Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere Read Free

table, especially when the eight of us were taking up space around it.
    â€œWell,” Mama said, “I don’t think that storm is anything we need to fuss about at the supper table, Mama Jean.” She scooched her chair up to the table and went straight to fixin’ plates for all us kids.
    Baked macaroni and cheese, pan-fried pork chops, collard greens, Memaw’s sugar-topped cornbread, and a big ol’ pitcher of iced-down sweet tea. Mama had outdone herself again. We were all sitting around the big table Daddy had made out of the old high school gym floor, eating and talking like always. With the high chairs pushed up to the table and the rest of us all gathered around in our mismatched chairs, it was all shoulders and elbows. There wasn’t even room for a night crawler to shimmy through.
    I was fixin’ to tear into my second pork chop when I remembered an interesting fact I’d learned at school.
    â€œDaddy, ya know what my teacher told us today?”
    â€œArmani, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mama said without even looking up. She kept right on cutting up meat and tossing it onto the table in front of Khayla and Kheelin. They didn’t use the high chair trays no more, not since springtime when they made three.
    â€œWhat’d your teacher tell you?” Daddy asked.
    I swallowed and sat up a little straighter in my chair. “Well, she said that yesterday, somewhere in Idaho, a cow gave birth to a chicken.”
    Georgie, my older—
not
smarter—brother, spit a wad of half-chewed chop across the table. He put his fist up to his mouth and started cracking up. He threw hisself back in his chair so hard, he just about fell over backward. “Oh, my gawd! You’re so stupid, Armani!” The boy was laughing so out of control, tears were streaming down his ugly face.
    â€œI ain’t stupid!” I yelled.
“You’re
stupid!” Heat filled my cheeks. My head throbbed. I slumped into my chair wishing I was an onlychild so I didn’t have to be in the same room with thickheaded people like Georgie.
    â€œThat’s enough, Georgie,” Daddy said, trying to stifle his own laugh.
    Memaw and Mama chuckled and shook their heads. My whole face was on fire.
    â€œI’m sorry, Daddy,” Georgie said, shaking his head back and forth, wiping tears and holding back more laughs. “But that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. A cow having a baby chicken! What’d they call it, Armani—a cow-icken?” Everyone at the table was laughing—except Sealy. “Or, wait, wait, I got it . . . how ’bout a chick-ow!”
    â€œChick-ow! Chick-ow!” Khayla and Kheelin sang, moving their shoulders up and down. They were banging away on the tabletop doing some kind of chicken high chair dance, singing the ridiculous word. My whole family was acting like fools.
    â€œWhy are y’all smilin’ an’ lookin’ so crazy?” I whined.
    â€œIs that true, Armani?” Sealy asked with big puppy eyes. She was interested in what I had to say.
    â€œYes, Sealy, it
is
true. My teacher even said it was on the news.”
    â€œLord, have mercy,” Memaw said.
    â€œThen your teacher’s a dummy,” Georgie said, shoving a pile of collard greens in his mouth.
    â€œMr. Curtis, I think that will do,” Mama said to Daddy. But her head nodded at Georgie.
    â€œShut up, Georgie! You think you know everything!” I hollered.
    Daddy wasn’t laughing no more.
    â€œWell, I know more than you do,” Georgie mumbled under his breath, still feeding his face.
    â€œYeah, right, that’s why you barely made it to the sixth grade,” I said, putting sass behind my words and a slide to my head.
    Daddy stood up. I can’t speak for Georgie, but I’m smart enough to know that when Daddy goes and stands up like that, it’s best if I just shut up altogether.
    â€œYour