “Uh-huh,” Daddy said.
    “Please, Daddy. Please say I don’t have to go.”
    I clasped my hands in front of me and put all the pleading in my soul into my eyes, but Daddy had only squeezed my shoulder and said, “You have to go, chicklet. Might as well get used to it.”
    But even up to the last minute, I still hoped I could somehow put a stop to school. On Monday morning I told Mama I was not going.
    “No,” I told her. “No, no, no.” I flung myself out the door and ran to the henhouse. I climbed in and shut the door behind me.
    Mama let me go for a spell, and then she came looking. “Prairie! It’s about time to catch the bus. Come get your breakfast.”
    I sat real still, but the hens gave me away. They were flustered at being shut in with me and had begun to cluck and fuss. I couldn’t blame them. A chicken is a chicken, after all. Mama opened the door. We gazed at each other.
    “It really won’t be so awful.”
    “It will so. I’ve read enough to know. The teachers’ll be mean and the kids’ll be worse and I won’t have any friends and they’ll all make fun of me.”
    “Chicklet, it won’t be that bad. You might even like it.”
    “I will not.”
    “Well,” Mama said with a sigh. “Maybe not. But nonetheless you are going.”
    Finally I came out and stood before her, scowling. But Mama gave me such a kindly look, I nearly started to bawl. She pulled a piece of straw from my hair. “Dust yourself off and come eat. I’ll fry you some eggs.”

DAY ONE
    From day one I did not like school. First of all I didn’t like the big yellow bus roaring up to fetch me. I could hear it coming from a half mile off, and I worried the noise would upset the hens out of laying, especially Miss Emily and Miss Polly, who were so shy.
    I didn’t like being in among all those kids. Every one of them stared at me when I climbed on board the bus, and not with a kind look either. I wasn’t much used to children and I didn’t believe I’d like them, just like I told Anne Oliver. One hereand there might be all right, but not a whole flock bunched up together. Right away I could tell it would be just like in the henhouse: there was going to be a pecking order, and I was going to be at the bottom of it.
    The bus was bad, but school was worse. There were more kids in that building than I ever saw in one place before, and they were going every which way, yelling at the tops of their voices. I dreaded being caged among them all day. It was like the Perkins kids back home times a thousand.
    I didn’t like the bright lights shining down on my head. I didn’t like the smell of the place. I didn’t like the bells clanging. Most of all I