Because of Winn-Dixie - Kate DiCamillo [10]
“My name’s Opal,” I told her.
“My name’s Gloria Dump,” she said. “Ain’t that a terrible last name? Dump?”
“My last name is Buloni,” I said. “Sometimes the kids at school back home in Watley called me ‘Lunch Meat.’”
“Hah!” Gloria Dump laughed. “What about this dog? What you call him?”
“Winn-Dixie,” I said.
Winn-Dixie thumped his tail on the ground. He tried smiling, but it was hard with his mouth all full of peanut butter.
“Winn-Dixie?” Gloria Dump said. “You mean like the grocery store?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“Whooooeee,” she said. “That takes the strange-name prize, don’t it?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
“I was just fixing to make myself a peanut-butter sandwich,” she said. “You want one, too?”
“All right,” I said. “Yes, please.”
“Go on and sit down,” she said, pointing at a lawn chair with the back all busted out of it. “But sit down careful.”
I sat down careful and Gloria Dump made me a peanut butter sandwich on white bread.
Then she made one for herself and put her false teeth in, to eat it; when she was done, she said to me, “You know, my eyes ain’t too good at all. I can’t see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don’t you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart.”
And because Winn-Dixie was looking up at her like she was the best thing he had ever seen, and because the peanut-butter sandwich had been so good, and because I had been waiting for a long time to tell some person everything about me, I did.
I told Gloria Dump everything. I told her how me and the preacher had just moved to Naomi and how I had to leave all my friends behind. I told her about my mama leaving, and I listed out the ten things that I knew about her; and I explained that here, in Naomi, I missed Mama more than I ever had in Watley. I told her about the preacher being like a turtle, hiding all the time inside his shell. I told her about finding Winn-Dixie in the produce department and how, because of him, I became friends with Miss Franny Block and got a job working for a man named Otis at Gertrude’s Pets and got invited to Sweetie Pie Thomas’s birthday party. I even told Gloria Dump how Dunlap and Stevie Dewberry called her a witch. But I told her they were stupid, mean, bald-headed boys and I didn’t believe them, not for long anyhow.
And the whole time I was talking, Gloria Dump was listening. She was nodding her head and smiling and frowning and saying, “Hmmm,” and “Is that right?”
I could feel her listening with all her heart, and it felt good.
“You know what?” she said when I was all done.
“What?”
“Could be that you got more of your mama in you than just red hair and freckles and running fast.”
“Really?” I said. “Like what?”
“Like maybe you got her green thumb. The two of us could plant something and see how it grows; test your thumb out.”
“Okay,” I said.
What Gloria Dump picked for me to grow was a tree. Or she said it was a tree. To me, it looked more like a plant. She had me dig a hole for it and put it in the ground and pat the dirt around it tight, like it was a baby and I was tucking it into bed.
“What kind of tree is it?” I asked Gloria Dump.
“It’s a wait-and-see tree,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you got to wait for it to grow up before you know what it is.”
“Can I come back and see it tomorrow?” I asked.
“Child,” she said, “as long as this is my garden, you’re welcome in it. But that tree ain’t going to have changed much by tomorrow.”
“But I want to see you, too,” I said.
“Hmmmph,” said Gloria Dump. “I ain’t going nowhere. I be right here.”
I woke Winn-Dixie up then. He had peanut butter in his whiskers, and he kept yawning and stretching. He licked Gloria Dump’s hand before we left, and I thanked her.
That night when the preacher was tucking me into bed, I told him how I got a job at Gertrude’s Pets, and I told him all about making friends with Miss Franny Block and getting invited to Sweetie Pie’s party, and I told him about meeting Gloria Dump. Winn-Dixie lay