Free All the Finest Girls by Alexandra Styron Page A

unnecessary. It’s your day off. I’m going to do lots of fun things with Addy. You go on.”
    I make a squawking sound. Louise squeezes my shoulder.
    “Now baby, remember what I told you about Sundays,” my mother says, pushing a lock of hair from her eyes.
    “It’s no bother,” Louise says. “I asked she to come.”
    My mother looks from me to Louise and back again.
    “Addy. Don’t you want a yummy Sunday breakfast?” she says.
    I turn my face into the folds of Louise’s dress and begin to holler. Louise pulls me away from her and squats down.
    “Stop it, Addy. Now listen, don’t yah want stay wit yah mumma?”
    I look up at Mom, shake my head.
    My mother frowns, sticks her lower lip out. Like children do.
    “Okeydokey,” she says, sighing and turning away. She scouts about for a place to put the ruined frying pan. “You go with Louise. We’ll do something together later. That’s fine.”
    When we get in the car, Louise sits with me in the backseat. Dilly pulls the car out of the driveway and we head down the road toward town.
    “Yah a hardheaded lickle ting, aren’t yah?” she says, watching the Schroeders’ farm passing outside her window. I think she must be angry with me, but I don’t care. I am with her and we are driving fast away from home.
    Ten minutes later, we’re in Coldbrook center. Dilly drives around the green and onto Ford’s Hill, where the grocery store, the elementary school, and the town’s three churches are. Ford’s Hill is all of Coldbrook center. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, Dilly says.
    We pull up to the front of an old white church next to the market. Louise looks out the window and eyes it from steeple to steps.
    “That’s it,” she says, clutching her purse in her lap. Behind her glasses, the corner of her eye twitches almost imperceptibly. “An hour’s time, Dilly.”
    Dilly drives off, leaving us on the sidewalk. Little bunches of snowy clouds sail along over the roof of the church. Lilacs bloom in purple profusion on either side of the building’s big red doors, and I hear simple chords of music float out from the darkness inside. Louise takes my hand and we walk up the rutted cement path. Off to the side in the parking lot, people are nodding, waving to one another, saying hello.
    The two Wyant boys, Kurt and Eddie, stand on the church’s stone steps. Kurt is a fat boy with a blond brush cut. His face, always flushed, looks today like a cherry red balloon squeezed by the knot of his brown tie. The buttons of his shirt strain across his soft belly. Kurt’s younger brother, Eddie, has the same yellow broom of hair and enormous eyes that roll in his face like a doll’s. When Kurt sees us, he sticks an elbow in his brother’s side and puffs out his cheeks. Eddie’s eyes jump out another inch from their sockets.
    Louise and I follow a line of people up the stairs. When we reach the top, I’m a foot from Kurt and Eddie. I look at the legs of the man ahead of me. A noise I’ve known since the beginning of second grade, like something gnawing through paper, comes from the boys’ direction.
    “Fff-fff-fff-ff,” comes the sound. “Rat Girl. Rat Girl. Fff-ff-ff.” Eddie meows like a cat.
    “Rats don’t go to church,” Kurt whispers. “Who brushed your hair, Rat Girl? Is that your new mommy?”
    The boys begin to snort and laugh. On the other side of the doors, a skinny man in a tie and cowboy boots is handing out programs. He looks over the heads of the people filing in and cuts his eyes at Kurt and Eddie. The boys quiet down, but when I glance over, they’re still looking at me. Kurt’s lips are pursed together to keep from laughing. The man in the cowboy boots hands Louise a program and nods his head in silent greeting.
    Inside the church, Louise guides me to an empty row near the back and follows behind me, directing me to sit down. The big open space hums and rustles with the settling of people in their seats. Up in the balcony Mrs. Labenski, a