Free Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth by Sandra Dutton

boyfriend."
    Mama rolls her eyes. "You got puppet show practice."
    I want to say I ain't got no puppet, but then she'll be reminded of my throwing Mrs. Noah into the trash. Besides, I know she's hid off in one of Mama's drawers. "I'm ready for the puppet show," I say. "We've done had all the practices we need. And Brother Lucas won't answer none of my questions."
    "That's because you ask too many," says Mama.
    ***
    Mama calls Sister Coates to tell her we won't be in church tomorrow. Later I hear Mama telling Granny, "Sister Coates says it's so nice we're helping Lucinda. Says Wilma Tatters can play piano."

15. Falls of the Ohio
    Lucinda drags her duffle bag into the kitchen and shows us how she keeps her underwear in plastic food bags. "That way I can keep things nice and neat," she says.
    Her and Mama make pancakes.
    We leave the house about eight o'clock and take I-71 South. I want to say to Mama it's too bad we don't have no more of them John 3:16 stickers. But I'm still being punished, and I don't want to overdo my niceness.
    We drive through Kentucky listening to
Vernon Valley Gospel Hour.
    And then Mama asks Lucinda if she's heard from Thornton.
    "Not for a while," she says. "He might be locked up."
    I see Mama glancing through the rearview mirror at me. She don't like me hearing such things.
    "He comes around you again," says Granny, "you just get the law."
    "I will," says Lucinda.
    We drive past Carrollton, then cross the river at Louisville into Indiana. Lucinda's giving directions.
    ***
    She lives on Whippet Street, near the Ohio River. We drive down this road under a big railroad trestle, and off in the distance there's a dam. We pass a sign that says FALLS OF THE OHIO . I'm wondering where I've seen that at. Falls of the Ohio. Then I remember—that was in the book Miss Sizemore give me,
The Wonder of the Trilobite.
It's where some of them fossils was dug up.
    "Lots of driftwood down there," says Lucinda. "When the river's low, there's heaps of it along the bank."
    "I'd like some of that," says Mama.
    "Pull over," says Lucinda. "We got time."
    Mama parks, and we walk down the stairs. "Now be careful," says Mama. It's a long ways down. Mama's helping Granny, who's holding on to the banister, and Lucinda's taking it slow, too. I lead the way, kicking seedpods off the stairs.
    I can see the riverbed out there, like I seen in Miss Sizemore's book, and the little pools of water, and when I get down off the stairs, I start seeing fossils. Everywhere fossils. Like God come down and pressed fossils into the riverbed.
    The sky's overcast now, so you don't have to squint.
    Mama settles Granny down on the bottom step. "You just set right down here," says Mama.
    "You all go on out there," says Granny. "I'll be all right."
    "Over here's the best driftwood," says Lucinda. She points off to the left, where it's heaped against the bank, left from the last time the river rose.
    But Mama don't even look at that driftwood. She's picking her way across the riverbed. Me and Lucinda's right behind.
    "Look at this, Mary Mae," says Mama. "You can see these little plants left in the mud."
    "That ain't mud," says Lucinda. "That's limestone."
    "Can't be," says Mama. "A river's got mud." Mama probably thinks them plants is from last summer.
    "Not here," says Lucinda. She gets down on her hands and knees in her rainbow poncho. "These little fossils here is millions and millions of years old. My grade school brung us down, told us all about it. And us kids used to play here. We'd take little pieces home. Course you ain't allowed to do that no more."
    It's funny that Mama don't argue with Lucinda. Mama's on her knees now, just running her fingers over them patterns.
    "Sometimes if you wet something, you can see it better," says Lucinda. She splashes water from a little pool up onto a sponge fossil. "Ain't that beautiful!"
    "Oh yes," says Mama, "and what's this?" She's pointing to something at the edge of a crevice.
    I take a look. "It's a