Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper Read Free Book Online

found, was so much bigger than Bumblebee. And so much more exciting.
    Stella set the clippings aside and began flipping through a couple of pages of the notebook from school, frowning. She just couldn’t seem to get it right, this writing thing. She did most of her homework with Jojo at the kitchen table. But she practiced her writing at night—she didn’t want her family to know how she messed up. Mama and Papa, of course, expected her to bring home good grades in every subject. Ugh.
    Finally Stella opened the notebook to a fresh page. Taking an idea from her father’s newspaper that morning, she wrote just one word on that page— TRUTH . The whole rest of the page was an ocean of white. Double ugh. She chewed on the pencil. She made curlicues on each letter of TRUTH . Then she made a decision. If she was gonna really write with honesty, she ought to start, like Mrs. Grayson said, with herself.She gripped the pencil so tight, it made a mark on her middle finger.
    It took five tries to get it right. Five balled-up sheets of paper. Five pages of anger and mess-ups and erasures. When she finished, she rubbed her eyes, sleep begging to creep in.
    She read it over one last time, not really satisfied, but it was the truth. Even if it still had some scratch-outs.

11
TRUTH
    My name is Stella and I am me.
    My name is Estelle and I am somebody.
    My name is Estelle Mills, and I am not nobody. Mrs. Grayson would say that’s a dubble double negative. Well, I’m here to say I’m not no negative. I am me, and that’s a fact.
    I like to be called Stella because it reminds me of stars, and I like the night. Mama tells me I was born at midnite midnight during a full moon. Maybe that is why.
    I am left-handed—the only student in the whole school who is.
    My family reminds me of good things to drink.
    Mama is hot chocolate.
    Papa is black coffee.
    Jojo is sweet tea.
    Me, I’m the color of rum. Mama cooks with it sometimes.
    I’ve got thick black hair, and bushy caterpillar-looking eyebrows. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see pretty. I just see me.
    Besides, sometimes things that look pretty, like secret fire in the darkness, are really pretty ugly.

12
Spoon Man’s Coming!
    Saturday morning bloomed bright like, hmm, Stella tried to think of a description her teacher would like. A sky full of daylilies! That wasn’t so bad, Stella thought. She had turned the paper in to Mrs. Grayson yesterday, who had grunted with approval and given her a grade of C. Stella, relieved, wondered if there would still be a conversation between her teacher and her mother. Mrs. Grayson did not say, and Stella for sure didn’t ask.
    So that afternoon, when Mama told Stella to get Papa’s hammer and a few nails and fix some porch planks that had worked loose, she’d jumped at the chance to be helpful, just in case. “Ouch!” she cried out, putting her thumb in her mouth for the secondtime that day. Holding the nail was easy. Banging it into the wood was a little trickier.
    Bap! Bap! Bap! She finally had a rhythm going, enjoying the sun on her back, when Jojo looked up from slapping whitewash on the front fence. “Lookie, Stella!” he cried out all of a sudden, happily. “Spoon Man’s coming!”
    Stella dropped the hammer, swung open the front door, and hollered, “Hey, Mama! The Spoon Man—he’s coming up the road, Mama! Come outside quick!”
    Her mother rushed out to the porch, a bandanna on her head, a scrub brush in her hand, and a grudging smile on her face. “Well-a, well-a. Lordy be.”
    â€œCan we look? Please, Mama? Can we look at what he’s got?”
    â€œOf course, honeygirl.” Her mother dried her hands on her apron. “I might even take a gander at his goods myself.” Jojo and Stella raced ahead of her.
    â€œWhat you bring me, Spoon Man?” Jojo demanded, meeting the visitor before he even pulled into the