Hope in the Holler Read online

  Spotted Two lifted his head and sniffed. It only took him a second to see Angel and start barking like a bear had just walked into the yard.

  Angel’s neck pivoted on its axis and swung my way. He stared up the hill to where I stood, frozen. “Spring beauty,” he yelled, then turned and shuffled on down the dirt road.

  I held my breath until he passed the mailboxes and disappeared out of sight. I didn’t know if Angel Davis was dangerous, but he wasn’t completely crazy. Spring beauty had been one of Mama’s favorite flowers, and the common name for the wildflower I’d left on his son’s headstone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I didn’t know how Angel Davis knew the name spring beauty or how he’d figured out that I was the one who’d put the flowers on the headstone. I asked Gilbert at the bus stop the next morning, but he didn’t have a clue either.

  “Are you sure you heard right?”

  I nodded. “It was just two words. Spring. Beauty.”

  Frank and Beans chased each other in circles around us. Gilbert grabbed one of them by the arm. “Frank. You ever talk to Angel Davis?”

  “Not if’n I can help it!” He jerked loose and lunged at Beans.

  Camille jumped out of the way. “Did you ask your grandmother if she knew of any Bowmans?”

  “Yeah,” Gilbert said. “Sorry, Wavie. No luck.”

  “I didn’t figure it’d be that easy,” I said. What was?

  “Can you two meet me in the library during third period?” Camille asked. “Mrs. Winn always eats a snack in her office the second half hour.”

  “That’s Math class,” Gilbert said. “Mrs. Webster is strict about hall passes, but I’ll tell her it’s an emergency.” He hitched up his jeans. “I can only use the poop excuse once or twice a year, so I hope we find something.”

  “Eww,” Camille said. She pretended to throw up.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  Mr. Vic skidded to a stop in the gravel and opened the door. The bus was fuller today. As soon as we got on, a longhaired loudmouth kid named Punk Masters started singing from the back of the bus, “Frank and Beans, good for your heart!”

  Frank yelled, “Don’t call him that!” and raced toward Punk with Beans right behind him.

  “Frank! Beans! Find a seat,” Mr. Vic said.

  “My name ain’t Beans,” Beans yelled back.

  “Butter beans, pinto beans, lima beans,” Punk chanted. “Green beans, baked beans, Frank ’n’ Beans!”

  “Boys!” Mr. Vic yelled. “Unless y’all want a visit with Mrs. Rivers this morning, get yourself seated and fast.”

  The boys sat, but they continued to argue loudly with Punk. Martha Poston, a fourth-grader, grabbed Camille to ask her a homework question. The commotion of twenty schoolkids screaming back and forth buzzed through the bus like an out-of-control drone, but it barely registered. In a few short hours, I might find my dad.

  • • •

  A FEW SHORT hours later, we hadn’t found squat. No person named Jud Bowman existed in Farley, or Andro, or anywhere in the entire state of Kentucky. There was one guy with the same name in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but he’d just graduated from high school.

  “Maybe Bowman is somebody else,” Gilbert said.

  “That’s all the checkbook said? No first name or anything?” Camille asked.

  “Nope. Just Bowman.”

  “That might even be the first name,” Camille said. “Do you have the bank statement?”

  “What good would that do?” Gilbert asked.

  “The deposits are listed at the bottom. There’s usually a copy of the check.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “My father lets me help him with the banking for extra math practice.”

  “Lets you?” Gilbert sniffed his underarm. “If you move away, Wavie, who’s gonna give me jugs of water?”

  Camille shook her head. “Not me. Don’t even think of knocking at my window. My father would have you in the Convict Holler cemetery before sundown.”

  “Who said anything about moving?” I slumped in the chair. “If the bank statements were in the box, they’re long gone now. Hoyt and Zane took it to the dump.”

  Gilbert chewed on the end of his pencil. “I guess you’ll have to ask Samantha Rose. If it was somebody that your mom knew before she left Conley Holler, she’d know.”

  “Probably,” I said. “But she has a way of making the best things sound bad. She could say cherry cobbler and it’d sound like a cussword.”

  “Y’all made cherry cobbler?” Gilbert asked. “That’s my favorite.”

  “No, but if you’re ever in the mood for noodles and ketchup, come on over.”

  “Uh-oh,” Gilbert said. “I got trouble.”

  “What?” Camille whispered. “Do you see Mrs. Winn coming back?”

  Gilbert stood up. “No, but now I really do have to poop. And I’ve used my number-two time with y’all!” He moved his chair and raced out of the library.

  Camille rolled her eyes. “He makes me seriously loca.”

  “He’s hilarious,” I said. “How can you not like him?”

  “Before I moved here,” Camille said, “guess who had the highest grade point average in the entire school?”

  I shook my head. “No way. Gilbert?”

  Camille picked up a book off the return cart. “It’s true. The only reason I’ve got better grades than him is because I study all of the time.”

  “So he’s not in the GT classes because he really doesn’t want to be?”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s kind of silly,” I said. “But why does it make you crazy?”

  “Because he doesn’t understand how lucky he is! He has a chance to get ahead and he’s throwing it away, acting ignorant when he’s not.” She shook her head in disgust. My father has a saying, ‘La persona que pide poco no merece nada.’ It means, ‘The person who asks for little deserves nothing.’ Do you think moving from Texas to the middle of nowhere to start a restaurant was easy?”

  “No.”

  “No! But my father knew he had talent, so we took a chance. Gilbert is asking too little of himself and he’s going to get nothing. What a waste.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid he won’t do as well in the harder classes.”

  “And I’m not? Everybody is scared of something, but you can’t let it stop you. And you know Frank and Beans? They’re not backwards, no matter what Gilbert says. They just stopped learning when they figured out their mama gets more money if they can’t.”

  “Gilbert said the same thing. I don’t get it.”

  “An ‘intellectual disability’ is worth more. My dad says these hills are full of smart people, but they don’t see a future, so they don’t even try to get out.”

  “My mom did,” I said softly. “Get out of Convict Holler, I mean.”

  The warning bell sounded, signaling class was about to change.

  “She was smart. And you are, too,” Camille said. “Ask Samantha Rose about your dad before it’s too late and you’re stuck here forever.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As much as I wanted to find out about my dad, I wasn’t eager to ask Samantha Rose. I decided to bide my time by working on the Conley Holler cemetery instead. I couldn’t shake the idea that if I took care of the graves here, someone would check in on Mama’s back in Andro.

  Gilbert was off in the woods looking for more treasure and Camille was working on an extra-credit project, but I didn’t mind being alone. It gave me time to think about Mama, and my maybe-alive, maybe-dead dad, without worrying I’d start crying.

  My plan was to start with the weeds around Louella Conley’s grave so that I could plant some perennials. According to Samantha Rose, Hap was mean, but Mama had come back for my grandmother’s funeral, so she must have loved her. I
was through the gate and halfway to the gravestone before I noticed the man sitting on the cracked bench. Angel Davis.

  I stopped mid-stride. He hadn’t seen me yet and there was a chance I could hightail it out of there before he did. That would be the smart thing to do when meeting a hairy giant, but I couldn’t. He had the same look on his face that I wore on mine. Grief.

  My sneakers made a swooshing sound as I moved to the tombstone, but he didn’t turn around to look. The weeds were almost waist high and I quietly began pulling them out in large clumps, dumping them on the ground beside me. It felt good to be doing something of my own choosing, not something Samantha Rose had told me to do, and before long, I forgot about Angel. I cleaned Louella’s, and then skipped over Hap’s to do my mama’s sister’s.

  While I worked, I planned. I bet I could find pink dianthus for the little girl’s grave, and yarrow for my grandmother’s. And I could transplant the lamb’s ear for ground cover. Frank and Beans’s mother, Mrs. Barnes, had some pretty flowers growing around her house. She might trade me a cutting for some of my grandmother’s roses.

  An hour later, the sun went behind a cloud and the smell of rotten eggs mixed with raging BO filled the air. I turned around and Angel towered over me.

  “Were you the one that done it?” His voice sounded like he’d gargled with gravel and the smell of him, so nasty my eyes watered, hit me in a wave.

  It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about. “P-p-put the flowers on the grave?” I stuttered. “Yes, sir.”

  He clawed at his beard with his hand. His nails were long and crusty. “I can’t pay you, so don’t bother asking. The money’s all gone.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. I’d told Gilbert that I wasn’t afraid, but I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking. I glanced up at his face. He had turned and was looking at his son’s grave with sad, watery eyes. All the fright drained right out of my body.

  “I was happy to do it.” The longing for Mama was so intense it felt like my whole body was squeezing in on itself. I closed my eyes. “I lost someone, too.”

  Angel didn’t answer, but I felt him shift beside me, and I opened my eyes. He was still staring at his son’s grave. A fat tear rolled down his face, leaving a trail in the dirt on his cheek and landing to glisten in his beard.

  “Do you think they know,” he whispered, “that we’re still here? That we miss them?”

  My grandmother’s headstone blurred in front of me. I’d wondered the same thing. “I think they must. All of the love and sadness and feeling, it has to go somewhere, doesn’t it? Surely they feel it, too.”

  He nodded once and slowly lumbered toward the gate.

  I began gathering the weeds around me into a pile. My fingernails weren’t as bad as Angel’s, but a dark line of dirt was visible underneath. I inhaled sharply, a stabbing ache in my chest, as a vivid memory of Mama came to mind.

  It’s a trick my mother taught me, Mama had said before we went outside to plant flowers in front of our trailer. She ran a bar of soap under my nails one finger at a time. The soap will keep the dirt out while we’re potting, and then it washes right out when we’re done.

  I bet you’re the smartest person in all of Andro, I told her.

  I remember Mama’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners when she said to me, I don’t know about that, but I’m the luckiest. There may be people in town with a better garden, but there’s not a soul alive with a better daughter.

  I’d caught my breath on that word, alive. The cancer diagnosis was always there, hovering around us, threatening everything. Mama had bent down, hugging me to her. Wavie, she’d whispered. We can’t let fear of what might happen steal our joy right now.

  I can’t help it, I said, burying my head into her shoulder. What if you die?

  She kissed my temple and whispered in my ear, Then you’ll go on for the two of us, because it’s only the thought of you living that makes this bearable. Life is for the living and I want you to have a good one.

  I wiped the tears off my cheek. It was a long time before I could see well enough to leave.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Tell me again why we’re studying on a Friday?” Gilbert asked as we were working at Camille’s kitchen table.

  “Because I need the help,” I said. I had decided that if I was going to have the two smartest students in the school as my best friends, I might as well use them. Plus, there was nowhere I liked being better than at Camille’s.

  “But it’s too nice out to stare at a textbook,” Gilbert grumbled.

  Camille slammed her notebook shut. “For the first time ever, I actually agree, Gilbert.”

  Mrs. Rodriguez turned from the stove to smile at us. “I think this group could use some fresh air and good food. Why don’t you gather the plates and tablecloth and take them to the table outside? Dinner will be done in about ten minutes.”

  “Dinner, here?” Gilbert stuffed his book into his backpack. “Now we’re talking!”

  “Picnic, picnic, picnic!” Edgar yelled, racing for the door.

  While Gilbert and Camille set the table, I gathered a few blossoms from the side of the driveway and placed them in a small glass of water.

  “Wow, that looks great,” Camille said. “I recognize the honeysuckle, but what are those other flowers called?”

  “Phlox.”

  “You’re really talented, Wavie. We should tell my dad and get you to make some arrangements for the parties at the restaurant.”

  “Maybe,” I said, like it was no big deal, like I couldn’t feel myself glowing like a sunflower at high noon.

  Mrs. Rodriguez brought out a platter and set it on the table. “Mrs. Barnes and her boys are outside. Gilbert, why don’t you ask them if they want to join us?”

  “Sure,” Gilbert said. He stood and climbed on top of the picnic table’s bench. “Hey Frank! Y’all want to eat with us?”

  “Gilbert!” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “I could have done that! I meant walk up there and ask politely.”

  “Oh,” Gilbert said. “Be right back.”

  We watched as he ran up the hill and spoke with Mrs. Barnes. He came running back and plopped down. “She said she had pinto beans on the stove, but thank you for asking.”

  Camille shook her head. “Beans for Beans. Punk Masters would have a big laugh at that.”

  “Thank you, Gilbert.” Mrs. Rodriguez sat and began serving us. “I hope you like enchilada Suiza.”

  Gilbert sniffed his plate. “Enchilada whata?”

  “Enchilada Suiza,” Camille said. “Pulled chicken and creamy tomatillo sauce in a flour tortilla baked with Mexican cheeses.” She took a bite. “Mmm. Also known as heaven on a fork.”

  I agreed with Camille, it was delicious. “Poor Frank and—” I stopped, remembering how mad Beans had gotten at Punk. “What is his real name again?”

  “Baily,” Camille said.

  “Well,” I said, “I feel sorry they’re missing this! I’ve had plenty of pintos and they aren’t nearly this good.”

  Mrs. Rodriguez handed Edgar a napkin. “Mrs. Barnes seems sad.”

  “Gran and her are friends. She says Mrs. Barnes got dumped and don’t have sense enough to know it,” Gilbert said. “Her husband went off to get work and hasn’t come back. They’re even worse off than us—and that’s saying something.”

  “We shouldn’t gossip about our neighbors, Gilbert,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.

  Gilbert’s eyes bulged. “Who else would we gossip about? Besides, we ain’t got cable anymore. It’s all Gran’s got for entertainment.”

  Camille and I laughed. He had a point.

  “Why don’t we change the subject,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “Where were you going yesterday, Gilbert? I saw you disappear into the woods.”

  “Exploring,” he said. “I asked Frank and Baily to go, but t
hey’re afraid they’ll get poison ivy or something this time of year.”

  Camille looked at me and pointed her fork across the table. “That’s because he had it all over his face last year!”

  “What happened to not gossiping about your neighbors?” Gilbert asked.

  “That’s not gossip! It’s the truth!” Camille said.

  “How’d you get it?” I asked.

  “It was Punk’s fault. He challenged me to a tree-climbing contest, then gave me the one covered in the stuff.”

  “Well, I know what poison ivy looks like,” I said. “How about I give you all a lesson.” I took another tiny bite, trying to stretch the meal as long as possible.

  “I sure know now what it looks like, but thanks, Wavie.” Gilbert rubbed his stomach. “This is the best thing I ever et! If you can cook like this, Camille, you and Punk Masters are gonna be real happy one day.”

  Camille threw her napkin at Gilbert. It bounced off his shoulder back onto his plate.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “You’re messing up my enchilada.”

  “Mention me and Punk Masters again and I’ll mess more than that.”

  “Camille,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “Gilbert is only teasing you.”

  I grinned. “Mama used to say boys teased the girls they liked.”

  The looks of horror on Gilbert’s and Camille’s faces sent the rest of us bursting into laughter.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  By the time I walked into our yard, I was feeling the happiest I’d been since coming to Convict Holler. The weather was part of it—the air smelled sweet and it was the kind of day that made you believe anything was possible. I stood looking down the hill. Frank and Beans weren’t outside anymore but the window on the side of the house glowed a faint yellow. I could imagine them sitting around the table with their bowls of food, probably kicking each other under the table.