Francie Read Online Free

book-club meeting. I wanted to be like a fly on the wall and watch Holly put on her usual airs. I wanted to hear Mrs. Grace brag on her.
    As I walked along, I daydreamed, my thoughts finally returning to Mama. She wouldn’t be back from the Montgomerys’ until just after dark. If I beat her home, I could say I was sick and couldn’t get the dinner and chores done because of that.
    Naw, I decided. That wouldn’t work. I didn’t have a fever and Mama could always tell when I was lying, anyway.
    Two little white girls came toward me, holding hands. I stepped sideways to get off the walk. That’s when I saw
Mama coming out of Penny’s Grocers walking behind Mrs. Montgomery, loaded down with two brown sacks. It was too late for me to get out of sight. Mama looked me dead in the face with no expression at all.
    I dragged myself over to her with slumped shoulders.
    â€œExcuse me, Mrs. Montgomery,” she said. She looked down at me. “Where’s Prez?”
    â€œHe’s at home.”
    â€œWhy ain’t you home?”
    Before I could answer, she said, “Come on.”
    We sat in silence in the back seat of Mrs. Montgomery’s big black sedan. When we pulled into the driveway, Mama gathered the packages and got out without a word. I knew to follow her into the house.
    â€œSit down,” Mama said. She began to move briskly around the kitchen, putting away the contents of the sacks. When she was finished, she called to Mrs. Montgomery that she was going, got her hat off the hook by the back door, and put it on.
    â€œLet’s go,” she said.
    It would be a long, quiet walk, because Mama didn’t reprimand in public. You acted up in town and she just dug a thumb in your forearm and whispered a promise of a whipping in your ear. Mama could wait hours before she acted, and the whole time you lived with an awful dread.
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    Prez looked from Mama to me. “Where you been, Francie?” he asked me—to gain Mama’s favor, anyone could see.

    I ignored the question.
    â€œFrancie went to town,” Mama said. “Now the chores ain’t done and we don’t have no supper.”
    â€œI was afraid,” I said quickly.
    â€œAfraid of what?” Mama looked at me full of suspicion. Neither one of us had sat down.
    â€œAugustine Butler was mad cause I didn’t give her an answer on our math test.” I pulled the note out my pocket, glad that I had saved it. “She passed me this.”
    â€œWhat’s it say?” Mama asked. She didn’t read.
    â€œâ€˜You’re going to get it.’”
    â€œCome on over here, Prez, and read that note. Tell me if that’s what it says.”
    Prez squinted at the note and nodded his head. “That’s what it says, Mama.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t write it yourself, Francie?”
    â€œNo, ma’am.”
    â€œFrancie didn’t write that note, Mama. ‘Going’ ain’t even spelled right. It’s spelled g-o-n.”
    Mama thought about this. She was quiet. Then: “You’re not to go into town no more. You gonna have to figure out how to handle that ol’ bully, but I want your behind to come straight home—with Prez—after school. Straight home. ”
    There was nothing to say to that. It gave me no answer to my problem, but I could tell by the tired way Mama took off her town hat and went to the basin to wash up that I wasn’t going to be punished.
    I woke up the next morning with my head filled with
schemes of how to avoid Augustine. I’d start out early and cut through the woods. If she saw me already at school helping Miss Lattimore, she’d just think the teacher asked me to come early.
    Prez was trying to spoil my plan by not hurrying, determined to be hard to wake and slow about eating his oatmeal.
    â€œCome on!” I said, pushing his book bag at him.
    â€œI am,” he said, squeezing his foot into his shoe.