“I understand. I just want to help.”
“Don’t need no help.”
I looked around at the dead fish hanging on the wall. This seemed to be a popular decorating choice in Culpepper. My eyes stopped on a scratched, plastic box with boring sweet rolls inside. I’d say you need help, sir.
“I brought some samples. I’ve got chocolate chip muffins and vanilla cupcakes.” I opened the Bake and Take. “Would you like to try one, Mr. Wayne?”
He sniffed, which might mean yes. The lady’s eyes popped. “I haven’t had a cupcake in I don’t know when,” she said. “Are these free?”
“They’re free today, but Mr. Wayne, I don’t want to be a bother.” I figured he wasn’t a cupcake man, so I handed him a muffin.
He held it up and studied it. This is what food people do.
“I use a touch of corn flour,” I told him. “Makes it chewy.”
He took a bite, and I saw a little sparkle in his eyes. He took his time chewing it—it was like he was moving it from side to side in his mouth. I’ve seen people tasting wine like that on the Food Network. He took a gulp of coffee, took another bite.
“You made this?”
I nodded. “It’s got butter and—”
“I know what it’s got. What else you make?”
“I make pumpkin muffins, apple cinnamon ones, banana bread, pineapple upside-down cake, cupcakes—”
“Vanilla cupcakes,” the woman whispered.
“I ain’t deaf, Betty.”
“I need a cupcake.” Betty grabbed one and took a bite. “Oh, now I’m in heaven!”
The two men at the counter each took a muffin and gobbled it down. Betty licked every last bit of frosting off the paper liner like a little kid and put her hand over her heart. Wayne turned back to the grill and fried up some onions.
A man who looked like a policeman came in and sat at the counter. “What’s good today?”
“Cupcakes,” Betty told him.
“Really?” He looked at what I’d brought. “How much?”
“Dollar,” Wayne said.
I coughed and motioned Wayne over. “You should charge more, sir.”
“Dollar fifty, Sheriff. Not a penny less for fresh baked.”
“Gimme two.”
I handed him two. They were gone fast. “This is a fine cupcake.” He brushed crumbs off his pants. “Heard Zeke got jumped at the prison. Wasn’t paying attention.”
“Gotta pay attention,” the others said.
I looked down and couldn’t believe what I saw. A huge spider with a black hairy body was crawling across the floor toward me!
I jumped back. “Get it away from me! Get it away!”
“Oh, Lord,” Wayne said.
The people at the counter shook their heads. The red-headed boys opened the screen door, laughing.
“Gotcha good!” the taller one said.
What?
“Barry and Larry, take that tarantula outside pronto!” Wayne shouted.
Tarantula? I’d seen the Nature Network enough to know what that meant.
The other boy picked up the tarantula. “Come on, Jim Bob, off you go.”
“Works from twenty-five feet,” the other said happily, and showed me the remote control.
A remote-controlled tarantula? I tried to catch a normal breath.
“Outside!” Wayne yelled.
The boys ran off. I closed my Bake and Take.
“Don’t get your britches in a bunch,” Wayne said to me.
I gulped and nodded. He went back to grilling. Betty reached for a cupcake.
“That’ll be a dollar fifty,” Wayne told her.
“It was free a minute ago.”
“These were free?” the sheriff asked.
Wayne held out his hand for the money. “I’m a businessman, Betty.”
She put seventy-five cents in his hand and gave seventy-five cents to me.
“What’s this?” Wayne demanded.
“Good business.” Betty ate that cupcake like it was the last one on earth.
“You want me to bring more tomorrow, Mr. Wayne?”
Everyone at the counter nodded.
Betty raised her eyebrows. “How much will you be paying this girl, Wayne?”
He thought about that. “Twenty-five percent of the take.”
Betty shook her head. “Not less than fifty.”
“I got overhead, woman!”
Betty glared at him until he muttered, “All right. Fifty percent. We’ll try it for one day.”
Whoo hoo!
I’m a professional baker! At least till tomorrow. Longer, maybe, if I don’t mess up. I ran out the door, hugging my Bake and Take.
“Can I have a muffin for my tarantula?” the taller red-headed boy asked.
“No!”
He pressed the remote and the tarantula’s eyes lit up. “You want to pet him?”
I jumped over that thing and headed down the road. I had big-time baking to do.
Fourteen
WHAT I CAN absolutely tell you about these chocolate chip muffins that I just baked for Angry Wayne is that they are the best ones of my career—fat, buttery, golden brown, and a little crusty on top. I tried to imagine them going into the deepest recesses of Angry Wayne’s heart, but that was hard to picture. I put them on a rack to cool and thought about Eddington Carver.
He and I were the king and queen of school bake sales. Eddington sold his enormous raspberry rolls that were so light and sweet you’d eat them until you got sick. I brought my triple chocolate blowout cupcakes that had cocoa, chocolate chips, and chocolate sprinkles on top. The smartest thing I ever did in sixth grade was give Mrs. Ritter a free cupcake. It was the only time she smiled at me. I think it might be why I passed sixth grade.
I looked at the book on the table tucked under the Bullet’s round window. It was Mama’s favorite book of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird. Don’t go thinking I could read the title. I couldn’t. It had one of those trick titles, because it didn’t have a bird anywhere in the story. Last year Mama read the book to me. It was about life in the South and how unfair some white people were to a black man, so unfair that they accused him of doing something he didn’t do. Mama said the story is about courage and fighting for justice, but I think it’s about what hate can do.
I held the book; 281 pages, all small print, no pictures. It was almost falling apart, too, because Mama had read it so much. Books were Mama’s friends.
I needed a best friend in this town.
Eddington moved to Texas the day after school was out. I baked him butterscotch muffins to eat in the car. “Someday,” he told me, “crowds of people are going to line up to buy this muffin.”
He gave me his number, but I lost it. I wished I could call him and tell him that I got a job as a baker for a day.
There was a knock at the door. It was Kitty. She held out her phone. “It’s that boy, Macon. He says it’s an emergency.”
I took the phone. “Hi . . .” was as far as I got.
“I’m desperate, Foster! I’ve got a fever and I’m coughing and I can’t go to Miss Charleena’s for a few days. I need you to go there and do my chores. I called Amy first, but she said she couldn’t handle the stress.”
This sounded like a bad idea. “I have to ask my mom.”
“You have to do this, Foster, or Miss Charleena will hire another kid and I’ll never be able to buy a movie camera! My entire life will be ruined! You’re my only hope!”
Mama said, “Of course, what an opportunity,” and that’s why I am standing in front of Macon’s house. It was set in the back of the woods hidden from the road. There were lots of houses here, but Macon’s house looked like people had been adding onto it without thinking. There was a section painted yellow and another painted blue, the roof had three different colors, a door leaned against a tree, a curling stairway went up to the roof.
Macon opened a window. “I called Miss Charleena and told her you were coming.”
/> “What did she say?”
“She made a sound.”
“What kind of a sound?”
“Like a grunt. Knock at the back door and she’ll let you in. She’s really very nice when you get to know her, although that can take a long time. I’m sorry I can’t come out; I’ve got hives.”
“That’s okay.”
“There’s nothing about hives that’s okay, Foster!” He started coughing like he was going to die.
“Feel better!”
I walked past flat-roof houses and trailers with broken-down cars in front of them. Clothes flapped on lines. I walked past FOOD and the Church of God FOR SALE and saw a woman and a man get out of a car. They walked toward the church.
“It won’t take much to knock this place down,” the woman said.
The man looked at the church and nodded. They headed up the stairs.
“Lots of parking, too,” she mentioned, and unlocked the big lock on the front door.
They went inside.
“Lord, give me strength.” Perseverance Wilson marched up like she had to defend all that was right and true. Garland was behind her.
“Who’s that lady?” I asked.
“The Realtor,” Garland explained as his mother headed up the steps. “The guy is from the Taco Terrific restaurant chain.”
“They’re terrible.”
Percy shouted, “They want to put one here on sacred ground.” She opened the church door and yelled. “Did you folks know about the rodent problem?”
Garland looked like he wanted to punch something. I said, “This must be hard for you.”
“My dad built this church.”
I could hear Percy’s voice: “And when you folks get to the basement, be sure to get a good look at the photos of my late, great husband, our founding pastor. His heart is in these walls!”
Angry Wayne had Barry and Larry out back by their earlobes. “You scared that lady so bad with that blasted tarantula, she started choking!”
I left the muffins and cupcakes at the counter with Betty. “It’s a good batch,” I told her.
A man wearing mirrored sunglasses came over. “Those the ones you were talking about?”
Betty put them in a container. “They are.”
“I’ll take two.”
That’s a good start. I headed out the door to Miss Charleena’s and almost got knocked over by Angry Wayne storming in.
“Hello, sir.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I brought the muffins and the—”
He hit the buzzer on the wall and stood behind the grill.
“It’s my best batch ever,” I whispered, and went outside where Barry and Larry were trying to get their tarantula to climb a rock.
“We’re saving up for a black widow spider,” the short boy said. “Then we’ll rule.”
“Are you Barry or Larry?”
“Larry.”
The taller one stepped forward. “And that would make me . . . ?”
“Difficult,” I said.
Larry broke up at that.
I headed to Marigold Hill, Miss Charleena, and who knew what else.
Fifteen
I PUT ON my TV smile and knocked at the back door.
Miss Charleena opened it, not smiling. She was wearing a bright red shirt, white jeans, and a necklace with a silver circle.
I gulped. “Hi, Miss Charleena.”
She didn’t say hello. She gave me a long list—two pages stapled together on pretty blue paper.
Not a list! Just tell me!
“I’m feeling weak,” she said. “I’m going to lie down. I do not like being disturbed.” She walked away, her heels click clicking.
I looked at the list and my mind closed up. I could make out a few of the words like dogs, food, and don’t.
Don’t what?
Feed the dogs?
Feed the dogs food?
I pictured Macon getting fired and never getting his movie camera, all because I couldn’t read.
I’m so dead.
The phone rang and rang. Am I supposed to answer it? It stopped ringing, then it started again. Maybe Miss Charleena was too sick to answer it. I reached for the phone. “Miss Charleena’s house. This is Foster speaking.”
“This is Charleena Hendley. Why do I not hear the sounds of you getting down to work?”
I gulped.
“Surely, I’ve given you enough to do.”
“Yes ma’am, the thing is . . .”
“What is the thing?”
How do I tell her? “I’m having a little trouble reading your handwriting. It’s real pretty and all.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She slammed the phone down.
Now what do I do? I didn’t hear anything for the longest time, then Miss Charleena’s click clicking sounds were coming toward the kitchen. I stood at attention as she entered. She looked at me, not impressed. “Here is a computer printout of your tasks.” She handed me a sheet of paper that was plain as anything, if you’re a reader.
I took a big breath. “I want to do everything like you want it, Miss Charleena, and I appreciate you trusting me in your house. Could we just go over this list and then you can get back to resting?”
She looked at me for a minute. I didn’t dare breathe. Then she sat at the table and began to read from the list, but not in a normal person’s voice, like the great actress she was.
“Feed the dogs, Foster. The food is in the cabinet above the refrigerator. They like some chicken breast chopped fine mixed in with their food and a little bacon or shaved parmesan on top. That’s in the refrigerator.”
My amazing memory clicked this into place.
“Are we clear so far?”
I nodded. She looked at me like she was trying to figure something out. “Why don’t you read the second item?” She pushed the list toward me.
I pushed it back. “I’d like you to do it.”
She held it out to me. “Go ahead.”
I looked at the mess of words and shook my head. “I wish you’d read it, Miss Charleena. I didn’t bring my glasses.”
She looked at me again. Then she read, “Water the plants outside, but only at the roots. If you water the petals they will get brown and I will not be happy.”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Good.” She handed me the list.
“Is that it?” I asked.
She put her fingernail on some words. “What does that say?”
I sucked in air. “Boy, I wish I’d brought my glasses.”
She studied me. “Feed the parakeet from the box of birdseed in the closet near the refrigerator. Do you see that?”
I nodded.
“You’re sure you see that?”
“Yes, ma’am. As plain as anything.”
“Why don’t you do those three things and then we’ll go over the rest of the list.” She sounded almost nice when she said it. I breathed easier. She grabbed a Ho Ho from the counter and left the room.
I went to get the dog food and found a can opener after opening close to every drawer in the kitchen. I couldn’t find the chicken at first and was thinking spiteful thoughts about spoiled dogs who only eat fancy food. I finally found the chicken and parmesan cheese. By mistake I dropped the chicken on the floor and the two dogs ran in and tore it to shreds. They didn’t need it chopped at all.
“That’s enough, you guys.” I tried to clean up the chicken and got growled at. I sliced off a hunk of parmesan, threw it in the corner, and the dogs ran after it. I picked up what was left of the chicken. “Okay. You’ve had your lunch.”
I wish I could just bake for Miss Charleena, since I was not very good at this job.
I cleaned up the floor, went to the closet, and looked everywhere for the birdseed, but I couldn’t find it. I went back to check the list; the words blurred together. I looked for the bird I was supposed to feed and I couldn’t find that either!
I heard the click clicking coming closer.
/>
Miss Charleena came in, leaned against the wall, and crossed her arms. “Well?” she asked.
I smiled with everything I had. “I fed the dogs and they really loved how I did it. But I can’t find the birdseed.” This next part was harder to admit. “Or the bird.”
She stood there.
“There is no bird,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“There is no bird.” She studied my face. “You can’t read. Can you?”
Sixteen
I STOOD THERE, hot with shame. I wanted to run, but my feet felt nailed to the floor.
I wanted to scream, Hey, good trick, Miss Charleena. You really fooled me.
“I asked you a question,” she said softly.
She could play all her tricks and games on me, she could stand there like she’d won, but I didn’t have to answer her.
“There’s lots of people who have trouble reading,” she said, like I’d been living in a cave and didn’t know that.
I looked down at the dogs’ golden dishes. I felt my face get tight and my jaw get hard.
Miss Charleena walked over to the refrigerator, poured herself a glass of milk, and stirred chocolate syrup into it for the longest time. It seemed like the sound of that stirring spoon was in front of a microphone.
I think the chocolate is mixed in now. Just drink it!
“I’ve gotta go, Miss Charleena.”
“Not before I tell you something.”
But I headed out the door, down the path, tears shooting from my eyes.
“Foster! Wait!”
I ran as fast as my skinny legs could go, tripped over a rock in the road, and fell flat on my face, scraping my knees bloody, spitting mud from my mouth.
I hated Miss Charleena for tricking me. I hated Macon for getting sick. I hated Mama for bringing us here.
I got up and ran some more.
“Foster,” Mrs. Ritter, my main sixth-grade teacher, had said to me, “do you understand that you are graduating by the skin of your teeth?”
I didn’t know teeth had skin, but I didn’t want to get anything more wrong at this school, so I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t see the value of having you repeat sixth grade again.”
I was with her on that.
“But I cannot stress the need for you to develop better work habits, because if you do not, young lady, your life will be limited beyond what you can even imagine.”