Free The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow Page B

said. “You’ll have to go.”
    Roger stuffed the flask, now empty, in his duffel bag and placed his hat on his head. He put on the jacket that was keeping the boy warm and lifted the bag to his shoulder. Roger paused for a moment before the boy, then handed him the harmonica.
    “This is for you, a gift.”
    He turned and kissed Rachel’s forehead.
    “You tell her,” he said, pointing a finger at the boy like it was a gun. “She’ll want to know that story. Tell her what she never knew. She needs to understand. Her mother and me, we wanted to be together again. Had to be after Charles. No one else could of understood. That hole inside. Nella and me, we made a promise. We were gonna make a family . . . safe. Now that promise’s broke. When Nella left with the kids in May . . . three months they’d been gone. Now they’re gone forever. Tell Rachel—,” he paused. “Tell Rachel now I’m sure she’ll be safe.”

Rachel
    Grandma wants me in the church choir so I won’t be runnin the streets. Someone shot through the glass at the Wonder Bread factory store two weeks ago. It happened on a Friday night. On the news they said gang members did it. Not gangs on TV but real gangs from California. Hearing that must have scared Grandma because that’s when she said I couldn’t be out alone after dark—not even for school activities. At first when she said that, I thought she had learned about the secret Anthony Miller and kissing in the vestibule. But it’s been almost a year since the last time. Now Anthony Miller’s going with another girl. But if he said he wanted to meet me there again, I would.
    I don’t fuss with Grandma about going to church. I say I’ll put on the yellow dress. “And the SHOES to MATCH,”Grandma says, making her capitals. She found the dress at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store with a fifty-cent price tag and a new price tag too. It doesn’t fit so well around my old beige bra, but with a sweater over the top I think Grandma will like it fine. That’s her best way of liking things.
    If you ask me I would say that mostly I don’t look like myself when I wear church finery. Or feel like a self that makes any sense. And today my scalp itches because Grandma made me go to the hairdresser to get me looking more respectable. “None of those people want to see a pickaninny in they church,” Grandma said. She is glad that my hair has grown out again. I can’t say that I don’t like the way my hair looks. It’s straight now—straight like Mor’s hair for the first time ever. And it’s long enough for me to move it off my shoulder with a swish. But the hairdresser let the relaxer set too long and burned a few spots on my scalp and burned my left ear with the blow-dryer’s hot metal tip. And I am still tender-headed.
    Two weeks ago Monday was my first day as a straight-haired girl.
    Wearing my hair down and straight is one reason that the girls who hang out in the bathroom want to beat me up. They say: You better watch out or I’ll snatch you bald-headed.
    Is that a weave?
    You think you so cute tossin that hair around.
    The truth is I never toss it. I do like to pull it back like the Bionic Woman did on TV. Two fingers pulling straight back at the top of my head to show off my ears. And I am glad thatthere are no tangles, no naps, and no kitchen at the back of my head anymore.
    But people look at me differently. I don’t look just different or scary or undefinable: I look pretty. That pretty is what was Mor’s: my eyes, now my straight hair. People act different around me too. Mr. Barucci, my science teacher, said something real nice. He said I looked very beautiful, a pure masterpiece. I smiled a no-teeth smile and he said, “Makes those eyes more startling to look at.” And he put his fingers to his lips and made a kiss he threw in the air. “Bella!”
A UNT L ORETTA AND D REW have stopped by to say hi before they go to play tennis. Aunt Loretta moved into Drew’s apartment