At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [66]
“Oh . . .” Reluctantly, she returned the pink bunny to him. “No, I guess not. What I’m looking for is a water pump. And do you know anything about building a fountain?”
“This is stupid,” Noah grumbled, not looking up from the answer sheet he was marking. “Taking a test to practice for a test.”
“It will help us both know what you need to work harder on for the real placement test,” Lindsay explained. “People do it all the time.”
While Noah marked his sheet, Lindsay was using a tool to stretch preprimed canvas over a four-foot by four-foot frame. Though she didn’t like to admit it, Derrick’s comments about her art had stung, and she was determined to rise to the challenge—just as soon as she found something she was passionate enough about to paint. While she waited for inspiration, she stretched canvases. It was a slow and laborious process, as she knelt on the brick floor and pulled the canvas one corner at a time, stapled it, turned the frame, and repeated the process. It occurred to her this might be a good time to let Noah get some practice at stretching canvases.
“Oh yeah? Name one.”
“The PSAT, for one.” She set her teeth and put all her strength into pulling another inch of fabric across the frame.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a practice test for the college boards. You’ll be eligible to take it next year.”
He grunted. “No I won’t.”
She finished securing another section with a pop of the staple gun and looked up. “Why not?”
“Waste of time. I ain’t going to college.”
Lindsay sat back on her heels, flexing her hands, and said firmly, “Noah, you’re one of the brightest students I’ve ever had. There’s not a reason in the world that you can’t go to college.”
“Yeah, there is.” He continued to study the questions, and mark the answers, as though the subject under discussion were only of the slightest interest to him. “College is for rich kids.” And before she could even protest that, he added, “Kids with folks to take care of them.”
The speech she had been about to make about scholarships and grants seemed a little hollow at that point and so, in some confusion, she picked up her tools again. “By the way, the Reverend and Mrs. Holland are coming to Easter dinner tomorrow, so I want you to be on your best behavior. And wear a tie.”
He didn’t answer.
She looked up at him.
“Noah?”
He gave her a brief glance, then looked back to his paper. “What for?”
“What for what?”
“Do I have to be nice to them?”
“In the first place,” Lindsay explained patiently, “because they’ve been nothing but nice to you, as you know perfectly well. And in the second place, because if you want to stay here—and you said you did—we need them to put in a good word for us.”
Noah slumped down lower over his paper. “Won’t do no good,” he mumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it ain’t up to them whether I stay or go.” He continued to look down at his paper. “And it ain’t up to you and it for damn sure ain’t up to me. So it don’t matter whether I’m nice to them or not.”
For a moment Lindsay was taken aback. “But you will be nice,” she said, and made her voice stern, even though stern was the last thing she felt.
Noah thrust the answer sheet out to her. “Can I go now?”
She got to her feet and took the paper from him, glancing over it as he stood. “If you’re sure these are the answers you want to stick with. Remember, you’ll have extra homework to do on anything you get wrong, and you still have an hour left. Maybe you’d like to take a little time to look over your work?”
Scowling, he sank back into his chair, and she returned his paper to him.
Slumped down in the chair, one arm over his head and his chin practically resting on the desk, he frowned over the paper for a time. Then he looked up. “I want to ask you something.”
“As long as it’s not the answer to one of the test questions.”
“It’s about that ole deer.”
Lindsay sighed. “Noah, we’ve explained that to you. There are laws against keeping wild animals. If we don’t find a petting zoo or a game