Miriam's Well Read Free Page A

about the fainting,” I pleaded. “And don’t tell her you took my temperature. And don’t give her any numbers, 101 or whatever it was.” Mama would have a fit if she knew I was even in Mrs. Elgin’s office. I looked around at the padlocked cabinet with its shelf full of white bottles. I had to get out of there before Mama came for me. “Can I wait for her outside?”
    â€œI’ll tell you what. You can wait on the bench in the hall. How long will it take your mother to get here?”
    â€œShe has to walk from the church, which is about ten blocks away.”
    â€œShe has no car?”
    â€œThe men have the car,” I said. “My uncles, Benjamin and Vernon.” I couldn’t tell her Mama didn’t and wouldn’t drive.
    â€œThen let me do this. We’ll call your mother, and I’ll drive you by the church to pick her up.”
    â€œNo! I mean, I don’t think that’s the best idea. Let me call my mother and tell her to walk home. If you want to take me home, I can be there waiting for her.” Mrs. Elgin agreed, thank God. Why did He grant me that much, when I’d lied? Another question.
    By the time Mama got home, I was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a granny-square afghan, and shivering. Mama took one look at me and lit the gas for a kettle of water. She put her lips to my forehead; that was how she could tell I had a fever. “What’s happened today, baby?”
    â€œI just haven’t been feeling very well.”
    â€œSomething happened at school?”
    â€œNo, Mama. Mr. Moran thought I looked peaked, so he sent me home.” Mama put her arm around me under the afghan until the teakettle began to whistle. I drifted off to sleep while she made the cinnamon tea; it was the hot vapors that woke me up as she settled back beside me.
    â€œDrink your tea, baby, and we’ll talk.” Mama’s cup tinkled daintily, while mine seemed to clunk onto the saucer. I didn’t feel like I had much control in my fingers. Pretty soon Mama took the cup and saucer out of my hands. “You lay down here on a pallet in front of the fire, baby,” she crooned, spreading a quilt on the floor for me. “I’ll give Brother James a call and see if we can’t get him over here before the men come home.” She pulled a soft cushion from the couch, and my head sank into it. Mama sat beside me, with her back up against the brick fireplace, reading the Book in Gold Leaf . Everyone else but us called it the Bible, Old Testament and New, but we found such beauty in the book that all our copies were in gold leaf, to mirror the treasure within the pages.
    I heard the pages gently slap together as Mama looked for certain passages. I dozed and dreamed. I whirled through space, no, through a huge wooden room, spinning like a dervish, my hair flying behind me. Whirling, twirling, spinning, my skirt whipping around my legs—I was dancing! I awoke with a start, ashamed. Imagine, dancing. But then I was doubly ashamed to realize that it wasn’t the wicked dream that woke me, but the telephone.
    Mama knelt beside me. “Baby, it’s some boy from your English class. Says he has to see you today.” Mama’s voice was dry and disapproving.
    I stumbled to the phone. “Hello?”
    â€œAre you okay?” asked Adam Bergen.
    â€œOh, sure. I slept a while, and I’m feeling much better,” I said.
    â€œWell, Mrs. Loomis says we have to get together with our poetry partners before tomorrow, and I thought maybe we should, because you’re probably worried about your grade in there.”
    â€œAren’t you?”
    â€œIn English? Are you kidding?”
    He didn’t know me well enough to know that I was never kidding. “What do you want to do?”
    â€œI could come over.” He said it, but it didn’t sound like he meant it.
    I considered the possibility for just a moment.