Up Molasses Mountain

Chapter 1 If I'd had a dog, I wouldn't have kicked it. I would have let it walk with me to school and back. It would have kept me company and warned me of dangerous things in the woods like bears and rattlesnakes. Instead, all I had was a chicken. She followed me around and let me scratch her head. She was really one of my mama's laying hens, but I named her Red Baron anyway. I played with her when I had nothing else to do. But what I really wanted was something to call my own, something that heard my voice above everyone else's and came to me when I called it. I was sitting beside the henhouse when my pop came outside. He looked at me a long while. "It ain't normal for a boy your age to be playing with a chicken," he said. I shoved Red Baron off my lap and looked at the dirt. "Well, can I have a dog then?" "A dog? Why, a dog would only eat your chicken. Besides, I don't spend my days down in that filthy mine to feed no dog." I pushed myself up and moved toward the porch. Red Baron followed me until I picked up a rock and threw it near her. "Get away. Scat." I didn't need nothin' else to make me different from all the other boys. I knew Pop didn't like me much on account of me not being "right." That's what he said when he thought I wasn't listening. I don't know why he bothered trying to hide his opinion from me. No one else seemed to care if I was listening or not. The kids at school had been calling me retard or slug or something worse all my life. Just 'cause I looked funny and couldn't get my words out as fast as other kids. No one ever bothered with me unless it was at my expense. Groups of girls withdrew to little circles like roly-poly potato bugs when I came around. The boys had fun pushing me into them, thrilled by their squeals. But the fun went out of that game by about fourth or fifth grade. That's when they stopped noticing me at all. I spent most of the time at school by myself. Even the nice girls, the ones who often gave our teacher flowers they'd picked on the way to school, couldn't bring themselves to speak to me. They'd turn their faces away faster than a hummingbird's wings flap when I caught them staring. They couldn't help themselves. My own pop was much the same way. I kept my head down if he took me anywhere so as not to embarrass him. I always kept my mouth shut, 'cause if people didn't notice my face, they'd sure look twice when they heard the twisted sound of my voice. I didn't want him to be ashamed of me, but he was. The only time I remember my pop being really happy was at the circus. A year after we'd gone to the circus, I still remembered it like it was yesterday. Circus people were like no people I'd seen before. Their faces were strange and foreign and stayed in my dreams for months after. "Come on, Clarence, I'm taking you to meet your new family. Get in the car!" Pop had teased that day. It wasn't like him to tease. There weren't nothin' Pop said that he didn't mean. "Where are we going?" "It's time for supper," Mama protested from the front porch. "Put the supper away, Rosemary," he told her. She stood on the porch with her hands on her hips, completely puzzled. His wide grin spread its way over his face. He was tall, and powerful enough to change Mama's whole mood with one look. "We're going to the circus." When Mama smiled, I knew it must be true. "Yippee!" I yelled. I'd been studying the posters for weeks: The Russell Ramey Circus 1952 North American Tour Coming to Clay, West Virginia We'll dazzle you with elephants, lions and clowns when we roll into town. In our part of Appalachia, most people were miners and didn't have a lot of extra money for shows and things like that. But that didn't keep usBaker, Julie is the author of 'Up Molasses Mountain' with ISBN 9780385729086 and ISBN 0385729081.