Free Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood

giggling.
    I waited in the dirt and dried-up grass and thought about all those nights last summer when we stayed up late talking about how yucky boys were. Now Jesslyn had disappeared with Robbie into the cool shadows of Elvis’s living room and I didn’t hear talking anymore. Pretty soon they climbed back out the open window, acting all moony-eyed.
    That’s when Jesslyn saw me sitting there.
    “I told you to wait on the front porch.” She looked right into my eyes. She was squinting hard.
    “I wanna see inside, too,” I told her. “You never used to mind if I went places with you.”
    “I mind now.”
    The heck with Jesslyn! I climbed right through the window of Elvis’s house.
    Whew. It smelled like the inside of Frankie’s hamster cage. I got out fast and hurried around to the frontporch. “Stinks to high heaven in there. When’s the picnic?” I asked.
    Robbie handed me a drink and a cookie. I dangled my legs off the porch in the sweltering heat while they giggled and whispered. This porch-sitting was getting boring.
    “It’ll be getting dark soon,” I said. “Emma might notice we’re gone.”
    We packed up Robbie’s station wagon. Before we left, I reached down and stole me some of Elvis’s grass, too. Then I slipped in the backseat, right behind Jesslyn.
    “This is pretty. Thank you.” Jesslyn curled her fingers around the piece of green-flowered wallpaper. She put her head back on the seat and looked at Robbie. “I had fun today,” she said.
    I squeezed my knees up close to my face and smiled, thinking about Elvis and that ugly wallpaper. I stopped smiling when I thought about Robbie and what he said about jail.
    “We need to hurry. It’s getting dark,” I said.
    Right about now, all I wanted was to get home to Emma, safe and sound.

T hat evening, by the time Robbie’s headlights hit the Welcome to Hanging Moss, Mississippi, Population 8,003 sign out on the highway, the sun was sinking behind the trees and the sky was a million colors of orange. We were almost home. I leaned against Robbie’s backseat, thinking about the day. And what Emma would say if she found out Jesslyn and I were joyriding with Robbie, the North Carolina jailbird.
    Jesslyn hollered so loud it woke me out of my daydreaming. She leaned over to shake my knee. “Glory, is somebody following us?”
    I turned around. “Oh, no,” I said. “The car’s got a big red light on the top.”
    “Uh-oh,” Robbie said, before he pulled in next to asmall store advertising corn, tomatoes, and green beans.
    “It’s a policeman.” I was taking in big gulps of air. I could hardly talk. “He’s getting out of his car.”
    Jesslyn was whispering, “He’s writing down our license plate number. Wonder if he’s been following us all along?”
    Robbie looked in his rearview mirror.
    When the policeman tapped on our window, Jesslyn and I nearly jumped out of our skin. “I need your driver’s license, son,” he said to Robbie. “Get out of the car and turn around.”
    “Yes, sir.” Robbie stepped outside. I scootched to the edge of my seat and leaned my head toward Jesslyn. Robbie reached into his back pocket to hand over his wallet.
    “You’re from North Carolina?” The policeman looked hard at Robbie’s license. “What brings you down here?”
    While Robbie explained about how he was here staying with his aunt for the summer, wanting to play football come September, my heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear.
    I wanted to be home where I belonged.
    The policeman said, “There’s people from out ofstate down here stirring up trouble. You wouldn’t be one of them, would you?”
    “No, sir,” Robbie said politely.
    “Get back in your car. Drive straight on home. It’s not safe to be out after dark tonight.” Just when I didn’t think this evening could get any worse, the policeman’s hand brushed across his gun and he shined his flashlight in my eyes, then Jesslyn’s. “You girls visiting from North