Bent Road - Lori Roy [71]
Celia frowns and shakes her head at the bad manners.
The poppy mallows were the first flower Ruth taught Evie about because a thick patch grew every year in the ditches alongside their new house.
“We’ll start to see them as early as April,” Ruth says, snapping the lid back on the box of oatmeal with her good hand while keeping the sore arm tucked closely to her body. “But sometimes not until May. Depends on the rain. And how early spring comes.”
Celia shouts for Daniel to hurry along or he’ll miss the bus, and then she gently touches Ruth’s hand. Ruth nods that she is doing fine.
“They’re Aunt Eve’s favorite, right?” Evie says, stirring her oatmeal and testing the temperature by touching a small spoonful to her upper lip.
“They were her favorite,” Celia says. “A long time ago. Remember?”
Evie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as if smelling a bouquet of flowers.
“You do remember, Evie. Don’t you? You remember about Aunt Eve being gone?”
Evie smiles. “Sure,” she says. “May I be excused?”
“You may. But hustle along or you’ll miss the bus.”
“Thanks,” Evie calls out as she skates across the wooden floor and slides into her room.
Daniel pulls out his lunch and lays it on the cafeteria table. Ian does the same. Both boys have similar lunches except that since Aunt Ruth came along, Daniel has better desserts. He slides an extra oatmeal raisin cookie to Ian’s side of the table even though he knows Ian won’t eat it.
“Did you hear?” Ian asks, pulling the waxed paper off his sandwich and holding one half to his mouth. “About Nelly Simpson’s car?”
Daniel shakes his head.
“Police found it near Nicodemus. It’s all over the newspapers.” Ian glances around the crowded cafeteria and whispers, “You know about Nicodemus, don’t you?”
His mouth full of ham and cheese, Daniel shakes his head again.
“It’s where all the coloreds live. Every one of them in the county. Proof positive Jack Mayer took that car. Took it and drove to Nicodemus where he must know pretty much everyone.”
Daniel takes another bite.
“Folks there will help hide him.”
“My mom says I can still come tomorrow,” Daniel says because he doesn’t know anything about Nicodemus and doesn’t know what else to say.
Ian takes a bite of his sandwich and sets it aside. “You going to bring your dad’s shotgun?”
Daniel nods.
“Your .22 won’t do you any good. Not for pheasant hunting. My brothers say if you have a shotgun, we can be the pushers.” Ian pokes his elbow into the center of an unpeeled banana. Its guts squirt out both ends. He does the same thing every day and throws it away so his mom will think he ate it. “You know about pushers and blockers, don’t you?”
Daniel shakes his head.
“Blockers stand along the road, blocking the pheasant, and the pushers walk across the field, pushing the birds so they get squeezed between. Being a blocker is no good. Blockers get hit by buckshot if they’re not careful. Pushing is best. Pushers flush out the pheasant, take an easy shot. We want to be pushers.”
Daniel holds up a hand and shakes his head when Ian slides his uneaten sandwich across the table. A few months back, when Ian first started giving Daniel his leftovers, he took them. Ida Bucher made her sandwiches with double mayonnaise and extra thick slices of cheese, but when Daniel began noticing that he could see Ian’s backbone through his shirt and that he wasn’t growing like everyone else in the grade, he stopped taking Ian’s sandwiches, no matter how much mayonnaise Mrs. Bucher used.
Ian wads up the sandwich in its waxed paper wrapper and drops it into his lunch bag. “My brothers say we’ll be hunting late-season pheasant. They’re the hardest to shoot. Early-season pheasant are stupid. They get shot straight away. But late-season pheasants, they’re the smart ones. You got to be tricky to get the late-season birds. My brothers say that if we’re smart enough to get us some late-season pheasants, we