Read Online Also Known As Harper by Ann Haywood Leal - Free Book Online Page B

could tell by his shoulders he was thinking about what time it was.
    I answered for him. “Maybe later.”
    Hemingway’s feet automatically started to speed up on the path toward the motel, and I had to take a couple of skips to keep up with him. I looked over my shoulder at Lorraine and Randall. “Thanks for the swim!”
    I wondered for a minute where they were going to go. Randall had seemed to find us easily before, but I needed to remember to ask for their room number next time.
    For some reason, Hemingway’s body knew what time it was. I’d heard in school about the biological time clocks of animals. Hem was like that when it came time to do his waiting for Daddy. His timing was a little off today, though. Probably from being in a new place.
    He jogged the rest of the way back to our motel room. He bent his head down and squinted up his eyes when he got to the gravel in front.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I unlocked the room and sat down in the doorway.
    He moved a piece of gravel with his toe. “I think I see tire tracks. Daddy might have come by looking for us when we were gone.”
    I clenched my fists up tight, and I could feel my pulse beating in my palms. Maybe Daddy knew what time it was, just like Hem. Maybe he had come back to spill his whiskey all over my new poems. Just in time for this year’s contest. I took a couple of slow breaths and I made my shoulders drop down. My imagination tended to run every which way when Daddy crept into my mind.
    I went over and took the wet towel from Hem’s shoulders. “He doesn’t know where we are yet, Hem,” I said softly.
    He nodded his head hard. “Yes, he does. I gave Winnie Rae a dollar to tell him where we are.”
    I dug my toes into the gravel when I thought about that mean old Winnie Rae taking Hem’s dollar, but I made myself smile. “We weren’t gone that long. It’s not even quite your usual time. Why don’t you change out of those wet clothes and go sit down in the doorway, where it’s more comfortable to do your waiting?”
    I got him some dry clothes and a graham cracker and he seemed to settle down a bit, so I opened my notebook and sat by the window.
    A poem had been forming in my head all day. I didn’t have a title for it yet, but I couldn’t stop to think one up because my pen was already moving.
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    Lately I’ve been wondering what it would be like
    To keep all my words inside.
    I wonder if they’d come out another way.
    Through my pen maybe
    Or through a piece of chalk on the sidewalk.
    It could actually be safer that way.
    The words couldn’t hurt anyone.
    You could take back all the wrong ones.
    You’d just crumple up the paper or
    Wait for the rain.

 
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Chapter Twelve
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    THE RED NUMBERS on the clock read 8:25 when I finally heard Mama’s key in the lock. She was so dog-tired she could barely sit herself down at the little table by the window. I had to uncurl her fingers and take the motel key from her hand.
    â€œIt’s past dinnertime, Mama,” I said, “and I’m thinking you probably don’t even have any lunch in you.”
    She smiled and opened her arms for Hem and me. “All I need is my kids.”
    I wished I could take all the tired out of Mama. I wanted her to sit down with Hem and me and tell us one of her stories. The kind where she changes up all the voices.
    Hem wiped the back of his hand across his faceand caught the tail end of his supper. He had a streak of peanut butter that reached from the middle of his cheek to his ear.
    Mama pulled a tissue out of the sleeve of her sweater and dabbed at his face with her quick, housecleaning fingers. They were always soft, thanks to the gloves she wore at work. She hugged Hem. “Did any of it even make it into your belly?”
    â€œYou need something in
your
belly, Mama.” I nudged my journal to the side and got to work