She could no longer support herself and crumpled to the ground. Then she told her brother all that had happened at school with Mrs. Brown and then Ma Deary.
“She’s an evil witch. I’m tired of working like a mule, Walter. I got this on my own merit. I want to go.” Her eyes felt bloodshot.
“So then go,” Walter said, straddling his bicycle.
“On what? The back of your wobbly bike?”
“Don’t talk about Lucy.” He patted the seat as he climbed off,carefully propping the bicycle on its kickstand. “She’d get you there, we’d just have to leave right now for tomorrow morning.” He chuckled, folding his legs beneath him, joining Sophia on the patch of grass.
Walter’s overalls were covered in motor oil, and Sophia knew he had spent some of his morning under the hood of one of the spotty tractors again. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of wrapped peppermint.
“Where’d you get this?” She took the candy and placed it in her mouth. The menthol flavor cooled her.
“The girl who works at the General Store is sweet on me.” He smiled, popping a mint into his mouth.
“Seriously, I have to get to the school tomorrow, or all is lost. And Lucy won’t get me there.”
Walter ran his hands over the grass until he found a yellow buttercup. He picked the flower, placed it beneath his chin, and smiled at her. “Lucy won’t. But Ma Deary’s car will.”
Sophia snorted. “Ma Deary wouldn’t give you the keys to her Rambler to drive me to the General Store, let alone a boarding school that she said I couldn’t go to.”
“That’s why we’re gonna steal it.”
Sophia looked at her brother with her hand shading her eyes from the sun. His gaze didn’t waver. He was serious about this. Could they really pull it off?
“How are we going to steal the car without Ma knowing?”
“You let me worry about that. Just be ready at first light.”
“What about the twins?”
“Maybe you being gone will force Ma to take care of them. If not, they’ve got me.”
“It can’t be that easy. What if we drive all the way up there and they want parent signatures or something?”
Walter leaned back on his elbows and narrowed his eyes at her. “You want to go or not?”
Sophia pulled her knees to her chest and rocked. “I’m scared,” she confessed after a long pause.
“God wouldn’t have opened this door for you if He didn’t want you to rush through it.”
Walter was the only one who talked about God on the farm, and Sophia felt the hum of possibility slowly creep back up her spine. If she didn’t at least try to get to West Oak Forest, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. What did she have to lose by going for it? She stood, dusting her legs off. She could feel the swelling of at least three mosquito bites on the back of her thigh.
“You gotta make those boys go to school. I don’t want them messing up their education on account of farm chores. Make sure Unc gets the workers here to help. You can’t do it all by yourself, Walter.”
“I will. Promise.”
Sophia looked up at the clouds and sighed. “Then I want to go.”
When Sophia returned to the house, her arms filled with corn, Ma Deary was already dressed in her white uniform, smearing a tube of brown lipstick across her full mouth.
“I’m heading off to settle some business ’fore my shift starts. Make sure you check the corn for bugs, then set it to boiling.”
She moved past Sophia, smelling like lily-of-the-valley perfume, without so much as a touch. As soon as her Rambler pulled onto the road, Sophia went out back for the big metal washing bucket that she’d been using to clean all the laundry since the wringer washing machine had broken down last summer. The Old Man claimed he would fix it, but he was waiting on a part.
Sophia dragged over the hose and filled the tub with water. The few items of clothing that were suitable for her to take, she immersed in the homemade lye soap mixed with 20 Mule Team Borax. Whilethey soaked, she decided to follow Mrs. Brown’s advice and do something with her hair. After rummaging around underneath the bathroom sink, she found two unopened boxes of Ogilvie Sisters magic color. She had watched Ma Deary apply the dye to cover up the grays sprouting around her temples. After reading the instructions, Sophia decided that she would combine both boxes to color her entire head. She would go to West Oak Forest Academy with a fresh start, and no one would ever mistake her for an orangutan again.
CHAPTER 4Philadelphia, PA, May 1948
