Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning by Danette Haworth Page A

talking about? From me? My lips press together.
    Lottie starts to write again. Melissa takes the paper from her, scribbles, then hands it back. Lottie cups it with her hands and reads it between her fingers. My Lord, what could be so important? I’m tired of this mysterious note. I try to snatch it. Lottie whips the note away from me, and then her mom stretches across Tootsie and Melissa and grips her arm. In a low voice, she says to Lottie, “Stop, or I’ll pass my own note across your bottom.”
    Tears fill Lottie’s eyes and pink creeps up her neck and into her face. She slides the note into her Bible and doesn’t look at anyone for the rest of the service.
    Neither do I, ’cause I’m thinking about how to get ahold of that note, but service lets out before I can develop a plan. If I changed my name today, it would be Suspicious Violet or Mad Violet. Well, maybe not Mad Violet, because sometimes “mad” means crazy, so I’d have to think twice about that. But I only have to think once about Lottie’s new name: Benedict Arnold.

14
    Yesterday, I was boiling hot mad in church when Melissa and Lottie were passing notes back and forth and Lottie wouldn’t even tell me what they were talking about. When church was over, I grabbed Momma off that platform and said, “Come on, let’s go.” I barely even looked at Lottie when we left.
    But later, after Momma and I had gotten a good ways down the road, the Townsends’ truck roared by. Mr. Townsend honked the horn and the girls leaned out and shouted, “Violet! Violet!” Lottie hung out the window and waved. “See you in a few!”
    Well, my heart swelled up and I waved back and watched their truck tear down their driveway, spinning out a cloud of dust.
    â€œGoing to the fish fry?” Momma asked.
    â€œYep.” ’Course I was. I couldn’t be mad anymore, not after the whole Townsend family practically fell out of the truck to make sure I was coming.
    â€œI think I may take a nap, then,” Momma said, as if this wasn’t the same conversation we had every Sunday.
    After she lay down, I got myself ready and ran over to Lottie’s.
    â€œWhere’s Melissa?” I asked Lottie soon as I walked through her back door. Figured I better prepare myself.
    Lottie raised her eyebrows and handed me a paring knife for the lemons. “I think Melissa’s done with fish fries.”
    â€œThat’s too bad,” I said. I didn’t mean it, of course, but it seemed like the right thing to say. I made a clean slice through a lemon and it squirted me on the cheek.
    â€œYep,” Lottie said. “Just you and me.”
    I couldn’t help but smile even though I’d just stuck a lemon in my mouth.
    So things are right back to normal today. Lottie and I are in her kitchen making crusts for apple pies. I’m pressing out a perfect pastry circle. This is a chore I like, pushing the rolling pin like a steamroller across the dough. I stretch the dough till it’s almost breaking. Then I poke two holes in the top half for eyes and a bunch of holes, snowman-style, for a smile.
    â€œLook,” I say.
    Lottie stops rolling for a second, looks up, and laughs. Setting aside her rolling pin, she pokes some holes in her dough. “Look at mine!”
    Her face is even better—she made X s for the eyes and a line for the lips, so her dough face is either asleep or drunk. We giggle and ball up our dough to roll it out again.
    When I look up, I notice Lottie’s got her bathing suit on under her shirt. Yesterday, too. Well, it is hot in here. They don’t have air-conditioning either, and the fans are just blowing the hot air around.
    â€œWe going swimming later?”
    Lottie tilts her head. “What?”
    â€œWe going swimming?” I point to her neck where her bikini top is tied. “You got your suit on.”
    Lottie licks her lips. “Oh, that.