A Place at the Table Read Online Free Page A

wheels squeaking and screaming on the wire. When I’m just about to smack into the other tree either I touch the ground with my legs, sort of bumping to a stop, or my brother Troy—he’s the oldest—will grab me, stopping the flight.
    But what Mama used to do to make Hunter calm down was attach him to the zip line using a bungee rope and two carabiners, which are these big clips, one that would hook on to the handle and one that would hook on to the belt loop on the back of Hunter’s pants. Course, he could have reached back and unclipped the carabiner, but he knew if he did he’d be in real trouble when Daddy got home. So Hunter would go along with whatever Mama told him to do. Usually she’d make him sprint up and down the length of that wire for half an hour or so. Mama said that way he could get out some of his energy without getting into any real mischief.
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    Hunter is also an RA, but he doesn’t take it seriously. He’s only in it for the M&M’s. The other day he got in trouble for not listening during Mr. Morgan’s talk about the Wayne and Evelyn Marshall Truth Tellers Foundation, which is the missionary group we help sponsor. The third time Mr. Morgan caught Hunter goofing off he made Hunter pull his chair right next to his. Then he kept on telling us about our missionaries. He said that Mr. and Mrs. Marshall are originally from Kansas, but they moved all the way to Calcuttato help run an orphanage for children living on the streets. “And sure,” said Mr. Morgan, “the orphanage provides food and shelter, and that is wonderful, but more importantly, it introduces the poor orphaned children to Jesus. Can you imagine,” Mr. Morgan asked, “growing up without parents or Jesus? And I’m not just talking about children in India,” he said. “There are poor, godless orphans living right here in Decatur, Georgia, too.”
    Then Mr. Morgan showed us the picture of the special boy we are sponsoring, a boy who lives at the Marshalls’ orphanage in Calcutta. He’s my age—nine years old—and his name is Amit Patel. He is dark brown and real skinny, even skinnier than me. The funny thing is, when I looked at his picture, even knowing he doesn’t have a mama and daddy, I didn’t feel sorry for him. That’s cause he’s got a smile like he’s holding onto a wonderful secret. It’s a smile that makes me want to meet him, that makes me think he and I could be good friends.
    I want a good friend, a best friend. There are boys in the neighborhood I play with sometimes, but Hunter’s always with us and that makes it not as fun. Hunter says I act like a sissy and then he starts pretending to talk with a lisp, and it’s not fair cause that’s not how I talk! It’s just that sometimes when I get really excited the words get jumbled up in my mouth and they don’t come out good. It’s cause I’ve got too much to say and I don’t slow down enough to say it clearly. Least that’s what Mama says, and she should know; she majored in child development at the University of Georgia, where she also earned her MRS. (That’s a joke Daddy likes to tell, and whenever he does Mama will sort of slap him on the arm and tell him to hush, she was a very good student.)
    There is a picture book Mama used to read to me called Little Black Sambo. It’s about a boy who lived in the jungles of India. Even though I’m in the advanced reading group at school—Miss Lisa says I read at the eighth-grade level—I still like to flip through the pagesof that old book. I wonder if Amit Patel is smart like Little Black Sambo. Little Black Sambo is so smart he tricked four tigers out of eating him. What happened was, Sambo was taking a walk through the jungle and he ran into four hungry tigers who thought Sambo would make a good breakfast. But instead of letting them eat him, Sambo tricks the tigers into chasing their own tails round and round a tree until they run so fast they turn into butter, which Sambo then eats,