looking ahead.
“If it works out, maybe he can attend school in town. We’ll have to see. Would that be all right with you, Odie?”
“Heck, yes.” I felt like dancing, like wrapping my arms around Mrs. Frost and just dancing. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been so happy.
“So what do you all say?” she asked.
“I say yippee!” I threw my arms up in celebration.
Albert responded more soberly: “I think that would work.”
Mose grinned ear to ear and signed, Lucky us.
Mrs. Frost cautioned us to say nothing to anyone. She had to put some things together, and until all the arrangements were in place, we should just sit tight and—she eyed me particularly—“Don’t get into any trouble.”
After she’d left, Albert turned to me. “Don’t get your hopes up, Odie. Remember, she’s dealing with the Black Witch.”
Back in the dormitory, we changed out of our Sunday clothes. Albert and Mose and I kept looking at one another, and it was clear we could hardly believe our good luck. I wanted to shout hallelujah, but I kept it bottled up. Volz came in and spoke quietly to Albert and the two of them left together. Then Mr. Freiberg came in and took Mose and a couple of the other boys to clean up the baseball field and get it ready for the next game.
I had some time before lunch, and I lay on my bunk and stared up and imagined what it might be like living with Cora Frost and Emmy.
I barely remembered my mother. She’d died when I was six. Albert told me it was from something inside her that had just eaten her away. I had this final impression of her lying in bed, looking up at me out of a face like a dried and shriveled apple, and I hated that picture of her. I always wished I had a real photograph so that I could hold on to a different image, but when we’d come to Lincoln School, they’d confiscated everything, including a photo that Albert had kept of us all together, him and me and my mother and my father, taken when I was quite small and we lived in Missouri. So, in a way, Mrs. Frost had become the idea of a mother to me, and now it looked as if it might be that way for real. Not that she would adopt me or Albert or anything. But who knew?
My reverie was interrupted by Mr. Greene, who suddenly loomed over me and asked, “You seen Red Sleeve?”
----
KIDS RAN AWAY from Lincoln School all the time. If they were off a reservation, they usually headed back that way, so it wasn’t hard for the authorities to locate them trying to hitch a ride. Very few made it to the rez before getting caught. If they did reach home, they just got sent back anyway. The hardest to locate were the kids who had nowhere to go, nothing to return to. There were a lot of those. When they ran, God alone knew what was in their heads.
Mr. Greene questioned all the boys, but none had seen Billy take a powder. Just out of curiosity, I checked the trunk at the end of his bed. That little corncob doll was gone.
On Sunday afternoons, one of the most ironic gatherings at Lincoln School took place, our weekly Boy Scout meeting. Our scoutmaster was a man named Seifert, a banker in town. He was round and bald, with a bulldog face and a perpetual sheen of sweat on his pate, but he was a decent guy. He did his best to teach us all kinds of things that might be useful if we ever found ourselves lost and alone in the forest. Which was funny because there weren’t any woods around Lincoln. We met in the gymnasium, where we got demonstrations on how to hone an ax or knife blade to a razor edge, how to identify plants and trees and birds and animal tracks. Outside on the old parade ground, we were shown how to pitch a tent, how to lash together branches into a lean-to for shelter, how to construct a fire and how to start it with flint and steel. In summer, when fewer activities were scheduled because of the reduced student population, all the boys were required to attend. If the situation hadn’t been so tragic, I’d have found it
“If it works out, maybe he can attend school in town. We’ll have to see. Would that be all right with you, Odie?”
“Heck, yes.” I felt like dancing, like wrapping my arms around Mrs. Frost and just dancing. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been so happy.
“So what do you all say?” she asked.
“I say yippee!” I threw my arms up in celebration.
Albert responded more soberly: “I think that would work.”
Mose grinned ear to ear and signed, Lucky us.
Mrs. Frost cautioned us to say nothing to anyone. She had to put some things together, and until all the arrangements were in place, we should just sit tight and—she eyed me particularly—“Don’t get into any trouble.”
After she’d left, Albert turned to me. “Don’t get your hopes up, Odie. Remember, she’s dealing with the Black Witch.”
Back in the dormitory, we changed out of our Sunday clothes. Albert and Mose and I kept looking at one another, and it was clear we could hardly believe our good luck. I wanted to shout hallelujah, but I kept it bottled up. Volz came in and spoke quietly to Albert and the two of them left together. Then Mr. Freiberg came in and took Mose and a couple of the other boys to clean up the baseball field and get it ready for the next game.
I had some time before lunch, and I lay on my bunk and stared up and imagined what it might be like living with Cora Frost and Emmy.
I barely remembered my mother. She’d died when I was six. Albert told me it was from something inside her that had just eaten her away. I had this final impression of her lying in bed, looking up at me out of a face like a dried and shriveled apple, and I hated that picture of her. I always wished I had a real photograph so that I could hold on to a different image, but when we’d come to Lincoln School, they’d confiscated everything, including a photo that Albert had kept of us all together, him and me and my mother and my father, taken when I was quite small and we lived in Missouri. So, in a way, Mrs. Frost had become the idea of a mother to me, and now it looked as if it might be that way for real. Not that she would adopt me or Albert or anything. But who knew?
My reverie was interrupted by Mr. Greene, who suddenly loomed over me and asked, “You seen Red Sleeve?”
----
KIDS RAN AWAY from Lincoln School all the time. If they were off a reservation, they usually headed back that way, so it wasn’t hard for the authorities to locate them trying to hitch a ride. Very few made it to the rez before getting caught. If they did reach home, they just got sent back anyway. The hardest to locate were the kids who had nowhere to go, nothing to return to. There were a lot of those. When they ran, God alone knew what was in their heads.
Mr. Greene questioned all the boys, but none had seen Billy take a powder. Just out of curiosity, I checked the trunk at the end of his bed. That little corncob doll was gone.
On Sunday afternoons, one of the most ironic gatherings at Lincoln School took place, our weekly Boy Scout meeting. Our scoutmaster was a man named Seifert, a banker in town. He was round and bald, with a bulldog face and a perpetual sheen of sweat on his pate, but he was a decent guy. He did his best to teach us all kinds of things that might be useful if we ever found ourselves lost and alone in the forest. Which was funny because there weren’t any woods around Lincoln. We met in the gymnasium, where we got demonstrations on how to hone an ax or knife blade to a razor edge, how to identify plants and trees and birds and animal tracks. Outside on the old parade ground, we were shown how to pitch a tent, how to lash together branches into a lean-to for shelter, how to construct a fire and how to start it with flint and steel. In summer, when fewer activities were scheduled because of the reduced student population, all the boys were required to attend. If the situation hadn’t been so tragic, I’d have found it
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