Chapter Three/Four

Some species have learned to “fish” using floating bits of material, such as small twigs, to attract minnows. These birds [great blue herons] will deliberately drop their “bait” into the water and may retrieve it for re-use if it floats away.

– Gale Encycopedia of Science. Second Editon. Volume 3

 

                                    Chapter Three

 It’s “journal time”. I’m staring at a blank piece of paper for the longest time. We don’t do nothing’ on the week-ends. So I asked Mrs. Stankoski if I could go to the library and look something up on the blue heron. It helped.

Diary Dear

Pine Lake, Indiana

Late September, 2005

 

Fishing

 My daddy’s like the heron bird

Fishing.

It ain’t like I thought.

He circled back around with his small twigs,

Dropping his bait,

Hoping to catch a minnow.

Me.

 

Mrs. Stankoski teared up reading it. This time she didn’t say nothin’ about my “southern dialect” like I thought she might. She just smiled real pretty like and said, “Emma June, that just beautiful.”

Guess she likes heron birds, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                      Chapter Four

 

I have a new friend, sort of. It all started on the school bus a couple weeks ago . . .

The bus ride was sweltering-hot with noisy kids whooping ’n hollering. Suddenly the bus screeched to a halt, stopping. Everyone stared all saucer-eyed as the door swung wide open in front of a huge mansion-style home overlooking the lake.

“’ Hey, Rhonda whatcha stoppin’ for?” “ Nerdy, know-it-all Josh Kingsolver shouted from the back of the bus.

All eyes gaped at a short, baby-faced girl with braided brown hair and wire-rim glasses step onto the bus carrying of all things – A DOLL ! The girl’s plaid skirt matched her doll’s tiny skirt. Nobody brings a doll to school in sixth grade.

Nobody.

My wide eyes and opened-mouth froze in a “don’t-that-beat-all” expression. I could tell by looking at her that something wasn’t quite right about the girl. Then watching her walk down the aisle of the bus, I muttered under my breath, “She ain’t gonna last long!”

The next thing I knew, the girl plopped herself down in the empty seat right next tome (Rhonda don’t have assigned seats like some of them bus drivers does) .

“Hi! My name’s Gabrielle Gabbert. I’m named after an angel in the Bible. What’s your name?” the girl said all bubbly-friendly.

“Emma,” I whispered, leaving off the June part, hoping not to stir up stuck-up Victoria, in the seat in front of me, who teased me and calls me “June bug”.

“According to the Bible and my grandmother, the angel Gabrielle was always speaking out, and blowing a horn to announce important things like the birth of Jesus. ‘That’s you to a tee,’ my Nanny says. That’s my grandmother,” the girl quoted nervously in a tinkle-giggle, something close to a mouse squeak. “‘You’re always speaking your mind, tooting your horn. Sometimes, gabbing too much.’”

I couldn’t believe my ears or eyes. Another rich snob – a talky, baby-faced, religious one yet – my brain cautioned, ignoring the girl. Then a mile or so down the road, darn if I don’t start me a conversation with “Miss Tinkle Mouse”, remembering how I felt having no friends.

“Now, I’m no Bible expert or churchgoer. But ain’t Gabrielle a boy’s name?” I asked. 

“It’s pronounced with a short a, Gab . . .rielle,” she corrected me. “But the name could be either a boy’s or a girl’s, I guess. Mom and I just moved in temporarily with my grandmother. My father’s away a lot traveling with his job. What’s your father do?”

“I don’t have no father,” I said hoping to shock her and shut her up. This gabby girl done struck a nerve.

It backfired.

“Of course you do. Everybody has a father.”

Now, that teed me off. I was losing patience with the nosey girl. Weren’t none of her business.

“Well, I don’t know my daddy. Okay!” I said in an end-of-conversation tone through gritted teeth.

Guess she could take the hint. ’Cause the rest of the trip she sat quiet, rearranging the clothes on her stupid doll.