by Donna Poole
I don’t understand how two of my favorite colors can make the color I hate. How can mixing red and blue make a disgusting mud brown?
Ruby Jo didn’t have anything against mud. She liked it where it belonged, in the creek, squeezing up between her toes when, wild and free, she explored the countryside in the summertime. But she didn’t like it on a skirt that she’d already worn for two years and would probably have to wear for two more since her growing seemed to be happening only up and not out, and the skirt had been too long to start with.
Mom’s voice echoed in her ears. Ruby Jo was pretty sure all moms said the same words. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”
I’ve tried to use it up and wear it out and I’d love to do without it!
Ruby Jo sighed and looked down at her wrinkled, brown cotton skirt. It had belonged to her older sister and before that to who knew how many others. She frowned. But she couldn’t stay sad for too long; it was almost time for class to start, and she loved school.
Ruby Jo was in fifth grade and part of an experiment. The school was combining 5th and 6th graders. A few subjects were mandatory, but the kids were allowed to vote other ones in or out. They voted out spelling. They voted to learn science only by experiment and history only by biography. And best of all, in Ruby Jo’s opinion, they voted to write and mimeograph a newspaper! She wanted to be an author when she grew up.
The class voted to keep vocabulary words. Miss Jennings wrote one on the blackboard, anathema: “noun. Someone or something intensely disliked or loathed.”
“Anathema,” Ruby Jo whispered. She loved big words, the way they sounded and rolled around on her tongue. Miss Jennings told the class to write the word in a sentence. Ruby Jo was sorely tempted to write, “My brown skirt and my wrinkled brown lunch bag are anathema to me.” But she wasn’t about to admit to anyone, not even her beloved Miss Jennings, how embarrassing those two things were to her. Instead, she wrote about something Miss Jennings had just taught them in history, “The Battle of Matewan happened because unions were anathema to coal companies.”
Chewing on her pencil, she imagined herself standing next to the police chief, Sid Hatfield, in the street of the small mining town on May 19, 1920, when the deadly shootout happened. She, in her faded, too long brown skirt, would jump in front of the police chief when the guns blazed. Not even the hired coal company guards would shoot a ten-year-old girl, would they? She’d save Sid Hatfield’s life, and the mayor’s too, and somehow, she’d protect the seven miners who’d died that day! The townspeople would carry her through the streets on their shoulders shouting, “Hats off for Ruby Jo!” And she’d be a lifetime honorary president of the United Mine Workers of America. To express their gratitude the women of the town would sew her a new skirt, and it would have tiny squares of all different colors, like a patchwork quilt, and…
“Ruby Jo?”
Why is Miss Jennings saying my name like she’s asking a question?
Flora whispered a bit too loudly, “Ruby Jo, Miss Jennings wants you to repeat the definition of ‘supercilious’ and use it in a sentence.”
Ruby Jo glanced at the blackboard and saw two new words had been written there since she’d last looked at it. Unfortunately, the definitions were not on the board. She said, “Um, that word means super silly. My sentence is, I feel super silly because I was daydreaming and not paying attention.”
The class laughed, and Miss Jennings chuckled too. “That’s not quite right Ruby Jo. The word means to behave or look as though you are better than someone else, and as you know class, that kind of attitude is anathema to me. We all daydream sometimes, don’t we? But try to pay attention, Ruby Jo. It’s almost time to work on our newspaper, and I know you love that!”
“Yes, Miss Jennings, I will pay attention.”
And she did try, but she was already smelling the wonderful scent of the mimeograph ink and hearing the sound of the stapler fastening the articles and stories they’d written. They’d try to sell them to other students and teachers for ten cents a copy. Some of the kids took a newspaper home and sold it to parents.
Miss Jennings had asked only one time, “Ruby Jo, you write so many of the poems and stories in the paper. Wouldn’t you like to take it home and sell it to your parents? I’m sure they’d love to see what you write!”
Flora answered before Ruby could. She whispered to Miss Jennings, “Ruby Jo’s parents don’t have ten cents. They’re poor. They live in the trailer park.”
Why did I have to pick a best friend who tells everything and whispers too loud? Ruby Jo thought.
“It’s not that my parents can’t afford ten cents,” she said defensively. “My parents are rich as the Rockefellers. They are just very discriminating with how they choose to distribute their funds.”
“Huh?” Flora said. “I thought you were poor.” She wandered off to talk to someone else.
Miss Jennings said, “I understand.”
The next day Miss Jennings said, “Class, from now on, the person who writes the most material for the newspaper will win two free copies!”
Ruby Jo caught her breath. She knew she could write the most material. Now she could take home the paper. When her stories were as popular as O. Henry’s she’d say to her twenty, no thirty, grandchildren, “Would you like to see some of the stories and poems your famous grandmother wrote when she was a little girl?” She would sit in a rocker, and they would gather around her feet and listen without saying a word. When she finished, they would say, “Hip hip hooray for our famous grandma!” And then they would smother her with hugs and sticky kisses. But wait. She didn’t like sticky kisses. Maybe she’d have only sixteen grandchildren. That would be fewer sticky kisses…”
“Ruby JO!” Flora was almost shouting. “Are you coming to lunch or not? We’re the only two left in the classroom.”
As usual, Flora went through the line and bought lunch, a delicious smelling lunch of spaghetti, garlic bread, chocolate cake, and milk. Ruby opened her anathema of a wrinkled lunch bag and pulled out her usual lunch, a sandwich and an apple. She slipped the three pennies in the bag her mother intended her to use for milk into the pocket of her brown skirt.
Flora wrinkled her nose. “Peanut butter and jelly? Well, at least it isn’t cream cheese and jelly this time. I don’t know how you swallow your sandwich with nothing to drink. Why don’t you use the pennies and go buy milk?”
“You know why. If I save three pennies every day, on Friday I have twenty-five cents, enough to buy an ice cream sandwich. Those are my favorite!”
“Why don’t you ask your mom for a quarter and three pennies every day? Then you could have milk and an ice cream sandwich!”
The two girls looked at each other for a moment.
“I hate this wrinkled old brown lunch bag,” Ruby Jo said, tears springing to her eyes. “It’s anathema.”
“Your lunch bag is pretending to be better than someone else?” Flora asked.
Ruby Jo said, “No, silly. That’s supercilious, not anathema.”
“Oh.” Flora sighed. “Words confuse me sometimes. If you hate your wrinkled bag, why don’t you throw it out and get a new one?”
“I have to save it. Mom decides when it’s old enough to throw out. Use it up, wear it out…”
“Make it do or do without!” Flora finished laughing. “Your parents aren’t really rich as the Rockefellers, are they?”
“Maybe they are. Maybe they got rich by not spending money on lunch bags or new skirts.”
Flora nodded. “Oh. I understand.” She looked at Ruby Jo’s apple. “I’ll trade you that apple for my chocolate cake.”
“I thought you hated apples.”
“No, now you’re confused. You’re the one who hates apples.”
Ruby Jo took a bite of the cake. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted anything so delicious. “Why aren’t you eating the apple, Flora?”
Flora turned the apple so Ruby Jo wouldn’t see the worm hole. “I’m kinda full. I think I’ll save it for later. Do you think we’ll be friends when we’re grown up?”
Ruby Jo swiped at the chocolate frosting on her lips and managed to smear it across her face. “We’ll be friends forever, Flora! When I’m grown up, I’m going to write a story about you!”
“Really? Do you think a lot of people will read it?”
Ruby Jo was about ready to tell her probably a million people would read it because she was going to be so famous, but she decided friends deserve the truth.
“Probably only a few people will read it, Flora. But I bet those few will like it. And Flora?”
“Yeah?”
“My parents aren’t as rich as the Rockefellers.”
The End
***
These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:
Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
