Free Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia

have broken it off. You know how it is,” I said as cool as I could muster. “You get to your new school with all new people and suddenly you don’t want to be stuck with the same people you’ve known since the third grade. It’s like not growing up.”
    â€œOh.” He was smiling at me like he’d seen through me. Smiling but silently laughing, I was sure.
    â€œSo do you have a girlfriend?” I asked.
    He smiled and kept milking. He intended to make me wait. Finally he said, “I had a girlfriend. Reddish-gold hair. What do they call that? Strawberry blond? Brown eyes. Freckles right here.” He pointed to the bridge of my nose. “And pretty? Boy, she was pretty.” He whistled. Then Sophie mooed. He took the pails of milk and set them to the side away from Sophie.
    â€œWe kept it secret and at first she understood—even said it was romantic and star-crossed. Yeah. Star-crossed. Then one day she said, ‘Let’s make a statement. To everyone in Autauga County. Let’s hold hands so everyone can see.’ I said, ‘You crazy? You want to get me killed?’ But she kept talking about the ‘Age of Aquarius’ and how we’re not our parents and such. And I said no. I wouldn’t walk up the school steps holding her hand for the world to see. Know what she said? She said, ‘James Trotter, if you don’thold my hand I’ll scream so loud I’ll wake your dead kin and mine.’”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œI left her there.”
    He was probably waiting for me to say something but I was still taking it all in. I’d never heard a story like that.
    His eyes became bright in place of a smile. “Know what scorn is, cuz?”
    I nodded a cool yes but I was searching my brain for the word scorn . I knew it wasn’t good. It sounded like scorched . Like something burnt.
    â€œNo one wants to be made a fool of,” JimmyTrotter said. “’Specially a girl. That’s where scorn comes in.”
    I said nothing.
    He laughed a little bit, although I knew he didn’t think it was funny. “I locked myself in my room when I got home, waited for a knock on the door and for her family to be on the other side.”
    â€œDid they ever come?”
    He shook his head. “No.”

That’s Entertainment
    We had been gone long enough. Long enough, I hoped, for Big Ma to forget why she had us “git” to begin with. The smells of cabbage, potatoes, and meat on top of burnt cornstarch, lavender, and metal from an afternoon of ironing saluted me when I walked inside Ma Charles’s house. I was hungry, and ashamed, but glad to be back. I hugged my apology to Big Ma, and for all of a second, she let me, and then she pushed me off of her, which was her way and her forgiveness. “Go on and wash up” was all she said.
    We sat at the dinner table, mosquito-stung and ravenous from our hike. When Ma Charles told me to say the prayer, I asked, “Aren’t we waiting for Uncle Darnell?”
    Vonetta cut her eyes but kept her mouth closed.Speaking her sassy mind was what had gotten her Big Ma’s belt just before Pa had asked Big Ma to leave our home in Brooklyn. If anything, the sting of Big Ma’s white church belt should have encouraged Vonetta to make that whipping her last.
    â€œHe’s working an extra shift,” Big Ma said. I got the feeling our uncle would be working more extra shifts now that we were here.
    â€œGet to praying so we can get to eating!” Ma Charles said. We laughed because our great-grandmother’s impatience was unexpected.
    â€œRolls,” Big Ma said. “Delphine, go get—” Then, just as I was about to scoot out of my chair, she stopped herself, got up, and went inside the kitchen and came back with the rolls. I should have felt a victory, knowing Big Ma now thought twice about having me do everything. But I felt only shame and