Orchard of Hope Read Online Free

couldn’t ride without holding on. She took a deep breath and put one hand gingerly on each side of his waist. His muscles felt hard under his sweaty T-shirt.
    Noah gave her a look over his shoulder and said, “Hold on and pray.”
    Jocie was already praying. She just wasn’t sure exactly what she should be praying for the most. That she wouldn’t fall off? Surely this couldn’t be that much different than riding on the back of a motorcycle, and she’d done that plenty of times with Wes. But with Wes, she just wrapped her arms around his waist without a second’s thought. She couldn’t very well hug this boy like that.
    Or maybe she should be praying that she wouldn’t make Noah laugh at her again. She didn’t know why she cared if he did or not. After all, she really didn’t know him. She didn’t know where he lived. She didn’t know why he was in Hollyhill. She didn’t know why he went from being mad to laughing his head off in a second’s time. And she didn’t know which she was going to make him do next or how.
    One thing for sure, she wasn’t going to find out any of the answers without asking. Now seemed to be as good a time as any.
    “You move in somewhere around here?”
    “You don’t think I biked down from Chicago, do you?”
    “I haven’t heard about anybody moving into the neighborhood.”
    “And you’d have heard if I moved into your neighborhood. That’s for sure.”
    “Okay, so you don’t live in Chicago or my neighborhood. Where do you live? Or did you just fall out of a spaceship?” She knew he wouldn’t know what she was talking about, but she didn’t care. That was what Wes was always telling Jocie. That he fell out of a spaceship and landed in Hollyhill.
    “My misguided parents moved down here to plant an orchard out on Hoopole Road. I bet you don’t even know where that is. It’s so far out in the sticks that nobody could know where that is.”
    “But I do. My father’s the preacher at Mt. Pleasant Church just over the hill from Hoopole Road,” Jocie said.
    “A preacher’s kid. You have my sympathy.”
    “I don’t need it. I like being a preacher’s kid,” Jocie said.
    “All the time?” He glanced back over his shoulder at her.
    “Well, my father’s the newspaper editor too, so I can be the editor’s kid part of the time.”
    “I’ll bet nobody ever forgets you’re a preacher’s kid, though.”
    “I don’t want them to,” Jocie said. Just a few weeks ago she’d been more worried about people not believing she was the preacher’s kid. “Are you a preacher’s kid too?”
    “My father a preacher? No way.” Noah was laughing again. The bike wobbled a little before he paid attention to keeping his wheels straight. “He doesn’t have much use for preachers.”
    “Why not?”
    “Beats me,” Noah said. “Now my mother, that’s a different matter altogether. She might have been a preacher if the job was open to women. Instead she just preaches at me and anybody else who will stand still five minutes.”
    “What’s she preach about?”
    “Anything and everything, according to her mood. But mostly freedom. She’s what some might call an activist. Went to the March on Washington with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. last summer.”
    “Oh yeah. My dad had me read Rev. King’s speech because he thought it was so good. He kept saying he wished he could hear him preach in person sometime.”
    “Yeah, that part about having a dream really grabbed people. My mother came home all charged up, but my daddy said that’s all it is—a dream. A dream that won’t ever come true, but my mama says it will if we make it happen.” Noah looked over his shoulder at Jocie. “I don’t know how you people here in the big town of Hollyhill feel about blacks in general, but one thing for sure, you’re going to know it when my mama comes to town. Your little town will never be the same once Myra Cassidy Hearndon gets hold of it.”
    Jocie didn’t say so out