Chasing Lilacs Read Online Free Page B

grade.”
    “I could cut my hair, frizz it up, and wear nothing but my birthday suit to school, and I still wouldn’t be popular.” The
     image of me streaking in the nude made me shudder.
Gross.
    “You’re too serious, Miss Nose-in-a-book.”
    “I prefer to think of myself as creative and introspective.” I threw out the last word from our sixth-grade vocabulary list
     and liked the way it rolled off my tongue.
    “Boring, you mean. Just like this dumb paper. What we need around here is some excitement.”
    “As in…”
    Tuwana spent the next thirty minutes talking about boys and her mother’s idea that she should try out for cheerleader in junior
     high since all the cheerleaders were popular. And just for the record, I didn’t mind a bit. The sun soaked into my skin, and
     while Tuwana twittered, I thought about what Goldie said about no two people on this earth being alike.
    As far as me and Tuwana, she got that right. I was a plain vanilla wafer, and Tuwana was like a squirt of whipped cream.
    After Tuwana finished typing, I gathered up the stencil and my notebook and took the long way home—down the blacktop road
     that split Graham Camp in half. Once I’d counted every one of the houses. Seventy-two divided up into nine rows. All the exact
     same box shape with cement porches and a ribbon of sidewalk rolling out to the street. Belinda and Melinda Zyskowski skipped
     rope as I passed by.
“Cinderella, dressed in yellow.”
Poppy Brady, Fritz’s new wife, sprayed the garden hose on the hollyhocks in her front yard, and Doobie Thornton whizzed by
     on his Vespa. He waved and beeped the horn.
    Graham Camp. Not even a dot on the Texas map. Besides the houses, we had a playground on one end next to the community hall.
     Across the main entrance, we had Bailey’s store and the Hilltop Church. The only thing missing was a school, so we rode the
     bus twelve miles to Mandeville, which did get its own little dot on the map.
    At home I turned on the television, but the reception was off. Wavy lines swam across the screen, so I got up to adjust the
     rabbit ears, then sat back on the couch and picked at the scab on my arm from where I’d scratched it on the rosebush. At first
     I didn’t think about much of anything, but that jingle with the Toni twins came on. Why would Tuwana think I’d want her mother
     to give me a Toni perm? You didn’t just pick any old mom to give you thelatest hairdo. Mama should be the one helping me decide about my hair and whether I wanted to be a cheerleader. No, definitely
     not cheerleading, but I would like it if Mama would cut my bangs or buy me a ribbon for my hair once in a while. That’s what
     mothers do. They don’t swallow pills and get shock treatments.
    With my fingernail, I scraped at another piece of the scab on my arm. A drop of blood popped up, so I spit on my finger and
     smeared it away. Another drop came, and I watched it ooze toward my hand. My eyes got that hot feeling before tears come.
     A tear splatted on my arm, mixing with the blood. What would it be like to have a mother like Alice Johnson? Not exactly like
     her, but one who cared about my hair and baked cookies for no reason? When my nose started dripping, I got up to get a Kleenex.
    The door to Mama and Daddy’s room stood half open. I thought of finding Mama that day, her body curled into a parenthesis
     under the quilt. Her red hair tangled around her pale face, dotty with freckles. The prickly feeling I got when I couldn’t
     wake her. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open.
    Emptiness filled the room. Mama’s quilt, folded at the end of the bed, drew me toward it. The blue and green and pastel patches
     sewn together were the Dresden Plate pattern, Mama once told me. I took the quilt in my hands and sat cross-legged on the
     bed, outlining the stitches with my fingertips. I slipped the quilt around my shoulders. It felt cold, like the underside
     of a pillow you turn over on a hot summer