Free The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly Page A

I go too?”
    Mother smiled faintly and said, “No, little man. Not this time.”
    â€œBut I want to, Mama, I want to.”
    Lamar muttered, “Oh boy, here we go again.”
    I shot him a dirty look and scooped J.B. from his seat as he was winding up for a full-scale conniption fit. I carried him out, saying, “Come on, J.B., I’ll tell you a story. Won’t that be nice?”
    He checked his blubbering. “Will there be boats in it?” he hiccuped.
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œI like boats, Callie,” he said, smiling like an angel through his tears and snot.
    As far as I knew, he’d never seen a boat, but I said, “I know you do, baby. Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll have a story with lots and lots of boats. As many as you like.” Then I said, “Who’s your favorite sister?”
    He giggled and said, “You are, Callie.” It was our own little joke, and it never failed to tickle him.
    That night while brushing my teeth, I tried to imagine the beach where the Finches now camped. I’d never laid eyes on the ocean, and it struck me as a baffling, mystical place from everything I’d read. What did it sound like? What did it smell like?
    I was familiar with my own dear river, of course, but the thought of tides and waves, the thought of this massive, constantly changing body of water, befuddled and excited me. I’d put viewing the ocean on the list of New Year’s wishes I’d made when the calendar rolled over from 1899 to 1900. (The same list that had included seeing snow.) I’d never traveled farther than Austin, only forty-five miles away. Even though my outer life was depressingly landlocked, my inner life was full of imaginary travel to exotic lands fueled by books, the atlas, and the globe. Most days it was enough. Some days it was not.
    *   *   *
    I HAULED MYSELF out of bed. It was a good half hour before sunrise but I was anxious to record my daily observations before my brothers could shatter the fragile peace of the morning. I opened the bottom drawer of my chest and reached in, but instead of a neatly folded chemise, there was a strange, coiled shape in the shadows. Where there should be no strange shapes, especially not coiled ones . My brain shrieked, “Snake!” and I flinched. The snake flinched too and opened its mouth, showing me an array of tiny teeth and a pale palate. It wasn’t a very big snake as snakes go, but then, size doesn’t really matter when you’re dealing with a venomous animal. It was banded in red and black and yellow, which meant it was either the deadly coral snake or the harmless king snake. One could kill you; the other was a nonlethal imposter. My mind feverishly searched for the old rhyme about how to tell the two apart. How did it go? The snake gaped at me, inches from my hand. How did it go?
    Okay, Calpurnia, now would be a really good time to remember, especially since your life depends on it. Okay, okay. The secret’s in the order of the bands. Okay. Black on yellow—no, wait, that’s not right, it’s red on yellow. Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, venom lack. Is that right? Please let that be right.
    I stared wide-eyed in the gloom, straining to see, and there was a red band between two black bands. Red on black. I double-checked along as much of the body as I could see. The red bands were surrounded by black bands in every case.
    Ha! Imposter!
    It was a benign snake that had cleverly evolved over the eons to resemble a dangerous one, thus purchasing itself protection from predators. Granddaddy had once told me about certain tasty butterflies that had evolved to resemble bitter inedible ones, calling this process “mimicry.” An interesting way for a species to get a free ride on the reputation of another. But wasn’t this a form of lying? Question for the Notebook: Does Nature tell lies? Something to