Glory Girl Read Online Free

eating something! Ice cream!”
    His joyful screams filled the house. He spun around. “Ice cream!” He flung open the door and filled his lungs with cold November air.
    He stood, grinning, as the bus rolled up beside the worn chinaberry tree and came to its usual shuddering stop.
    “They’re home!”
    As Matthew crossed the porch, hopping with excitement, he suddenly paused. He wondered if Joshua would remember the last words he, Matthew, had said. His smile faded slightly. He wrapped one arm around the post. He ran his foot back and forth over the warped floorboards.
    This had happened when his parents had been carrying Joshua to the bus. Matthew had run along beside them. He had been crying, and he really loved his brother for the first time in his life.
    Choking with love and fear and remorse, he had cried, “You can have the bicycle. It’s yours!”
    He wondered if Joshua had heard that. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t remember. Head injuries sometimes caused amnesia. He didn’t want Joshua to have amnesia, of course, but he did hope Joshua hadn’t heard him.
    Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was wrong, but he wasn’t through with the bicycle yet. He liked that bicycle. And, after all, if Joshua hadn’t gotten in the way with his big head, he would have ridden all the way down the hill on it.
    Anna passed him, running toward the bus. She took the steps in one leap. Matthew broke into a grin and followed.

The Phone Call
    Oh, we’re climbing, climbing, climbing
    Every day it’s one step more.
    Higher, higher, higher
    Than we’ve ever been before.
    Looking, looking, looking
    For that heavenly shore
    That will lead us to the
    Kingdom of Love.
    T HE GLORY FAMILY WAS singing in the living room, learning a new song, while Anna fixed supper in the kitchen.
    The worst thing that could happen to a person in this family, Anna decided as she waited for the water to boil, was not being able to carry a tune or beat time.
    Anna lifted the lid on the pot. “Boil!” she told the water. She slammed down the lid.
    There were lots of people who didn’t fit into their families. Anna reminded herself of this all the time—the dumb one in a family of brains, the ugly one in a family of beauties. But no one—Anna was sure of this—felt as left out as she did when her family sang together.
    “Joshua, you’re not in rhythm,” Mr. Glory said. “Pay attention!”
    “I can’t!” Joshua wailed, letting his drumsticks drop to his sides. “My head hurts!”
    Joshua had had forty-two stitches put in his head the day before, three to close each puncture. Now his head was ringed with gauze, and some of the black strings from the stitches stuck out the bottom.
    “Let him go lie down,” Mrs. Glory pleaded from the piano bench.
    “Those stitches cost me sixty-four dollars!”
    “I know that, dear.”
    Mr. Glory had been in one of his “moods,” as Mrs. Glory called them, for two days. Anna knew it was because Uncle Newt was getting out of prison. She had been waiting for his mood to lift so she could bring up the subject.
    “I think you boys try to be bad,” Mr. Glory said.
    “I don’t,” Matthew said.
    “Let me tell you there’s enough evil in this world without you two adding to it. I read the other day that there’s kids in New York City sucking coins out of subway slots. They make a living out of that. And a woman in California is feeding her kids cat food while she eats T-bone steaks. And I—”
    Joshua, recognizing the start of a long monologue, interrupted with, “ I don’t try either.” Tears began to roll down his cheeks.
    Joshua was used to not getting sympathy. Usually when he came in, hurt and crying, Mr. Glory would say, “Well, that’s what you get for chasing a Coca-Cola truck.”
    But yesterday—the sight of himself in the hospital mirror—they had had to bring the mirror to prove to him he had not really been scalped. And as he had looked at himself, his forehead painted yellow, a path