Tending to Grace by Kimberly Newton Fusco Page A

something terrible each time the steeple sways with the wind. I keep looking below me because the creaking sounds as if someone is following.
    The steeple rises another story. Bo scurries up through another hole. My legs ache from the climb and my fingers ache from wrapping so tightly around the rungs. Cars whiz past far below. “If you pull that rope, we go deaf,” Bo yells down to me.
    When I finally pull myself through another hole, I am flooded by light. A bell the size of our kitchen table hangs silent and still above me. Large windows covered with screens light the space. Bo sits on a wide beam below the bell, her feet hanging down into the emptiness.
    â€œIsn’t this the greatest place you’ve ever been?”
    I climb up next to her, grabbing on to a beam above me. My legs hang down and my socks catch the sun. The tower sways, and I grab tighter.
    â€œI watched a guy come fix the bell one day. I watched him climb up. Now I come a lot.” She laughs. “What’s your name, anyway?” she asks. “You never told me.”
    I pretend I don’t hear. I look out the screen closest to me. A newspaper truck dashes past.
    â€œDo you have a name? Of course you do. Everyone has a name. Even the bell has a name. I call him Big Ben. What’s yours?”
    â€œUh-uh-uh.” I tap my finger on my leg, trying to concentrate on my taps instead of what I’m going to say. “C-c-c-c-c-cornelia.”
    â€œNice name.” Bo looks straight at me. “How come you talk funny sometimes?”
    I shrug. Sweat begins to form on the back of my neck.
    â€œI mean, it doesn’t sound bad or nothing, just different. Slower or something. I don’t mind, though.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo. Everyone’s got something. My pa’s got a rotten temper. Me, I can’t read too good.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just don’t get it. The letters get all mixed up. There’s a summer class at the school, but it costs twenty-five dollars and my pa says he’s not paying nothing extra to the school.”
    A group of boys walk past us down below. One bounces a ball. We see them, small as beetles.
    â€œHow long is the Crow Lady gonna watch you?”
    I shrug. “Until my m-m-m-mother comes back. Why do they call her the C-crow Lady?”
    â€œMy ma told me that people say that when she was a little girl, they all got so hungry in that house they ate crows. People get wind of something like that, they never let it go, I guess.”
    I shrug and tell her Agatha really is kind of a crazy lady and the kids in town probably should hold their breath when they walk past her house. “Why do they do that, anyway?”
    â€œIt’s silly. It’s like not stepping on a crack, something like that. It’s really dumb ’cause she’s nice to me. And to my ma and the rest of us.”
    â€œI’ve n-n-n-never seen her do anything but w-w-work in the garden. Or chop trees. What’s she d-doing with those trees, anyway?”
    â€œI promised I wouldn’t tell.”
    Bo giggles. A tractor-trailer downshifts on the road below. The steeple creaks, a long thin backbone rising to the sky. The bell sways silently above me.
    I breathe deeply, look up at the bell. I consider for the first time that maybe my speech might not be so terrible, that my throat may not be so wounded after all, and that I may not be alone.

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    Another postcard waits for me on the table. This one has a picture of a desert sun beating down on a house trailer:

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    â€œI guess I be needin’ some glasses right away,” Agatha says, looking up at me from her place at the table. “Who’s this one from?”
    I open the envelope for her. “S-s-s-senior Citizen Center. They want you to b-b-buy a cookbook.”
    â€œDon’t they know I hate cookin’?”
    I smile and let her fix me a cup of sassafras. I’m starting to