“Golly, Sam.”
“What?” he said.
I was in a minor panic. “I think maybe you should ask her yourself.”
He looked appalled. “I can’t do that.”
I said, “You better talk to Harry. He knows all about those things.” Who said inspiration doesn’t strike twice?
“You’re right, Callie. I’ll talk to him about it. You won’t say anything to Lula, will you?”
“No. I never would.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Double-Injun-blood-brothers-swear-to-die promise?”
“Double Injun.”
“It doesn’t count unless you say the whole thing,” he said.
“Saaaam.”
“Okay, okay, okay. But say it, huh?”
“Double Injun blood brothers swear to die,” I said. “Now leave me alone.”
“Shoot, you sure are getting to be an old grouch,” he said, and walked off, no doubt in search of Harry. I rubbed my temples where a headache was setting up camp.
A couple of days later, I was reading by myself in a quiet corner when my ten-year-old brother, Travis, wandered up with an odd expression on his face. I eyed him and snapped, “What do you want?”
He looked hurt. “I want to ask you something.”
“You aren’t going to ask me if Lula Gates likes you, are you, Travis?”
He gasped, and his face crumbled in panic. “What?” he cried. “No, no, I was only going to ask you if she likes cats, that’s all.”
“I have no idea if she likes cats, or you, or anybody else. I’m sick of this. Go and get advice from Harry.” I collected my books and stumped off muttering, “There’s an awful lot of this going around.”
“Sick of what? What are you talking about? What’s going around?” he called after me.
I ignored him, fairly certain that there were no hordes of boys across town pestering their sister about whether Callie Vee liked them or not. And what did it matter, anyway? Did I care? I did not. No. Did not.
Harry came to my room an hour later, laughing. “You have got to stop sending them to me. I can’t get a moment’s peace. Give them the benefit of your own wise counsel.”
“I don’t know what to tell them. It’s only old Lula. What’s come over them?”
“It’s an epidemic of crushes. They’re getting to that age.”
“Well, they can just quit it.”
“There’s no quitting at this point,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Out of curiosity, does she like any of them?”
“Um, not that I can tell, especially. Should I ask her?”
“If you feel like occupying the middle ground at the Third Battle of Manassas. If I were you, I’d keep well out of it.”
I decided he was right and said, “Yes, Harry, that’s the thing to do. I’ll pretend to know nothing.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” he said, and he ducked out the door.
“Funny!” I would have thrown something at him, but the nearest item to hand was my precious Notebook, which I’d never fling about.
The next school day, I met up with Lula at the main road as usual, and we walked the last quarter mile to school together, chatting about nothing in particular. I happened to glance back, and there were my three brothers behind us on the road, strung out at regular intervals, their eyes fixed on her. Oh, dear. Things were worse than I thought. This sudden change in them unnerved me. Weren’t they too young for this? Couldn’t I have a normal family like other girls? Why did it have to happen to all of them at once?
At recess that day, all three of them managed to find an excuse to stand close to the invisible line that, by unspoken agreement, divided the girls’ side of the yard from the boys’. They leaned against the trees in the schoolyard, looking like aimless loiterers, except for their eyes, which they fastened on Lula with studied nonchalance, and then cut sideways at each other like assassins.
Lula and I played hopscotch. Her silvery braid flashed in the sunlight like a living thing. Her petticoats flared as high as her knees, producing a strangled gasp from Lamar. I glared at him. A month before, she could have walked through the yard in her chemise and he wouldn’t have noticed. Now this. Tough times lay ahead.
“Lula,” I said, pitching my pebble.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, what, Callie?”
“Um. Do you . . .” I had made a hope-to-die promise I wouldn’t tell. And while I myself did not know of anyone who had died after breaking one, it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Do I what?” she said.
I thought fast. “D’you think we should ask Dovie if she wants to play?”
“I thought you didn’t like Dovie.”
“Well,” I said as I hopped, “I never said I didn’t like Dovie. . . .”
“Yes, you did, Callie. You said so last week. You said exactly those words.”
“It’s Christian that we invite her, don’t you think?”
Lula looked at me curiously. “If you want to.”
I didn’t want to—I couldn’t stand Dovie—but I walked over to her. I was about to ask her to join us when Miss Harbottle rang the bell. Dovie gave me a funny look. I seemed to be getting lots of funny looks. I didn’t deserve a one of them.
We trooped back inside, girls in one queue, boys in the other. I began to dread the walk home after school and tried to think up an excuse to walk by myself. Miss Harbottle homed in on my distracted state and called on me an inordinate number of times with questions on Texas history, which I could not answer, much to the class’s amusement.
“Calpurnia Tate, are we interrupting you?” she said.
“Interrupting me, ma’am? I’m not doing anything.”
“Exactly. Where is your mind today?”
“I must have left it at home, Miss Harbottle,” I said. The class tittered.
“Precisely,” she said. “And don’t you get pert with me, Calpurnia. Go to the corner. One hour. Any more comments and it’ll be the switch for you.”
I stood in the Corner of Shame with my face to the wall for a full hour and contemplated my brothers’ situation but came up with no answers. Then came lunch.
We took our pails outside and scattered under the trees. Lamar and Sam Houston sat with their respective friends. I felt sorry for Travis, the youngest and most tender of the bunch, who ate alone and cast piteous, moony looks at Lula.
Lula noticed him and said, “What’s wrong with Travis? Is he ill?”
“I think he has spring fever,” I said.
“But it’s not spring,” she said and gave me another funny look. “Shouldn’t we ask him to eat with us? He looks lonely.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Lula.”
“Why not? You sure are being odd, Callie Vee.”
Me? Odd? I thought, If you only knew the half of it. “Don’t worry, Lula, he’s fine. I think you should leave him alone.”
But it was too late. She walked up to Travis, whose eyes got bigger and whose face got redder and redder as she came toward him. Lamar and Sam Houston, on the other hand, turned all pinched and squinty.
She bent down and spoke to him. I couldn’t hear her words, but he leaped to his feet and followed her back to our spot. Lamar and Sam Houston looked like they were about to go into spasms. Travis sat down, and I thought he might pop with happiness.
“Hi, Callie. Lula asked me to sit with you.”
“I know, Travis.”
“This is a good place to eat lunch, don’t you think? You picked a real good place. Lula, do you want half of my sandwich? Viola made us roast beef today, and it’s real good. I’ll share it with you, if you like. And I have pie. Lula, do you want to share my pie? Or I can give you the whole piece, if you want. It’s peach, I think. Wait, let me look. Yep, it’s peach all right.”