Francie Read Online Free Page B

Pruitt.”
    â€œPruitt. I ain’t heard that name before. Where’s your people?”
    â€œWe stay up by New Carlton,” he mumbled.
    â€œHow old are you, Jesse Pruitt?”
    He didn’t answer right away. She waited, tilting her head to the side, like she was expecting him to lie. He said nothing. Augustine and Mae Helen snickered behind their hands. “Well, Jesse Pruitt, can you hear? I asked you a question.”
    â€œSixteen,” he said quietly. So quietly that I didn’t know if I heard him right. Yes, there was something older about him and there was something serious, something weighing on him.
    â€œCome again?” Miss Lattimore said. Jesse would be in an age group all by himself.
    â€œI’m sixteen,” he repeated, his voice loud now as if he had a point to prove. I felt sorry for him standing there like he had no kin, no friends, not a soul in his corner.
    â€œYou’re a big boy. Take that seat in the back. I don’t want you to be blocking the view from the little ones. Pass out the readers, Francie.”
    I got up to do as I was told. Augustine took hers out
of my hand with a little snatch. I placed one on Jesse Pruitt’s desk and gave him a smile to encourage him. He looked at the book’s cover, leaving it as I had put it. Upside down. I knew at that moment he was like Mama. He couldn’t read.
    Miss Lattimore got the lower grades practicing their printing, the middle grades their cursive, then she had us turn to Hiawatha in our books. Reading aloud was the most boring thing I had to endure every morning, because Mae Helen, Augustine, and several others who’d never learned to read too good would take ten years to drag through one sentence. The teacher had to tell them every other word. Then the next morning they would repeat the very same mistakes. Some of them were thick as posts. My turn would be over before I knew it, after waiting all morning for the teacher to get to me.
    This time was different, because Miss Lattimore was making her way down the row to Jesse Pruitt. He came after Serena’s brother J. Dean, who took minutes and minutes to limp through five lines. Then: “Okay, Jesse Pruitt, let’s see what you can do. Take it from there.”
    I looked back. His book was still closed and upside down. He touched it but did not open it. “I ain’t learned to read,” he said, loud enough for there to be no doubt about what was said. Everyone whipped around then. Even the poor readers, probably glad that there was finally someone worse off than them.
    â€œYou don’t read …” Miss Lattimore adjusted her
glasses, trying to figure out what to do with this big person who never learned to read. “You can’t read at all?”
    â€œI never went to school regular.”
    â€œI see. Well, you comin’ here after school’s been in session for months. I don’t have time to coddle you. Francie’s a good reader. Maybe she can help you. Maybe she can’t.” She looked over at me. “Francie?”
    â€œYes, ma’am, I’ll help him.” I looked back at Jesse and smiled, but he was sitting there staring at his hands.
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    â€œNow, you know your alphabet?”
    â€œMy ABCs?”
    â€œYea—your ABCs.” Jesse Pruitt and I had stayed behind after everyone had been sent home. Miss Lattimore was grading quizzes at her desk, not seeming to pay any mind to us.
    â€œMy mama taught me.”
    â€œYou know the sounds of the letters?”
    â€œNo—I don’t think so.”
    I looked at him. It was going to be a long, hard row to hoe, I decided.
    By the time I’d taken him through the sounds of the consonants so that he could remember them, I’d changed my mind. Jesse Pruitt wasn’t no dummy, and I was going to teach him to read. The idea gave me butterflies in my stomach.
    I looked out the window. The school yard was nearly empty now, and