Free as a Bird Read Online Free Page B

balding war horses — wouldn’t even make good dog food.” Yup, that’s what she’d say.
    One mornin the uniforms was tryin to wash Jimmy T down in the tub room after he smeared hisself with custard he’d stole from the food cart. But somethin was different bout him that day. Even I had a hard time watchin him.
    Poor Jimmy T — he’d been havin a lotta bad days that week. First he’d cut hisself with some broken mirror — had to get stitches on his face an his arm. Then he chipped his tooth from bangin his head on the wall. Then that mornin we could hear his angry screams all the way down the hall to the day room. Whenever one of us was actin too wild they stood us in the shower an sprayed us with the cold water hose. But that dint usually calm no one down … only made things worse.
    So I guess it weren’t no surprise that we could hear liddle Jimmy T screamin like the devil. But suddenly the screamin stopped and instead there was a loud crack — nope, not zackly a crack — maybe more like a thump. Whatever that sound was, it made me member the time Bernice dropped the watermelon an it split open and the cafeteria floor was covered in red.
    Dint hear no more screamin after that an Jimmy T left Ward 33 on a stretcher. Later I heard Millie tellin some uniforms Jimmy T got put in the special M ward — the one with the kids who couldn’t never get oudda bed. “Poor little monster,” she said. “He’s a real vegetable. Won’t be giving anyone any trouble now.”
    After that day the uniforms stopped callin the other kid Jimmy P an nobody ever talked bout Jimmy T again.
    An I figured out Jimmy T was never really Mister Crow pretendin to be a liddle boy — nope, cause Mister Crow knowed he had to be patient to get what he wanted. He knowed sometimes ya jus hadda lie low an wait for that chance when em other ones wasn’t lookin. Maybe if Jimmy T had been like that he’da got what he wanted one day — an jus like Crow, he could’ve flied away free as a bird.

chapter 3

    One mornin Millie scrubbed me all clean an gave me a priddy pink shirt with liddle flowers to wear. I liked that shirt a awful lot — yup, that’s cause it made me feel like I was a pink flower too. Then she combed my hair an sprayed it with sticky stuff so it stayed put.
    â€œRuby Jean, your hands are a mess,” she said. “You’ve been scratching again, haven’t you? Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.”
    Sometimes I scratched my hands cause I was angry. Sometimes I scratched em on account of I got the jitters. Like the night before when the new uniform dint leave a light on in the hall. But there was lotsa things that made me jittery, like amblances an too many uniforms in my room at one time. But it’s the dark that gets me jittery the most.
    â€œThere now, Ruby Jean,” Millie said. “You don’t look too bad. It’s important that my girls look good when they go out. Right?”
    I dint answer her, but I never did so she dint spect me to.
    Millie took me down to the cafeteria an put a bib over me so I wouldn’t mess my new shirt. Then she plunked down a tray with mushy prunes, porridge I knowed was gunna be cold, an milk I knowed was gunna be warm.
    â€œYou gave them Ruby Jean, eh?” Morris sniggered. “Mighty generous of you.”
    Morris was the uniform I’d bit most — yup, more times than any of the others. Partly cause I dint like him so much — but mostly on account of all the time he tried touchin me when I was liddle. He dint come so close to me no more.
    â€œShould be fun to see what trouble she causes them snotty, save-the-world, life-skills workers,” Morris said.
    â€œWe don’t have it easy, so why should they?” Millie said.
    â€œThat’s right. And it’s our job to make them face facts that this bunch is no smarter than your