Rabble Starkey Read Free

born he was already making his getaway plans. Lord, he'd probably pulled up that pickup beside some other little girl with eyes for ginger-colored hair. So when you came and I asked him what to name you, he didn't say nothing or indicate any interest, and me, all I could think of was movie star names, and I couldn't even choose one for all that. So you went a month with no name, and then another month with no name and no daddy to boot, because Ginger Starkey was gone by then. And then I got on a Greyhound and went back home, and first thing Mama said after she saw you was—"
    Me and Veronica said it together: "'Look at them sea green eyes. Look at that ginger-colored hair. Lord, lord, trouble lies ahead for this child.'"
    "That's exactly what she said," Sweet-Ho went on.
    "What did she mean, trouble?" I asked. "I never have no trouble."
    Sweet-Ho grinned. "It was just her way of saying that you would grow up beautiful."
    "So she gave me a Bible name."
    "That's right. She said, "'We'll stave off what trouble we can with a Bible name.'"
    "Parable Ann Starkey," I announced with pride.
    "I have more syllables," Veronica said. "But you, Rabble, you've got the more meaningful name. And you've got your daddy's pretty ginger-colored hair. And once you fill out, Rabble, then, sure as anything, you're going to have—"
    "Trouble and sorrow," Sweet-Ho said, but she was laughing. "Come on, you two, let's get at those family trees or you'll both of you flunk sixth grade."

2
    "Shoot, Sweet-Ho, I don't have no brothers or sisters at all, just my one dumb apple sitting there all alone in the middle. I wish I could've been twins. Or that you and Ginger Starkey could've had one more baby. Or that you got married again, maybe, and—"
    "Hush up, Parable. Don't ask for trouble," Sweet-Ho said, laughing.
    "Anyway," Veronica said, trying to make me feel better, "I'm just putting Gunther in a little squinchy apple over here on the side, like on a twig, not a whole branch. See?"
    I looked over at her family tree and saw what she meant: her brother's name was printed neatly on a little circle, nothing show-offy about it. Just "Gunther Philip Bigelow." And underneath, his birthday.
    I started to laugh. "Remember old Gunther when he was first born, how homely he was?"
    Sweet-Ho bit her lip. "Lord, lord," she said. "He was the homeliest thing I ever saw, bar none. I don't
mean any offense, Veronica, you know that, you know we all love Gunther."
    But Veronica wasn't offended at all. "I always love homely things best," she said. "Kittens or puppies or anything, I always love the runt best. I don't care that Gunther's homely. And I know my daddy doesn't, my daddy thinks Gunther's just the best old thing ever. And he thinks that about me too, of course."
    That was true. Mr. Bigelow loved both his kids more than anything.
    "Look here, now, Sweet-Ho," I said. "I'm gonna put big swirly branches out here to both sides, for cousins. What's Liddie and Joth's last name? And tell me all the others, too. I'm gonna loan some to Veronica."
    We bent over our papers, Veronica and me, drawing apple shapes on the branches, and Sweet-Ho gave us names to put in. Poor old dead Liddie—her whole name was Lydia Louise Jones, Dec., age five—I took her and her blameful brother Joth. But I gave Veronica some others that I didn't like much. Veronica got my cousins Marilyn Ann and Marissa, the ones with hair so yellow it was almost white, and their eyes were all pinkish, and their mama always made them wear those dumb old socks with lace around the edge. I hadn't seen them since I come to Highriver to live four years ago, but I was sure they was just the same, spiteful and mean-spirited with their rabbity faces. Veronica wanted them, anyway; she liked their fancy names.
    Sweet-Ho couldn't remember anybody's birthdays
so we just put in the ages. Thirteen and fourteen, Marilyn Ann and Marissa would be, because they was a little older than me, so Veronica wrote