Free Arly by Robert Newton Peck

Leg was just another Shack Row, only dressed up.”
    Essie touched my hand. “Stay to school, Arly.”
    â€œHow come you’re saying that to me?”
    â€œBecause you can learn fast,” Essie said. “Maybe you’re the only one who’ll do it. I can’t do it. Neither can Huff. You can master it sudden, all of it, all them letters and words and chalk writing. And I hope you do it proper. You’ll be doing it for me, and for Huff, and for all the others who won’t never get no ticket.”
    As she said it, I felt myself shaking all over, something like a run-over cat. Like I was dead but still clawing and screeching.
    Essie’s fingers tightened on my hand. “Thank you for your feelings. I got ’em too. But they be feelings I can’t afford to save.” Reaching up, she pulled a fresh leaf from a twig, laying beside my tattery one. “You’re a whole new leaf, Arly Poole. Me, I’m this used one. I’ve growed all I can go.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “You’re a leaf too. You can learn.”
    Essie nodded. “I already have. Before I got Miss Binnie Hoe for a teacher, I had me another kind of teacher. I had Mr. Roscoe Broda.”
    I couldn’t speak.
    â€œYou mustn’t tell nobody,” she said. “Mama don’t know about it. You’re the only person who knows. I just had to tell somebody, and I certain couldn’t tell Mama. If she knew, she’d cuss out to Roscoe and git beaten up for her trouble. So I be trusting you, Arly, on account you best know my secret. You’re the only friend I got.”
    â€œEssie … Essie …”
    We stood behind the shacks alone, sort of holdingon to each other, like nobody was leaving Jailtown, yet we were possible saying good-bye.
    â€œI’ll kill Roscoe,” I said.
    She pulled away from me. “No, you can’t. Even if you could do it, it’d be Judge Tinner’s chain gang for the rest of your time. He won’t hang you, Arly. Nobody dead can work roads. But you’ll be worse’n dead, because the jailbirds will do worse to you than Roscoe Broda done on me.”
    â€œI got to save you, Essie.”
    She shook her head. “It’s too late. But there be somebody in Jailtown that you could save, if you study on it for a time.”
    I couldn’t think. “Who’s that?”
    â€œYou.”
    Essie lightly kissed my cheek and then turned to walk away, as if she wanted to be by her lonesome. Watching her go, I didn’t see the Essie May Cooter that I’d knowed all my life.
    I saw a dead bird.

Chapter 14
    It was dark.
    Inside the parlor at Newell’s Boarding House, a light was burning, and a few of the boarders were chatting away. I was pleased that Miss Hoe was out front, on the porch, sitting in one of those fancy wicker chairs that rocked when you worked it. She sat alone.
    â€œMiss Hoe?”
    As I trot up the front walk to the porch stairs, I fretted a mite, about that maybe I’d forgot to know my place. Pickers and colored folks weren’t allowed at places such as Newell’s Boarding House. But I feel some better when Miss Hoe shade her eyes with her hand, to make out who I was.
    â€œIt’s me,” I telled her. “Arly Poole.”
    â€œMy,” she said, getting up from her rocker chair, “what a surprise. How nice to have my very first visitor.”
    I didn’t know quite what to do, yet wanting to do it proper, so I just stood there and wiggled my toes. Then I give her my rattlesnake fang, for a present. “It’s for picking your teeth,” I said.
    â€œCome,” she said, “and sit with me. And thank you for bringing me such a thoughtful gift.”
    It sure was the shock of my life when I sat myself down in the rocker chair, because it swayed back, and I guess I thought it was fixing to keel me over backwards. My mouth popped open.
    Miss Hoe