Free The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker Page B

world, all the ones in the middle who aren’t special in any way, well, some of them don’t like it, that’s all. They’re jealous, Truly. They don’t know what to make of you.”
    I blinked at him. “Are you a witch doctor?”
    He threw back his head and laughed, the rough sounds rolling out of him like bark off a log. “Who told you that?”
    “My daddy. He said we don’t need no witch doctor. But you don’t look like a witch to me. Besides, I thought witches were girls.”
    Dr. Morgan smiled. “So they are, Truly. So they are. And one day, you, too, might grow up to be enchanting. You and that pretty sister of yours. Now get dressed and I’ll take you home.” He crossed the room and closed the door behind him, taking his clipboard and pencil away, along with whatever kind of conclusion he’d drawn about me.

Chapter Five
    F rom the outside, our house looked almost like the other homes on Maple Street. It had a shallow front porch with a swing on it, a white picket fence, and lace curtains in all the windows. Daisies sprouted by the bottom stoop. In the winter, the stocky chimney belched puffs of smoke. But our house also had some features the other homes didn’t have. Weeds grew in the mouth of the porch’s loose drainpipe. Paint flakes riddled the clapboards. The mailbox teetered on its support like the head of an unruly drunk. The mailman had taken to leaving the few pieces of our correspondence tucked under the edge of the door, where Dad would find them and kick them into the corner of the front hall until the pile grew big enough for him to do something about. Waiting for my father to answer the doorbell, Dr. Morgan peered down between his black wingtips and noticed two envelopes wedged in between them. Behind the door, there was a crashing sound, then footsteps padded closer, and my father appeared, blinking in the afternoon light. In front of him, he saw me standing on the porch holding the hand of Dr. Robert Morgan IV.
    “Get in the house,” he barked. “Brenda Dyerson called over to the barbershop. She’s been wondering where you are.”
    It was Saturday, the busiest day for my father at the barbershop. Serena Jane was at the Pickertons’. I was supposed to have waited for August to pick me up at my house that morning and take me to the farm, but I’d struck out for Dr. Morgan’s instead, clutching Miss Sparrow’s note, which babbled about giants, and medical records, and vaccinations, albeit in very beautiful script. I gave a quick squeeze to the reassuring hand of Dr. Robert Morgan and scampered upstairs to the room I shared with my sister. Downstairs, I could hear footsteps shuffling—the clumsy, halfhearted ones of my father mixed together with the precise sounds of Dr. Morgan’s wingtips. His feet sounded the way a father’s feet were supposed to, I thought. Solid, decisive. The kind of footsteps I wanted to hear climbing the stairs to tuck me into bed at night, instead of my father’s stumbling ones.
    I sat on my bed, elbows planted on knees, and faced the mirror that was glued to the back of the door. Already, I almost filled the whole narrow span of it, edge to edge, my body lumpier than any monster I could imagine. I tilted my head in the mirror, grimacing, then put my hand to the back of my skull, to the place where Dr. Morgan had told me there was a little clock. I moved my fingers around but didn’t feel anything, then listened, holding my breath, but didn’t hear ticking. I arched my neck and spread my arms, copying one of Serena Jane’s ballerina poses, but I didn’t transform into a swan princess the way Serena Jane did. I just stayed myself—goggle-eyed, pucker-lipped, chin upon chin upon chin. I returned my arms to my sides and slumped back on the bed. I wasn’t a dancing bird-girl. Apparently, I wasn’t anything as exotic as a giant, but neither was I ordinary-sized. I sighed and fished in my pocket for Miss Sparrow’s note— tattered and sweat-stained now, but