Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell by Crickett Rumley

home I had practically lived in during that terrible time after my mother’s death. I wondered if the tire swing was still hanging from the giant oak in the backyard. If Mrs. Churchville still maintained a greenhouse for her orchids. Was it still strictly off-limits to kids, something that Luke and I learned the hard way? What about the clubhouse we built together? Was that still there? We must have been about eight the year we pooled our allowance money together to buy plywood out at Lowe’s and slap up a structure that came out as decrepit and treacherous as an ancient fishing shack. We didn’t care, though. It was our second home until the Churchville family dog, Daisy, claimed it and infested the place with fleas so bad that Mrs. Churchville swore she’d make Luke and me take a flea bath if we ever crawled in there again.
    â€œYou looking for Mr. Luke, Miss Jane?” I jumped at the sound of Henry’s voice. He had come outside to trim the azaleas back.
    â€œOh, hi, Henry.” I acted as nonchalant as I could. “Yeah, I haven’t seen the Churchvilles at all since I got back.”
    â€œThat’s ’cause they built themselves a big house out by the new golf club. Moved a coupla years ago.”
    Aha. Luke wasn’t there. He wasn’t residing in the house two doors and three oak trees away from me. I didn’t have to worry about running into him at any old moment. Hearing that, every single cell in my body breathed a sigh of relief. Honestly, until that moment, I didn’t realize just how tense I had been.
    â€œOh, that’s nice. Who lives there now?”
    â€œDr. Paxton and his wife. They got three girls. Little things.” As if to punctuate his statement, the front door of the house formerly known as Luke’s swung open, and three feisty little sisters bounded out to a family-sized SUV shrieking over who got to put in the DVD.
    â€œGood to know,” I said, and took off running. Yes, it was very good to know that Luke Churchville wasn’t living in the middle of my street anymore. I didn’t have to run into him. And as long as I stayed away from the new golf club, the Churchville family church and, oh, just about every social event in this fishbowl of a town, I could keep it that way.

Chapter Five
    â€œNow, Jane, I want you to be sweet.” At breakfast a few days later, Grandmother was giving me advice on how to conduct myself at the very first meeting of the Official Magnolia Maid Court.
    Ugh. Be sweet? Be sweet? Boy, is that straight out of the Southern belle handbook. It also happens to be Grandmother’s catchphrase, something she says to her little dog, Chienette, when she’s baring her teeth on the verge of chomping up the mailman. It’s something that she’s been saying to me since I was a little girl. “Be sweet, Jane, and share your Barbie playhouse.” “Be a sweet girl and eat all your peas.” I’m convinced my first words were “be sweet.”
    Truth is, there’s nothing sweet about me. I hate being sweet. It’s Southern belle code for “Don’t make waves.” “Don’t ruffle feathers.” “Keep your opinion to yourself because it might upset somebody else.” A good Southern girl practices the three D s, according to Grandmother. Decorum. Dignity. Denial. Bite your lip, nod your head. Accept the circumstances, for you cannot change them. Deny that they are even bothering you. Basically, it means let everyone walk all over you, then go complain about them behind their backs.
    Besides, the last time I was “sweet,” all it did was land me in a heap of trouble with Cosmo and get me banished from Bienville.
    â€œDo you hear me, Jane? Promise me you won’t do anything improper.”
    â€œI can’t promise that, Grandmama, you know me.”
    â€œI do know you,” Grandmother continued. “And I know that now that you’re