Read Online If Fried Chicken Could Fly by Paige Shelton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paige Shelton
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an end so most of her students’ projects were completed. Her classes had rebuilt a motor from a 1969 Mustang and refurbished the rest of the car this year. The Mustang would be put up for auction after the cook-off, with the proceeds going to the high school athletic programs. I’d been seriously considering bidding on the car, but I hadn’t approached the bank to see if I’d qualify for a loan yet. Plus my old Nova still ran pretty well.
We were a small community and the tourist dollars took care of most of our town’s needs, but the schools didn’t always see the benefits, so Mom came up with the rebuild-a-clunker idea, and it stuck. Over the last ten years, the rebuilt cars had paid for bus trips, uniforms, and equipment for the high school athletes.
The fact that my mom was the local expert grease monkey hadn’t ever seemed odd to me. Even before her rebuild-a-clunker idea, she’d taught at the high school and tinkered with car stuff. “Some people, like your gram, like to spend time in the kitchen, Betts. I prefer to be under a hood.”
It was Mom’s other skill that made everything else she did or knew how to do pale in comparison. She knew everyone’s birthday. Not only did she know the dates, it was how she remembered people, and it was sometimes how she greeted them. “Hello, Heather Binton, October 18, 1987.”
It was embarrassing, but over the years she’d learned to control it a little and not always include the birthday with the greeting.
If you mentioned a date, she could list the people she knew who were born on that day. I knew it was weird and savantlike even though I’d grown up with it. It was roughest when an October date was recited. For some reason, Mom knew lots of people who were born in October.
So, after waking them and discussing who would do what, I finally made it back to my own home and into my own bed, where I slept for approximately four hours. When the alarm sounded I wondered if it would have been better just to stay awake.
I lived one block over from Gram and across town from my parents. It took about five minutes to get across town. Gram and I both lived in small 1950s houses. Our floor plans were similar except the stairs to her attic were in her front room and mine were off the kitchen that was behind the front room and at the back of the house. Each had one bathroom and two small bedrooms. I had a basement because the previous owners had wanted one so much that they’d dynamited under the house to create one. I’d heard the stories of the big explosion for years. My basement contained a washer and dryer, and it led to the outside with an old heavy single-panel garage door that I kept closed. My car wouldn’t have fit in the space anyway.
My southern Missouri basement always smelled wet with humidity and I never went downstairs without shoes for fear I step on one of the big fat slugs that came out during the warm summer months. Gram could sweep one of those things twenty feet with just the right push of a broom. I hadn’tmastered that skill yet, and one of my greatest fears was squishing one of them with my bare feet.
After a refreshing shower and a full pot of coffee I thought I might be able to function okay. While I was in the shower I missed a call from Jim. His message gave us the all clear to go back into the school but I needed to get the mess from the fire cleaned up as quickly as possible. I was glad to hear the news. We still had the catering order for the library, and I knew Gram would skin me alive if I didn’t make sure it got taken care of. It would be much easier to prepare the cupcakes at the school than in my own small kitchen.
I hoped Gram was still sleeping but I doubted it. If she was awake, Dad was supposed to try to keep her home. I doubted that would work either, but it was worth a try. The students were originally supposed to make the cupcakes for the library read-a-thon. Since they’d been forced into taking a day off and unless Gram
We were a small community and the tourist dollars took care of most of our town’s needs, but the schools didn’t always see the benefits, so Mom came up with the rebuild-a-clunker idea, and it stuck. Over the last ten years, the rebuilt cars had paid for bus trips, uniforms, and equipment for the high school athletes.
The fact that my mom was the local expert grease monkey hadn’t ever seemed odd to me. Even before her rebuild-a-clunker idea, she’d taught at the high school and tinkered with car stuff. “Some people, like your gram, like to spend time in the kitchen, Betts. I prefer to be under a hood.”
It was Mom’s other skill that made everything else she did or knew how to do pale in comparison. She knew everyone’s birthday. Not only did she know the dates, it was how she remembered people, and it was sometimes how she greeted them. “Hello, Heather Binton, October 18, 1987.”
It was embarrassing, but over the years she’d learned to control it a little and not always include the birthday with the greeting.
If you mentioned a date, she could list the people she knew who were born on that day. I knew it was weird and savantlike even though I’d grown up with it. It was roughest when an October date was recited. For some reason, Mom knew lots of people who were born in October.
So, after waking them and discussing who would do what, I finally made it back to my own home and into my own bed, where I slept for approximately four hours. When the alarm sounded I wondered if it would have been better just to stay awake.
I lived one block over from Gram and across town from my parents. It took about five minutes to get across town. Gram and I both lived in small 1950s houses. Our floor plans were similar except the stairs to her attic were in her front room and mine were off the kitchen that was behind the front room and at the back of the house. Each had one bathroom and two small bedrooms. I had a basement because the previous owners had wanted one so much that they’d dynamited under the house to create one. I’d heard the stories of the big explosion for years. My basement contained a washer and dryer, and it led to the outside with an old heavy single-panel garage door that I kept closed. My car wouldn’t have fit in the space anyway.
My southern Missouri basement always smelled wet with humidity and I never went downstairs without shoes for fear I step on one of the big fat slugs that came out during the warm summer months. Gram could sweep one of those things twenty feet with just the right push of a broom. I hadn’tmastered that skill yet, and one of my greatest fears was squishing one of them with my bare feet.
After a refreshing shower and a full pot of coffee I thought I might be able to function okay. While I was in the shower I missed a call from Jim. His message gave us the all clear to go back into the school but I needed to get the mess from the fire cleaned up as quickly as possible. I was glad to hear the news. We still had the catering order for the library, and I knew Gram would skin me alive if I didn’t make sure it got taken care of. It would be much easier to prepare the cupcakes at the school than in my own small kitchen.
I hoped Gram was still sleeping but I doubted it. If she was awake, Dad was supposed to try to keep her home. I doubted that would work either, but it was worth a try. The students were originally supposed to make the cupcakes for the library read-a-thon. Since they’d been forced into taking a day off and unless Gram
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