Also Known As Harper Read Online Free

over to her mama’s lawn chair and sat herself down without another word.
    Mama came around front from the back yard. She put her hand up to her mouth when she saw me, as if I was unexpected company.
    â€œOh, Harper,” she said, “I’d hoped to have this whole thing straightened out and have everything back inside before you got home from school.” She looked over her shoulder at the front door. “But everything’s locked up tight as a drum.”
    Her eyes fell on her favorite chair, the white rocker, tilted sideways in the garden dirt, and I wished I could have gotten home first and fixed it all back for her.
    Hemingway cupped his hands wide in front of him. “They got them big old padlocks on, and the windows are shut up tight.”
    Mama turned in a slow circle, her eyes making their way around to each and every pile. “We found it like this about an hour ago,” she said. Her face wasred and blotchy, with the tear tracks like she used to get in the days after Daddy first left.
    Hemingway bent down and pulled a plastic dinosaur out of the top of a box. “We were coming back from cleaning Miss Oakley’s kitchen, and Mama thought we took a wrong turn onto someone else’s street.”
    â€œIt’s got to be a mistake, Mama,” I said. “Look there.” I pointed to a dark blue car coming up toward the house. “Mrs. Early’s probably gotten someone to come take the locks off.”
    I wanted her to feel better, even if it was only for a second. I couldn’t stand seeing her looking like all the hope had been washed out of her.
    I grabbed Hem by the hand and hung back by the porch steps with Mama. I already had a plan going in my mind. The second they unhooked one of those padlocks, I was going to get me a good head start and push right past them. Then I’d refuse to come out until they put it all back right.
    The lady was taking her time getting out of her car. Mainly because the driver’s side looked to be so smashed up, you couldn’t open the door.
    Mama’s eyes got dark and narrow, like when thesupermarket checker tried to give her the wrong change.
    The lady scooted herself over to the other side and came out through the passenger door, but she still didn’t act to be in any hurry. She leaned back in and reached over the front seat, coming out with one of those zippered pouches, which she hooked around her waist.
    Hemingway nodded toward her. “Maybe that’s where she keeps her lock-breaking tools.”
    But she didn’t even walk in our general direction. She circled all the piles of cardboard boxes and scattered furniture, slowly, holding on to the zipper tab on her pouch.
    Mama took a couple of steps forward and shaded her eyes with her hand. “May I help you?” she asked.
    The lady stopped when she got to the pile of couch cushions by the front porch. She leaned over and pulled a toilet brush out of a box next to the bottom step and held it up, looking at Mama through the hole in the center of the brush. “Doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to your collection here,” she said.
    â€œWhat?” Mama tilted her head to the side like she was searching for the right words.
    But that lady had said out loud just exactly what was going on in my own mind. The whole yard was like the clearance bin down at the Piggly Wiggly after people had been weeding through it for a few days. Whoever Mrs. Early had gotten to take all our stuff out of the house had done it as quickly as possible, by just tossing and dragging.
    Hemingway’s mattress and box spring were leaning up against the side of the front porch, and his dresser was over on its side, with the television from the living room sitting on top of it. There was a wide muddy grass stain on the very spot where Hem liked to curl up at night with his arms tucked under him. I couldn’t stop looking at that stain, and I suddenly knew a bit