Free True Colors by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

had to support thirteen children by herself after her husband was killed by a falling tree.”
    “When my great-grandfather went off to the Civil War,” Mrs. Thompson said, “my great-grandmother disguised herself as a man so she’d be able to fight alongside him. My great-grandfather always said she was a better shot than he was, anyway. They only discovered she was a woman when she gave birth to my grandfather! Imagine the shock of the other soldiers when they heard that baby crying!”
    Mrs. Potter told of her ancestor who’d been a doctor back when women weren’t even allowed to go to college. Esther’s grandmother and great-grandmother had workedall their lives for the right of women to vote, and Hannah’s Scottish great-grandmother had crossed the ocean all by herself, at fifteen, to start a new life here, and her grandmother had been a nurse in the Civil War.
    They all sounded like women not to be trifled with, either. Not one of them would have been scared of the Wright brothers. They would have stood up to them, not hidden in the bushes and thrown a stone.
    Listening to all the stories about family, and ancestors, and recipes handed down got me to wishing again that I knew something about
my
ancestors. In third grade, when we’d studied geography, Miss Paisley had asked all of us to find out where our ancestors had come from. When she’d asked me, I’d just stared down at my feet, and Miss Paisley said, “Oh, Blue, I’m
so
sorry, I just wasn’t
thinking
,” which had only made it all worse. Trying to make up for it, she’d let me stick the little flag pins onto the globe, but I would have traded that for knowing who my ancestors were, and where they’d come from.
    The best part of the quilting club meeting was the refreshments afterward. Mrs. Barclay served lemonade and molasses cookies, Mrs. Potter had brought brownies, and Hannah had made scones and shortbread.
    Mrs. Appleby passed around pictures from a trip she’d taken to England.
    “Of course, London is still terribly devastated from the war,” she said, “but the surrounding countryside was glorious.We even took the train up into Scotland. You would have loved that, Hannah.”
    The way Hannah was studying those photos told me that she
would
have loved it. Hannah had grown up listening to stories of Scotland, and she must have dreamed about seeing it for herself someday. She probably would have, if she hadn’t had me to raise. I wondered if Hannah had ever wished she hadn’t taken in that squalling baby. How would her life have been different if she
hadn’t
found me?
    Hannah and I were all the way home before I realized I’d completely forgotten to ask about the quilt. Which meant I’d have to go to next week’s meeting.

chapter 13

    The week seemed unusually long, probably because I didn’t have Nadine to play with. I saw her riding her bike one afternoon, and once I rode past on Dolly, but Nadine didn’t even wave.
    I fed the cat morning and night. She still waited until I backed away before creeping toward the bowl, but at least she wasn’t running from me anymore.
    “You know, when Nadine goes to the coronation, she’ll probably make the queen curtsy to
her
,” I told her.
    The cat coughed. It could have been because she always gobbled her food too fast, but it sounded almost like a laugh to me.
    The next quilting club meeting was at Mrs. Thompson’s house.
    “We’re going to have our hands full finishing this quiltin time,” Mrs. Appleby said. “I think we’d better meet twice a week until it’s finished.”
    The other women agreed, and everyone found a place around the quilt. I wasn’t sure where to sit until Esther smiled at me and patted the seat next to her. I slid in beside her, and she handed me a needle. More pinpricked fingers, more knotted thread, but I was getting a little bit better at it.
    Not that I
wanted
to get better at it. I was only there to try to get information. I sat thinking how I should bring