In Front of God and Everybody by KD McCrite

hayfield to her little house near the pine forest. Except when the field grass has grown high like it was that day, you can see her place from our kitchen window. Her house looks like a little storybook cottage with a dark red roof and matching shutters. I love it there because it usually smells like cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla and other good things. She used to live with us, but I guess when I was born I took up too much room or something, ’cause right after that, Daddy and Mr. Brett, our hired man who lives up Rough Creek Road about a half mile, built the house for her, and she moved out.
    Grandma says she likes having her own place, and there was no use in her and Lily sharing the same house. She said she wanted to move out while they still loved each other and got along. It worked out real well.
    Other than sitting in the passenger seat of her car while she drives, I like spending time with her. It’s like we’re good friends, even though she’s my grandma. She always listens when I tell her about whatever book I’ve been reading. She’s smart and funny and makes me think of things I never thought of before. For instance, one time when we were walking around in the pine forest beyond her house, she started talking about turpentine.
    She said, “You ever notice how good these pine trees smell?”
    I breathed real deep. “Umm-hmmm.”
    She breathed in deep too. “Yep. I love to smell a pine tree, don’t you? But, now, turpentine—why, it’s enough to turn your stomach.”
    I reckon I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she said, “You know turpentine comes from pine trees, don’t you, April?”
    Well, I hate to admit to being a complete ignoramus, but I told her, “I didn’t know that.”
    She stopped and looked me up and down as if something peculiar were oozing out of my skin.
    â€œDo you mean to tell me with all the reading you do, you don’t know about turpentine? What do you think comes from pine trees? Pine-Sol?”
    â€œDon’t it? All the commercials say—”
    Grandma flapped her skirt-tail as though chasing away flies. “Phooey on that! TV has done ruined your generation. The Cosby Show is about the only thing worth watching other than Murder, She Wrote .”
    Now, don’t let that fool you. Grandma and Myra Sue watch way more TV than I do. They watch the soaps as faithfully as they go to church, and they talk about those soap opera people like they and their troubles are real. You ought to hear them sometime: “I hope Kayla will come home soon!” or “That Emma. She’s plotting against Kim.” Myra Sue even cried when someone died on that show Search for Tomorrow . She saved the Kleenex she wiped her eyes on. She has it in a baggie in her drawer with her underwear. How anyone can be that dumb and still be able to eat with a fork is beyond me.
    Mama doesn’t watch the soaps. She listens to NPR on the radio in the kitchen in the afternoon. She and Daddy do not encourage TV watching, of course, but sometimes they like Masterpiece Theater and NOVA . I’d rather read. But then, I’m a bookworm, so what do you expect?
    That day, when Grandma and I got to her house, she went to freshen up and change her shoes. I plopped down on her sofa. A little glass horse sat on a doily on the coffee table. I looked at it, but I wasn’t impressed with Mr. Rance’s gift.
    Grandma’s cat, Queenie, sat on the dining room table and stared without blinking, like she was trying to cast a spell on me. I’ll tell you right now, if I’d sat on the table, Grandma would have shooed me off there like a nasty fly. I gave Queenie a grim look. Grandma came into the room with a mess of jangling keys in her hand.
    â€œI thought you was going to put on your good shoes,” I said.
    She bent from the waist a little and looked at her feet. “These are my good shoes.”