Read Online Aim by Joyce Moyer Hostetter - Free Book Online Page B

troop morale.” Frank pounded my back. “Now you can say you did your bit for the war.”
    The next morning at school, the only thing people wanted to talk about was army maneuvers. Miss Hinkle even skipped handwriting exercises to discuss our experiences. Marilyn Overcash and other students who lived on the back side of the mountain had talked with soldiers from the Red Team. According to them, the Reds had won the “Battle of Bakers Mountain.”
    It hadn’t even crossed my mind to ask who won. “I loaned my BB gun to a soldier,” I said.
    â€œBB gun?” Dudley snorted, and everybody else in the room seemed to think it was a big joke too.
    I tried to defend myself. “The army is short on supplies. Some of those fellows were using toy guns. And the soldier I gave the gun to was thrilled. Said it boosted troop morale.”
    â€œIsn’t that sweet?” said Dudley.
    A few other people snickered. And for some reason all the good feelings I had about troop morale just crumbled like dry cornbread.
    â€œJunior makes a good point,” said Miss Hinkle.“Supplying the army is a massive undertaking. I hope your families have contributed unused metals and empty tin cans to the scrap drives.”
    This led to a discussion about the economic depression our country had been in. And not just America, but the world. According to Miss Hinkle, the depression led Germany to follow a maniac like Adolf Hitler. The German people were desperate for a leader who could turn their economy around.
    Miss Hinkle asked us to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler’s methods with President Roosevelt’s.
    Dudley said he didn’t care much for the president. He didn’t have any good reason except that Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat. Evidently that meant he was like the devil himself.
    I pointed out that President Roosevelt had done a whole lot to make jobs for people during hard times.
    â€œHow would you know?” asked Dudley. “Your father didn’t exactly hold down a job.”
    I heard Janie Aderholt gasp. Like she couldn’t believe Dudley would say such a thing about a dead man. Or probably she was feeling sorry for me on account of Pop being who he was.
    â€œI’ll have you know that my pop was a farmer,” I said. “At least he didn’t sell moonshine. Which happens to be against the law.”
    â€œThe reason your daddy didn’t sell moonshine,” saidDudley, “is because he’d have drunk it faster than he could sell it.”
    I was on my feet then, heading toward the back of the room. But just like that, Miss Hinkle was beside me. She grabbed ahold of my shirtsleeve.
    â€œSit down, Junior.” She said it real low, but there was something in her voice that told me I better listen. Or else.
    So I sat. But inside I was standing up. Inside I was marching to the back of the room and jerking that Dudley Catfish Walker up and showing him what a Democrat could do to a Republican. If he wanted a fight, I was of a mind to let him have it.
    Miss Hinkle tried to bring the discussion back to the economy and how, if we did go to war, we’d have to sacrifice on more luxuries here at home. That didn’t help because Dudley had opinions on that too, and I spoke out and said his ideas were stupid so maybe he should just dry up, and Dudley said I was dumber than a box of rocks.
    â€œThat’s it,” said Miss Hinkle. “The two of you will stay after school.”
    At the end of the day she told us both to sit in our seats until the buses had gone home. But first she sent notes home to our parents. She asked Janie Aderholt to deliver them down the hall—one to Dudley’s brother Rob and one to Ann Fay so she could give it to my momma.
    I did not like the thought of Momma getting thatnote. And I wasn’t crazy about Ann Fay being the one to deliver it, either.
    The buses left and Miss Hinkle sent me to the basement to