Read Online Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood - Free Book Online Page A

as severe as that of the folks marching off on the Trail of Tears, but I had marched into a new territory in New Paltz, New York, and Ivy was the first person to act like a friend toward me.
    Dear Ivy,
    That was a good speech. Do you want to eat lunch together?
    Your friend (if you want),
    Prairie Evers

IVY’S MAMA
    After that, Ivy and I always ate lunch together and played together at recess. One day we came up with the idea that we’d wear the same kind of clothes the next day. We’d wear red sweatshirts and white tennis shoes and blue jeans. We decided to act the same and speak the same the whole day too. When Ivy leaned her chin on her hand, I leaned my chin on my hand. When I waved my arm to answer a question, Ivy waved her same arm, and when Ivy stood up, I stood up too.
    I guess neither one of us ever had a friend whowas just about a twin before. We started giggling in the middle of reading time when it was quiet all over the room, and we could not stop. We were spluttering and sniffling, trying to keep those giggles pent up, but they wouldn’t stay pent. Even after Mrs. Hanson said, “Ivy, Prairie, that’s enough,” we still couldn’t stop.
    Then she said, “Go clap out the erasers from now until the bell rings. Get them good and clean.”
    I said, “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Hanson, but I have to catch my bus.”
    “You’ve got time. Go and clap out the erasers.”
    Ivy and I got to laughing at the puffs of chalk tickling our noses, and at the smell of it, like a hundred blackboards with a hundred teachers writing all at once. One thing led to another and we didn’t get done until after the bell announcing the end of the day had rung. We ran the erasers back to Mrs. Hanson and gathered our things from our lockers as quick as we could, but the bus pulled off from the curb without me.
    “Oh no!” It was a long way to walk home, and even if I did try, I’d never get there before dark. Besides which, Mama and Daddy wouldn’t want me walking anyway. “I’m sunk.” I stared at Ivy with big eyes.
    She squeezed my hand. “You can come home with me. We’ll call your folks from there.”
    “But Mama is at the Arts Center, and Daddy’s probably outside.”
    “Well then, my mom will give you a ride. It’ll be okay.”
    I saw she was right, and headed home with her. It was a kind of adventure to walk through the streets of the town, and my spirits began to rise. When we got there, though, I was set back again.
    Ivy’s house was painted dark brown and frowned at you with a “keep away” feeling. It was crammed in between two others that weren’t any more cheerful, and the yard was cluttered with broken-down things. Inside, Ivy’s mama was sitting at the table flipping through a magazine. She looked up when we came in, but even though I’d never met her before, she didn’t say anything.
    Ivy is pretty. She has long yellow hair that falls straight as a pencil down her back, clear to her waist. She has green eyes with a little rim of brown around the edge of them, like a pond. She’s got just a few freckles across her nose, and when you’re talking to her, she sits up real straight and quiet and watches you steady with those deepwater eyes so you know she’s really listening. You’d think her mama would be pretty too, but she wasn’t. She was the skinniest lady I ever saw, and her eyes didn’t have any smiling in them.
    She wasn’t nice like Ivy, either. She just flipped through her magazine like we weren’t even there. That’s what she must’ve spent most of her time doing, because she had magazines stacked up halfway to the ceiling in one corner. I thought to myself that if she saved the money it cost each month to buy them, she could’ve given Ivy something nice. Some ribbons orbarrettes for her hair, maybe. Ivy had such pretty hair and no ribbon or band that was special to put in it.
    Ivy didn’t seem surprised that her mama didn’t say anything. She said, “Mom, this is my friend Prairie.