Free The Dark-Thirty by Patricia McKissack

laughed. “He’s not so tough and mean now. That’ll teach him,” said Josie.
    But she didn’t get the last laugh after all. Adam had gotten home and told his side of the story first. Mama was plenty mad. “What a mean thing to do, Josie Marie Hudson.”
    “I can’t help it if Adam is a scaredy-cat.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with being frightened, but there
is
something wrong with being mean. Embarrassing your brother in front of his friends was unkind and you owe him an apology.”
    “I won’t apologize,” Josie said defiantly.
    “Don’t sass me, girl. What’s wrong with you, anyway? For the past few weeks the two of you have been at each other’s throats. I’ve had enough and I want it to stop!”
    “I do too,” Josie sobbed, and hurried to her room.
    Morning came. Josie picked a basket of ripe tomatoes from Mama’s garden and went to see Madam Zinnia. “Adam is a conjure brotherand I don’t want him anymore. Will you give me a spell to make him go away?” she begged, presenting Madam Zinnia with the tomatoes.
    “What did that wretched boy do?” Madam Zinnia asked.
    “He teases me all the time.”
    “I have just the thing for a teaser. Madam will put him in a cage and call forth nasty little gremlins to poke at him all day with sticks.” And with a wink she raised her hand. “That will fix him good.”
    “Stop!” the girl shouted. “He’s not that bad. He’s just bossy.”
    “Bossy big brothers! I know about that. Yes, Madam will make him the servant of a terrible beast who lives between the pages of a book.” And she raised her hand as if to send him there.
    “No,” Josie stopped her. “Don’t do that. He’s not
that
bossy. He just wants his way all the time.”
    “Yes. I’ll turn him into a big rock sitting in the middle of nowhere. Rocks never get their way about anything.”
    Josie thought about Adam being a rock. She shook her head. “No, he’s not really so bad. We did have some fun times together. And sometimes I did things to him that weren’t so nice either. Oh, I’m all confused.”
    “I see,” said Madam Zinnia, cutting a lovely yellow rose. “Think about it, little one,” she said, putting the bloom in the girl’s hair, “then tell me, what have you learned from all this?”
    “Being the youngest is hard!”
    “What a good lesson to learn. I hope you will remember that when you are a big sister … one day soon.”
    “Really? Oh, wow! Wait until I tell Adam.”
    “But remember,” the woman called, “you must be patient.”
    A sunbeam tickled Josie awake. Mama called her to breakfast, but the kitchen table was only set for three. There was no sign of Adam. He was gone—or had he ever been?
    Mama was talking on the telephone. When she hung up, she was smiling. She ran to hug Daddy. “That was the doctor’s office. Something wonderful is going to happen,” she said. “We’re going to have a new baby come January. I hope it will be the brother you’ve been wanting.”
    Josie clapped her hands and turned round and round, laughing. “I don’t care if it’s a boy anymore. Oh, and I’m going to be the best
big sister
in the whole wide world.”
    “I bet you will,” Mama said, laughing too.
    Josie was delighted that she was finally getting her wish, but deep down inside she wondered about Adam. Had it all been just a dream? Hopping onto her bicycle, she rode as fast as she could to Madam Zinnia’s house.
    It was empty and there was a FOR RENT sign in the yard. “Where did Madam Zinnia go?” Josie asked the mailman, who happened to be passing by.
    “Madam who? I deliver to a Madam Zonobia, a palm reader over on Lee Avenue. But nobody’s lived in this house all summer.”
    Josie looked at the well-kept flower garden and the lovely yellow rosebush by the side of the house and smiled.

Boo Mama
    The year 1968 was full of conflict and contradictions, a tumultuous time of highs and lows. Although blacks and whites were dying together in Vietnam,