Free In Front of God and Everybody by KD McCrite

watch what promised to be a real circus. Myra Sue was in the kitchen washing the pots and pans for the second time, since she didn’t do it right the first go-round. She didn’t know that the Emperor and Empress of the Isle of Rude had arrived.
    â€œMy stars!” Mama said to Isabel. “You injured it that badly?”
    â€œThose quacks at that hick clinic are a bunch of fools. They told me I had barely twisted my ankle.”
    â€œAnd they put you on crutches?” Mama said.
    â€œIsabel insisted,” said Ian. His lips hardly moved. Well, how could they? His jaws looked clenched tight enough to crack walnuts. So much for darling and lambkins and snookums and whatever other names they came up with while Isabel was dying on the way to town.
    â€œOf course I insisted,” Isabel snarled. “They were just going to wrap it, give me an aspirin, and send me on my merry way.”
    â€œThey took X-rays,” Ian said.
    Isabel snorted. “That contraption was ancient. I’m sure I have radiation poisoning now.”
    â€œWell, if you start to glow in the dark, I’ll let you know,” Ian snapped.
    Mama interrupted this precious gem of a conversation. “It can’t be comfortable for you, standing here,” she said. Isabel whimpered and looked pitiful. “So you come on inside where you can sit down. I have supper ready.”
    â€œHow am I supposed to get to the door?” Isabel asked.
    Mama shot a glance at Ian. “Why, your husband looks strong, and you’re just a little mite. He can carry you. Here, I’ll take your crutches.”
    â€œIan can’t lift me, let alone carry me,” Isabel said.
    â€œOf course he can,” Mama smiled. “I bet you don’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”
    I looked at Ian. I bet the preschoolers in T-ball could beat him up.
    â€œWell,” Ian said, staring at Isabel. He took in a deep breath and blew it out. “Let’s get you inside.”
    Pulling a face that involved squinching his eyes and dragging down the corners of his mouth, Ian picked up his lambkins and staggered around like it was midnight in an ice storm. Isabel shrieked the whole entire time.
    Mama followed with the crutches, and I stood where I was, disgusted to the very bone. Inside the house, Mr. Rance— who had invited himself to come along with Grandma—told a long-winded horse story, and he was telling it so loud that I walked clear to the end of our long driveway to see if I could still hear him. I could. Honest.
    I stayed outside until my sister came out on the porch.
    â€œOh, April,” she sang out. I looked at her standing on the edge of the porch, all prissy and sweet. “Mama says it’s time to eat!” She bounced every word as if reciting a poem about a basket of kittens.
    I stared at her, wondering if her sweetie-pie smiling-ness was supposed to fool me into getting close enough so she could whomp me upside my head. She’s been known to pull that trick before. But I guess she didn’t plan to do it right then, because she whirled on one foot and went back into the house.
    Myra Sue might have planned to be all sweetness and light, and maybe she thought that evening was going to be something out of an old black-and-white Fred Astaire movie, but it wasn’t. It turned out to be something closer to A Nightmare on Elm Street .

NINE

Home-cookin’
and the St. Jameses

Everyone was seated at the supper table by the time I washed my hands and went into the dining room.
    Isabel sat in a chair at one end of the table, her foot propped up in another chair nearby with every pillow and cushion in the house under it. Boy, I hoped her skinny, stinky foot wasn’t on the pillow where I lay my own personal head.
    Isabel’s crutches leaned against the wall behind her. Ian sat on her right, and next to him sat Grandma and Mr. Rance. Daddy sat at the head of the table with Mama on his right.