Read Online Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg - Free Book Online Page A

obnoxious. Not only did it irritate him that he had not arrived sooner; it completely baffled him.
    No matter how hard he tried, Bobby could just not seem to comprehend the world without him. Where had he been? What had he been doing? One afternoon, confined to the house because Luther Griggs was floating around the neighborhood waiting to beat him up again, he took the opportunity to follow his mother around the kitchen, asking her the same old questions.
    “But if I wasn’t here, where was I?”
    “You weren’t born yet,” she said, slicing potatoes.
    “But where was I
before
I was born?”
    “You were just a twinkle in your daddy’s eye, as they say. Could you hand me the butter?”
    “When I was born was I already me or did I just come here and then I was me?”
    “You were always you.”
    He handed her the butter plate. “Would I still have been me if I had been born in China—or would I be a Chinaman?”
    “Oh, Bobby, I wish you wouldn’t ask me all these silly questions. All I know is that you are a part of Daddy and me and you are who you’re supposed to be.”
    “Yeah, but what if you hadn’t married Daddy, then what would have happened?”
    “I don’t know,” she said as she greased a glass casserole dish with the stick of butter. “I can only tell you that you were born at the exact time and place you were supposed to be, and besides I wished for you.”
    “You did?” said a surprised Bobby. “Like on a wishbone or something?”
    “Something like that.”
    “What did you say when you wished?”
    “I said, I want a little boy with brown eyes and brown hair that looked just like you, and here you are. So, you see, you’re a wish come true. What do you think about that?”
    “Wow.” Bobby stood there for a minute thinking it over. Then he said, “How do you know you didn’t get the wrong boy?”
    “Because don’t forget, there is somebody up there that knows better than you and I.”
    Dorothy went over and turned the oven on and pulled the cheese out of the icebox as Bobby trailed behind her. “Yeah, but what if He got mixed up and made a mistake? What if I was born in the wrong year or the wrong country even . . . ?”
    “He doesn’t make mistakes.”
    “But what if He did?”
    “He doesn’t.”
    “Yeah, but suppose He
did
, then what would happen?”
    Dorothy placed the casserole dish in the oven. She stood at the sink to wash her hands with Bobby right behind her, waiting. After she dried her hands she turned around and looked at him. “Well, Bobby, is there somewhere else you would rather be than here with us?”
    Bobby immediately said, “No . . . I was just wondering, that’s all,” and tried to look as innocent as possible, pretending to suddenly remember that he had to water his daddy’s bed of fishing worms in the backyard.
    He had not been entirely truthful with his mother. Sometimes at night he would secretly fantasize that one day someone would knock on their door and say, “We are here for the boy.” Then his parents would come and get him and tell him who he
really
was. He was really the rightful prince of England and they had just been keeping him until he was twelve. Then he would ride through the streets of cheering people and as he passed by they would bow and whisper, “It’s the young prince.” All his teachers at school would curtsy and bow. As he went by his house his parents and grandmother would all be gathered together on the front porch and would bow, too. He would quickly motion for them to stand up and Anna Lee would run to the carriage and grovel at his feet in tears. “I’m sorry for everything I ever did to you, Your Majesty. I didn’t know who you really were. Forgive me, forgive me.” “You are . . . forgiven,” he would say with a sweep of his hand. He would be a gracious, forgiving ruler for all the people except for Luther Griggs. He would have him arrested and dragged through the streets in chains, crying and begging for mercy