Every Day After (11 page)

Visions of Erin and Ben walking down the street flashed through my mind all evening—during supper, during my nightly reading to Mama, and after I’d readied Mama for bed. The visions still hadn’t left me by the time I pulled my journal from my dresser drawer.

May 14, 1932

If I could ask God any question right now, it’d be: Why did You have to let Erin Sawyer come to Bittersweet? If I could ask God a second question, it’d be: Why did she have to hate me so much? I didn’t even know she hated me that much till I scored the highest grades in class at the end of last term. She’d been here since August, and the only other time I’d seen her look so mad was when Myra “Rumor” Robinson spread the adopted secret
.

“You’re not gonna be the best for long, Hawkins, now that I’m here.” Her voice had pounded me like a hammer on a nail. Determined. Forceful. But that was her voice. Her eyes told a different story. They were welling up with tears. “I’m better than you, and I’m gonna prove it.”

“Well, don’t go thinking I’m about to start losing to you, because I’m not.”

And I wasn’t. If she wanted to beat me, she’d just have to try harder
.

“You’d better if you know what’s good for you. Don’t forget”—she leaned over into my space—“what happens to people when they mess with me. Myra was scared of dogs, and you’re scared of something too. I’ll find out what it is. I always find out.”

“I’m not scared of you. Why do you care so much about winning anyway?”

Erin looked at me like I was three bricks shy of a load just for asking. “Why do you?”

The question pricked. I knew why I cared. I had to be the best because it was the only way I could be sure I was good enough in Daddy’s eyes. I looked into Erin’s unrelenting glare. I figured maybe she felt that way too. But we couldn’t both be the best at everything
.

Erin might’ve been mad about my grades, but Daddy was the proudest I’d seen him. He ran all around town telling anybody who’d listen that his Lizzie Girl was the smartest kid in sixth grade. It was the most I’d seen him smile since he’d lost his job
.

When you get top honors in your grade, they put your name in the “School News” section of the
Bittersweet Times,
and Daddy carried that paper around with him all through Christmas. I knew I’d redeemed myself from my fourth-place finish in the spelling bee last March
.

Mama was happy too. To celebrate, she baked my favorite dessert—yellow cake with chocolate icing. After I helped her clean the kitchen, we sat down in the parlor to mend a pair of pants and a few shirts. Daddy never sat with us when we did our work. I guess he thought he was the reason we were having to do it. He always went out to the barn or the back porch. It was easy to talk to Mama without Daddy around, and before I knew it, I was telling her all about Erin and her angry threat
.

“I’m going to have a talk with Mrs. Sawyer Sunday after service,” she said without looking up from her sewing
.

I let mine fall to the floor. “No, Mama, please! Don’t. You’ll make Erin madder at me than she already is.”

“Nonsense. I’m not trying to get her in trouble, but her mother needs to know she’s behaving this way. I don’t know Mrs. Sawyer very well, as they haven’t been here long, but she seems a reasonable woman. I’m sure she’d rather know than not. I certainly would.”

I picked up my sewing and restarted. There was no sense in trying to convince Mama otherwise
.
She made up her mind, and that was that. It was times like those that I figured I didn’t get all my stubbornness from Daddy. Some of it came from Mama
.

Sunday morning came, church service went, and there we were—Mama, Mrs. Sawyer, Erin, and me—all standing in a small circle facing one another. Daddy and Mr. Sawyer were walking the Hinkles to their car
.

“I’d like to talk to you about something, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Sawyer,” Mama began
.

My gut wrenched up into a ball. There was no getting out of it now. Erin sneered at me. Part of me, a little part, felt sorry for her. But the other part of me, the bigger part, wanted to yank her braids
.

Mrs. Sawyer nodded. “Go right ahead.”

“Well,” Mama went on, “it’s about Erin. She seems to be quite unhappy about Lizzie’s grades at school, and I felt we should get things worked out.”

Mrs. Sawyer huffed and put her arm around Erin’s shoulders. “I’m afraid the problem, my dear Mrs. Hawkins, doesn’t lie with my Erin. It lies square on the shoulders of that prideful girl of yours.”

Erin smirked at me. She’d known where this was headed before it began. She’d already painted me as the school prisspot to Mrs. Sawyer. My sorry feeling was shrinking by the second. I could almost feel my palms wrapped around her braids
.

Mama stood there blinking. I knew Mama. She wasn’t expecting this reply. She’d expected a civil apology and for Erin to get a good talking-to at home. That wasn’t gonna happen
.

“And furthermore,” Mrs. Sawyer went on, “I would make sure I’d gotten the entire story from my own daughter before I went off and meddled with the raising of anyone else’s. For example, were you aware, Mrs. Hawkins, that your daughter is the biggest show-off this side of the Mississippi? How in heaven’s name do you expect Erin to not want to knock her off her pedestal?”

“I do not go around showing off,” I insisted
.

Mama grabbed my arm. “Lizzie, hush.”

Erin began to whine. “She does so. You should see the way she acts, like she’s special or something. Always laughing at everybody because they can’t beat her.” She lifted her glasses and wiped her eyes. Then she looked at me. One corner of her mouth was turned up a tad, just enough to let me know she was going to have her way and there was nothing I could do about it. I saw that look. I saw it and I couldn’t take it. I dove at her, and the next thing I knew, my hands were squeezed around two thin brown braids. Erin screamed. The few remaining churchgoers, Pastor White included, wheeled around to see what all the commotion was about
.

“Elizabeth Hawkins!” Mama jerked me back. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Sawyer grabbed Erin and pushed her behind her back like she was protecting her from the devil himself. “Mrs. Hawkins, if I were you, I’d get my daughter under control before it’s too late. Such behavior should not be tolerated.” She spun around and the two of them marched off to their car
.

That was it. The battle between Erin and me was official. She’d dared me into it when she lied about me, right to my face. I’d full-on accepted the dare when I had nerve enough to reach out and yank her hair in the churchyard. She was determined to best me. And I was determined not to let her
.

Now Erin has decided she wants to best me in another way, besides grades. She wants to steal my best friend. Well, I have something to tell Erin Sawyer, and they can print it in the paper under “School News”: One day I’ll have my best friend and my family back, and I’ll have top grades, to boot. She can count on it
.

 
Eleven
 

Pride Goeth Before Destruction and a Haughty Spirit Before a Fall

Asking Ben for the truth turned out to be harder than I thought. I wondered if Erin had convinced him not to be friends with me anymore. Three times I went to visit him, and his ma told me either he was gone to Mr. Reed’s or he was off running errands. But he wasn’t. Mrs. Butler ain’t the world’s best liar, and I caught Ben peeping at me through the curtains once. After that, I stopped trying. If he was determined to be friends with Erin instead of me, that was his own stupidity.

Ben or no Ben, I was happy as a pig in mud to see the last day of school roll around. Since my D two weeks earlier, I’d managed to keep my grades up pretty well. I’d made a B on a history test, but all my other grades were As. What I wanted more than anything on my last day of school was to beat Erin Sawyer for top grades.

The morning dragged by as slowly as molasses in January. Miss Jones made us dust erasers, empty and wash our
inkwells, sort books, and sweep the floor. At midmorning she finally instructed, “All right, children. Please take your seats and we will announce the term’s top students. Afterward, we will dismiss and head outside for Field Day. The school year will officially end at noon.”

The words “Field Day” brought on hoots and hollers from the boys. The girls sat quietly, but I wasn’t fooled. Some of the girls were more competitive than the boys. Girls like me. And Erin.

“Quiet down, please,” Miss Jones urged. The room fell silent. “Since this is the end of the year, both second- and third-place students will receive certificates of achievement, while first place will receive this blue ribbon.” Miss Jones held up the ribbon and the class answered with oohs and aahs. “All three winners will also have their names printed in the town paper’s “School News” column. I would like to congratulate all of you on a job well done. Now, we’ll begin with third place.”

The last name in the world I wanted to hear was my own. Taking care of Mama was more important than school, but keeping my grades up was important to Daddy, and I didn’t want to let him down either.

Miss Jones glanced down at the paper in her hands. I balled my fists. “Harold Watson.”

I inhaled deeply, realizing I’d been holding my breath. The air rushed in and soothed me, until Erin tapped my shoulder. “You know I’m getting first place this time, Hawkins,” she whispered. “You remember who got extra
credit and who didn’t. Guess you should’ve apologized to me after all.”

I pretended not to hear her. I watched as Harold went to the front of the room to receive his certificate. He grinned, and Erin snickered behind me. Poor Harold. His teeth were so buck he could’ve eaten corn through a picket fence. He got it from his daddy. It must’ve been a sad thing to know that out of five kids, you were the only one to get stuck with teeth like that. Maybe his brains made up for it in some way, ’cause while the rest of the Watson kids didn’t have buck teeth, they didn’t have Harold’s brains either. You can always get teeth fixed, but Daddy always said if you ain’t got brains, you’re just headed up a creek with no paddle.

Harold sat back down, and Miss Jones looked once again at her paper. “Second place goes to …”

This was it. If I didn’t hear my name now, I’d know I’d made it to first. There was no way that one D and a B would send me all the way back to fourth place. I pictured Erin waiting just as intently as me for that first letter to come from Miss Jones’s mouth. Would it be “E” or “L”? I gripped my locket, praying for the “E.”

Once again, God wasn’t listening.

“Lizzie Hawkins.”

My heart dropped like a dead duck. I didn’t want to stand up. Didn’t want to go up to the front of the room and pretend to be happy about second place. But I did. Daddy had always told me to be the best in everything I
did, but Mama had taught me to never be a sore loser. I stood up. I walked up to the front of the room. I smiled about second place. I did it for Mama. I did it for her, even though my insides were twisted in all the wrong ways, because I knew exactly who’d gotten first.

“Congratulations, Lizzie,” Erin whispered when I sat back down. “Now, you’d best congratulate me when I’m announced. It’s nice to think about all the people who’ll see my name printed above yours in the paper.”