Page 37 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. III #10

have been an ancient prince sent to us because of our goodness and my natural beauty.
Chase laughed then got serious and asked if it was true. I felt a little guilty when I told him it was, but the guilt washed away when I saw his face light up. He leaned in to me and broke off half of his cookie and told me that was the best news he’d heard all day.
“What other news have you heard today?” I made my best attempt at mockery.
“Subtraction.” He told me then that the gym teach- er saw my tall head among the short first graders and called out from his seat two tables over for me to get back to the 6th grade section. I stood up, leaned over and kissed Chase’s head so Mr. Hadley knew I was talking to my brother not “selling crack to the babies,” like he always accused us of doing. I didn’t look at him when I walked by, but smiled tightly, hoping my face resembled the face Mom always gave Dad.
I tuned out my math teacher and wrote the elabo- rate story I’d concocted on the margin of the work- sheet we were supposed to take home for home- work that night. I did the same with my next three classes, successfully avoiding any English, Science, or Social Studies, and had a full-fledged legend worked out by the time the bell rang at the end of the day.
I waited for Chase in the hallway between 1st grade and 2nd grade and lied again when I told him I’d gone to the library to check the book of the frog legend out. “Did you bring it with you?” He said, so excited that he ran into a kindergartner and knocked her down. I picked her up and he said he was sorry, but only so he could get back to ques- tioning me about the frog princes.
“No,” I said, taking him by his backpack and forcing him to walk in front of me so he’d stop bumbling into people. “I couldn’t. They said it’s a resource book and you can’t check it out.”
“Oh.” We both looked for Dad’s old pickup when we passed through the double doors, moved along
by the steady flow of children breaking free into the sunlight and fresh air.
“But I wrote it all down and I’ll tell it to you after homework.”
He turned his head over his shoulder and smiled at me. We spotted Dad at almost the same moment, and we ran to the truck both hoping to get the middle seat so we could sit beside him. Dad leaned over and opened the passenger door, and Chase climbed inside first, throwing his backpack at me to put in the back.
After snacks and a week’s worth of catching up, Chase and I scattered to do our homework. “Do it right,” Dad reminded me as I walked through the garage door to my usual spot on the tailgate of his truck.
“Yes sir,” I said and hoped he didn’t know I meant to read Jane Eyre instead of doing math. By the time poor Jane was out of her hellish childhood,
I heard Chase’s footsteps come up behind me and climb over the side. He sat down and waited for me to finish the chapter I was on.
“Almost done?” He asked when a few minutes had passed and I hadn’t put the book down. I held up a finger, turned the page and dog-eared it.
“Now I am.” I turned around to face him, knowing why he was there.
“So it’s true?” He asked leaning forward, bony elbows resting on bony knees.
“It’s true.”
“Good,” Chase said leaning back .“Because I called Mom and told her.”
My heart beat fast while I wondered what she’d said to him. He looked relieved, not upset so I assumed she went along with it and confirmed my thoughts when Chase said that Mom told him
30