Free Yard War by Taylor Kitchings

ain’t sleepin’ too good since them trains started comin’ through here so late,” said the other voice. “That ol’ bastud lays on that whistle.”
    “Ol’ bastud.”
    Trains late at night don’t bother me at all. They sound like news from the other side of the world.
    “Punkins gon’ be ready just in time for Halloween,” Mr. Pinky said.
    “Looks like it, looks like it.”
    “Y’all come get you one in a couple of weeks.”
    When they went back inside, Farish asked me, “What’s an ‘ol’ bastud’?”
    “Something bad,” I told her. “And you’re not supposed to say it.”
    I told Dee we oughta go get his mama to fix us some sandwiches because it was gonna be time to play football before too long. I bet him I could beat him back to the house, but he got there way ahead of me, which I already knew would happen. Farish got back to the house pretty fast too. For a girl.
    Willie Jane was ironing and watching Ginny Lynn, and Dee begged her to let us change the channel to football. He said our TV was bigger than his.
    We told Willie Jane we were starving and needed emergency sandwiches.
    “Dee can have a sandwich,” she said, “but you can’t.”
    “What? Willie Jane, I’m sorry if I was mean about the pancakes, okay?”
    “You still can’t have a sandwich.”
    “Why not?”
    “Ya mama say y’all are havin’ a sit-down family lunch because she and ya daddy are throwin’ a partytonight and there won’t be time for a sit-down supper. A sandwich will spoil ya lunch.”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “She said heat up the leftover chicken and dumplings from last night, and cook some turnip greens to go with it and that’s what you’re gonna eat.”
    “I’m starving!”
    “And y’all can’t be messin’ up in here either. Keep this house clean,” she said. “Farish, play with ya sister while I fix some pimiento cheese.”
    “I will watch my sister,” Farish said, “but I have absolutely no idea how to play with her, because she is four and I am eight.”
    She copies Mama all the time, like “I have absolutely no idea.”
    Willie Jane brought out a plate with three whole sandwiches after all, with potato chips, and milk with chocolate-flavored straws.
    “Thanks, Willie Jane!” She knows how much I love her pimiento cheese.
    The game on TV got boring and we started talking. Dee told me that the scariest show he ever saw was
Rodan,
about a giant bird monster. I told him about the picture of Moby-Dick in my
Book of Knowledge
collection. Moby-Dick is a giant white whale, big as a ship, and he’s coming up out of the water with little beady eyes and a giant white jaw that would snap youin half. When I was little, it scared me so bad I’d drop the book. I still have to sneak up on that page.
    I took Dee back to my room and showed him the Moby-Dick picture and my monster model collection. He said he wasn’t scared of Moby-Dick, but he really liked my Frankenstein. He said he was gonna buy a Rodan model kit he could make. I’m pretty sure they don’t make a Rodan model kit, but I didn’t say that. There’s no point in discouraging somebody unless you have to.
    When Mama called everybody to the table, I asked her if Dee could sit with us.
    “His mama told me Dee already had lunch.”
    “He could just sit with us.”
    “Dee can watch TV while we eat.”
    “But why can’t he—”
    “Because I said so.”
    Willie Jane brought out the chicken and dumplings with some corn bread and a big bowl full of turnip greens. Daddy asked her to please bring him some hot sauce for his greens and a glass of buttermilk to dip his corn bread in. I looked at Farish and we both made a face.
    Daddy had just gotten up from a nap. He said he had to work until “the wee hours” last night. I love staying up until the wee hours. My main goal in life until I was seven was to stay up all night like Daddy.It finally happened when Stokes’s mom took us to see a movie that had a banshee in it. All night, me and