Read Online Dust Devil by Rebecca Brandewyne - Free Book Online Page A

for
helping me that day at school. I never did get a chance to say that
before. I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble on my
account.”
    “ Not
much. A three-day suspension was all.” Renzo’s careless
tone made it clear this was no big deal to him. “And it was
worth it to have had a shot at big, bad Bubba. He and his buddies are
always ragging me.”
    “ I
know what that’s like. Evie and her friends are always picking
on me, too. I try to stay out of their way, mostly. It was just bad
luck that the bus was late getting to school that day and Evie
realized it was her old lunch box I had.” At Renzo’s
friendliness, Sarah edged closer. She possessed an inherent
appreciation for all beauty, and she couldn’t seem to stop
staring at the boy. More than ever, she thought he looked as though
he had stepped from one of the movies that played at the town’s
Imperial Theater, which still boasted its original and now
old-fashioned wedge-shaped marquee and its CinemaScope screen. Seeing
a Saturday matinee there was a rare and thrilling treat for Sarah.
Mostly, she had to wait until films were edited and shown on TV
before she saw them.
    She
cast about for something else to say, her eyes lighting on the book
in his hands. “That’s an awfully thick book you’re
reading. What’s it called?”
    “ East
of Eden. It
was written by a man named John Steinbeck and made into a movie that
starred James Dean. He’s one of my idols.”
    “ Who?
The writer or the actor?”
    “ Well,
both, actually,” Renzo declared. “I’d like to be a
writer someday, when I grow up. I’d like to write a book that
somebody might make into a film starring an actor like James Dean.
There’s no telling what roles he might have gone on to
immortalize on screen if he hadn’t been killed in a car crash.”
    Sarah
didn’t know who John Steinbeck and James Dean were. She knew
only that she could have listened to the boy for hours. Even his
voice was beautiful, she thought. Soft and low, with a melodic
rhythm. She hadn’t known, at first, that he was Italian. She’d
had to ask Mama and Daddy what the words wop and dago, which
Bubba had so derisively called Renzo that day on the commons, meant.
    “ You’re
Renzo Cassavettes, I know. I heard Bubba say your name right before
the fight broke out. Your daddy owns the newspaper, the Tri-State
Tribune, doesn’t
he?” she asked. “Is that why you want to be a writer when
you grow up?”
    “ Joe’s
not really my dad. My real dad’s dead. He died a long time ago,
in the big city. That’s why I live with the Martinellis. Joe’s
my real dad’s second cousin or something like that. But, yeah,
that’s why I want to be a writer. I like the newspaper. I’m
going to be a famous reporter one day—like Carl Bernstein and
Bob Woodward. Maybe I’ll even win a Pulitzer Prize. And then,
after that, I’ll write my book.”
    “ It
must be nice to know already what you want to be when you grow up,
what you want to do with your life.” Sarah finally grew bold
enough to sit down beside the boy on the grass. “I like to make
up stories myself, like fairy tales...and to paint pictures. I’m
Sarah, by the way, Sarah Beth Kincaid, in case you didn’t
know.”
    “ I
do know. I asked somebody at school. And Joe told me your dad works
at Papa Nick Genovese’s coal mines. But I kind of figured that,
anyway, seeing as how Evie called you ‘Coal Lump’ and
all. That wasn’t very nice of her.”
    “ No,
but I try not to mind. Evie’s just a spiteful cat, that’s
all. My daddy’s a good man—the best! —even if
he does dig
coal for a living. He says there’s nothing wrong with good,
honest, hard labor with your own two hands. Still, I know people in
town call us ‘mining trash’ and look down on us, the same
as they do Italians. It’s not right. Daddy said those names
Bubba called you were ugly and prejudiced, and Mama said she’d
scrub my mouth out good with Lava soap if she ever heard me