Someplace to Call Home Read online

  Benny nodded.

  Hallie hugged her brother, and Tom squeezed the little boy’s shoulder. “You be good, Ben. No talking back to the teacher,” he said.

  “I’m good,” Benny told him.

  Hallie could see that her older brother was as moved as she was that Benny was going to “school.” He worried about Benny, too. Tom was the head of the family now. It wasn’t easy for him having to care for a brother and sister. He could have disappeared the way Daddy did. Hallie knew that Tom wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t desert them any more than she would.

  At first, Hallie had blamed Daddy for leaving them. Since she’d been on the road, however, she’d come to understand why Daddy had never come back home. There hadn’t been any work for him. He probably had thought he was a failure and couldn’t face Mommy and the rest of the family. He was ashamed that he couldn’t provide for them. It had been easier just to drift away than to come home and look at his family’s disappointed faces. He’d feel he’d let them down. During the months she and Tom and Benny had been traveling, Hallie had seen too many men like Daddy. They wandered the roads as if they were lost. Their shoulders were slumped. There was no hope in their faces. Like them, Daddy had given up. But Tom was made of sterner stuff. Hallie would always be able to count on him.

  “That was nice of you to buy Benny the tablet,” Hallie said. “And the shoes.”

  “I should have bought shoes for you, too.”

  “I already have shoes.” Hallie had found a piece of cardboard on the road the day before. She’d taken it home and made inserts to fit inside her shoes. They would cover the holes in the soles. She’d saved the rest of the cardboard because the insets wouldn’t last forever.

  “I’m glad you figured out a way to go to school, Hallie,” he said. “That’s a weight off my mind.”

  Hallie didn’t say anything. It would be hard, attending school only a few days a week. Still, she’d make it work. She knew that her graduating from eighth grade was as important to Tom as it was to her. Tom hadn’t let her down. She wouldn’t let him down, either.

  That was going to be hard, because by the dinner break on the first day of the school year, Hallie was beginning to wonder if she had made a mistake. She had loved school in Oklahoma. Everyone there was her friend. She’d played hopscotch and jumped rope with the other girls. They’d shared secrets and traded food from their dinner sacks and walked to and from the school together. Except for Harold and Dan, she hadn’t met any other students until that first day. By noon, she didn’t like any of them.

  Hallie wore a new dress that Mrs. Carlson had made for her from two feed sacks. Hallie had chosen the material. The dress was pink with rosebuds sprinkled over it. It had a sash and a white collar, and there was rickrack down the front. It was the prettiest dress Hallie had ever worn. She’d rubbed her shoes with bacon grease until they shone. She’d braided her hair three times until she was satisfied. She didn’t have a mirror, so she couldn’t see her appearance. Still, she knew she looked her best. Tom said she’d never looked better. Even Benny grinned at her and said, “Pretty.”

  She made a bean sandwich for herself and put it into a sugar sack to carry to school. Then just before they left the cabin, Tom took out a second tablet exactly like Benny’s. He gave it to Hallie. “The smartest girl in the class has to have something to write on,” he said.

  Hallie arrived a few minutes before the bell rang. She stood in the schoolyard staring at the other students. Hallie watched the youngest children play tag, wishing Benny could have been among them. Then she studied the older students. They were the ones who would be in her grade. A few of them glanced at her, but they turned away, ignoring her. The bell rang, and the students, including Hallie, went inside the school. But Hallie got confused and went the wrong way to her classroom. She had to backtrack and ended up being the last one in the room. All the seats were taken except for those in the very front row. Since the door was in the back, she had to walk past everyone to sit down. She felt the others staring at her, which made her nervous. She dropped her tablet, and someone snickered. She didn’t feel so smart then.

  The teacher welcomed the students and introduced herself as Mrs. Powell. She said there were several who had not been in school last year. She asked them to introduce themselves, too.

  “I’m Cathy. We moved here from Topeka to live on my grandparents’ farm,” one girl announced.

  “My name’s Dorothy. I’m living with Wilma. She’s my cousin.”

  Hallie turned to stare at her. Wilma would be the girl next to Dorothy, wearing a store-bought dress and patent leather shoes. The other girls had been gathered around her in the playground. She must be the most popular girl in school. Hallie remembered when she had been the most popular one at the school in Oklahoma.

  A new boy introduced himself. Then the teacher looked at Hallie. “I believe you’re new here, too, aren’t you?” She looked down at a list of student names. “Hazel, is it?”

  “Hallie. I’m Hallie Turner.”

  “And are you living with your family?”

  “I live on the Carlson place with my brothers,” she said.

  “Squatters,” someone whispered. “That isn’t their home.”

  Hallie looked around and glared. But she wasn’t sure who had spoken. The teacher rapped her desk with a ruler and said, “Quiet.”

  Hallie slunk down in her seat. She was silent during most of the morning, but when the teacher pulled down a map hanging above the blackboard and began a lesson in geography, Hallie sat up straight. She never knew why the subject fascinated her. She loved to dream about far-off places and the people who lived there. Her teacher in Oklahoma had come from England, and some of the settlers around Cookietown had emigrated from Russia and Poland. Hallie had found their countries on the map. The teacher once loaned her an atlas, and Hallie had studied the different countries.

  Now Mrs. Powell explained about continents. She asked if anyone knew how many there were. Hallie raised her hand. She glanced around and saw that she was the only one with her hand up. She quickly pulled it down but not before the teacher saw it. “How many, Hallie?” she asked.

  “Seven.”

  “Can you name them?”

  Hallie ducked her head. She didn’t want to appear to show off. “I guess so.”

  “Then do it, please.”

  “North America, South America,” she began. Her voice got softer as she named each one.

  “Very good. Now does anyone know which continent Kansas is in?”

  “Ask Miss Know-It-All,” a girl said. Hallie thought the voice might be Wilma’s.

  “Knowledge is something to be proud of,” the teacher said. “Ignorance is to be pitied.”

  Hallie slunk farther down in her seat. She was grateful that Mrs. Powell gave the answer to the question instead of calling on her again.

  As bad as class had been during the morning, Hallie was afraid the dinner break would be even worse. There wouldn’t be any teacher to keep order. When the bell rang, she was slow in straightening her tablet and making sure her pencil was secure beside it. She picked up the sugar sack with her sandwich and went outside. She hoped she could find a place where she could eat by herself. It was clear she hadn’t made any friends. She sat down on the grass. She grew nervous when a group of girls, Wilma at the center, sat down near her. One of the girls turned to Hallie and asked, “Are you really a squatter?”

  “No,” Hallie replied.

  “Of course she is,” Wilma said.

  “No, I’m not!” Hallie told her.

  “Yes, you are,” Dorothy said. “What else do you call people who live on your land and don’t work and don’t pay rent?”

  “Relatives,” Hallie blurted out.

  Wilma’s mouth dropped open. Dorothy glared at Hallie. “What did you say that for?” Wilma asked.

  The other girls covered their mouths to hide their giggles. The girl named Cathy laughed out loud and said, “That’s a good one.�
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  “I like school,” Benny said. Since Tom had worked for Mr. Carlson that day, he brought Benny home with him. “‘Z’ is for ‘horse.’”

  “‘H’ is for ‘horse,’” Hallie said.

  “No, ‘Z.’ I saw the picture.”

  “The word’s ‘zebra,’” Tom explained. “Mrs. Carlson showed me a new alphabet book she bought for Tessie.”

  “What’s a zebra?” Hallie had never heard of such an animal.

  “A striped horse. So Benny got it right.”

  “What did you do at school?” Hallie asked her little brother.

  “I can read.”

  “Already?”

  Benny nodded. “I saw ‘A’ in a book. I can read ‘A.’ We had apple pie. ‘A’ for ‘apple pie.’”

  “What about ‘B’?” Tom asked.

  “Next time.”

  “Did you play?”

  “Recess. We played recess.”

  “What about your school?” Tom asked Hallie. “Did you play recess, too?” He grinned.

  Hallie didn’t answer, and Tom asked, “Did you make any friends.”

  “No, but I might have made enemies. They all think we’re squatters.”

  “Well, we aren’t,” Tom told her. “Did you tell them that?”

  “I tried to.”

  “But?”

  Hallie shrugged.

  “You won’t quit school, will you?” Tom asked.

  “No.” Hallie shook her head. “We’re not quitters. Still, it’s hard when they think they’re better than we are.”

  “They’re not. Some of those people are as poor as us.”

  “I know,” Hallie agreed. She remembered the children whose dinner sacks were as meager as hers. There were boys whose overalls were ragged, and girls with dresses too short and too tight. But they had lived in the area for a long time, so nobody called them squatters. She thought, too, about Wilma and Dorothy and two or three other girls. They were wearing new clothes and had cheese or peanut butter sandwiches on store-bought bread. And cookies or cake for dessert. They were the ones who looked down on her.

  “Ignore the rich kids,” Tom said. He seemed to know what she was thinking. “You can find other girls to be your friends.”

  “Tessie’s your friend,” Benny put in.

  That made Hallie smile. “And you’re my friend, too, Benny. You’re my special friend.” Things could be a lot worse, Hallie thought. At least she had her brothers.

  Hallie and Tom were preparing dinner. Tom built a fire in the fireplace, while Hallie mixed up batter for flapjacks. When the fire had burned down a little and the coals were hot, she set a cast-iron skillet on the coals and added grease from the tin can of bacon fat she had saved. Then she poured the pancake batter into the hot pan. “Cooking in a fireplace is better than cooking over a campfire, but I’d still give anything for a cook stove like we had back home. I burned the yeast bread I made yesterday.”

  “I have a surprise for you, then. I was going to wait until later, after it was set up, but I’ll tell you now.” Tom grinned. “Mrs. Carlson says we can have her old cook stove. She had it hauled to the barn after she got that fancy new one. She said she’d forgotten all about it or she would have offered it to us earlier. Mr. Carlson and I will set it up.”

  “Imagine! A cook stove just like home,” Hallie said. “I can cook on it, and it will keep us warm in the winter.” Will we be here for the winter? Hallie wondered.

  Hallie stayed in the cabin the next day, because Tom was working at the garage. Since Mrs. Carlson had taught Tessie and Benny the day before, Benny was home, too. Hallie did her arithmetic homework and read a chapter in a book Mrs. Powell had assigned. The book was old. Some of the pages were missing. But at least the school provided the readers. She didn’t have to buy one.

  When she showed up for school on Wednesday, Wilma remarked, “Oh, I thought you’d quit.”

  Hallie was so mad that she stuck out her tongue at Wilma. Only later did she wonder if she’d been wrong. Maybe Wilma wasn’t being nasty. Maybe she had just made an observation. Hallie didn’t know for sure, but it didn’t matter. No way would she apologize.

  In class, Hallie was aware she was a day behind. Everyone had already turned in the arithmetic she had done at home and had even completed another assignment for Wednesday. The class was further ahead in the reader than she was, too. At the dinner break, Mrs. Powell asked her to stay behind.

  “You were absent yesterday,” Mrs. Powell said after the others had gone.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you want to tell me why?”

  Hallie looked down at her shoes. There was a hole in the toe of her right shoe. She hadn’t seen that before. “I have to look after my little brother.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She died.” Hallie felt her eyes well up.

  “And your father?”

  Hallie shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about her parents.

  “I see. You said you live on the Carlson place. Do the Carlsons take care of you?”

  “We take care of ourselves,” Hallie said fiercely.

  The teacher studied Hallie a moment. “And proud of it, I see.” Then she asked, “How many days a week do you expect to be away from school?”

  “One or two—three if my older brother’s working.” Hallie couldn’t look at the teacher. Mrs. Powell was probably going to tell her she had to drop out. That would give her an excuse to leave school. Tom couldn’t call her a quitter if Mrs. Powell wouldn’t let her stay in school. She thought that over. Two days before she wasn’t sure she wanted to finish eighth grade, but suddenly, she was angry. What right did that teacher have to tell her she couldn’t attend? Mrs. Powell didn’t know her at all. She had no reason to assume she couldn’t keep up. “I can do the work, Mrs. Powell. Just you wait and see.”

  The teacher smiled at her. “I hoped you’d say that. So many migrant children are discouraged, but you have a spark in you. I saw that the first day of school. You let me know the days you’ll be absent, and I’ll be sure to tell you what you have to do to keep up. I believe everyone deserves an education.” Mrs. Powell stood up to dismiss Hallie, then sat down again. “There’s one other thing. Don’t you ever let the others get away with calling you a squatter. You’re no such thing. You’re just as good as anybody else.”

  Hallie couldn’t believe the teacher was being so nice. She wondered if she ought to stay in the schoolroom and eat her dinner with Mrs. Powell. The teacher picked up her dinner pail, however, and headed for the door. Hallie searched for her own sack, but it wasn’t where she had put it. She looked inside her desk, then got down on her knees and looked under the desk. The sack was gone. Somebody had stolen it.

  chapter six

  Jimmy

  Hallie looked around the schoolyard. The other children were sitting in groups, eating their dinners. Wilma glanced up at Hallie, but quickly looked away. Hallie figured she was not welcome to join Wilma and her friends. For a moment, she wondered if Wilma had taken her dinner. Wilma wouldn’t have wanted to eat Hallie’s bean sandwich, but she might have swiped it just to be mean. Still, Hallie didn’t know if Wilma was that spiteful. She looked around to see who else might have stolen her dinner. Someone must have taken it at recess. She tried to remember if any of the students had lagged behind when the others went outside. She hadn’t paid attention and couldn’t think of anyone.

  Then Hallie spotted Jimmy Watson. He was one of the boys who had called her a squatter that first day. Mrs. Powell already had broken up a fight between Jimmy and another boy. Hallie wondered if he was a bully. The other students seemed afraid of him.

  Jimmy held a sugar sack in one hand and a sandwich in the other. The sack was the size of the one Hallie had brought to school, but then all sugar sacks looked alike. Most sandwiches looked alike, too.

  Jimmy smirked at her. Hallie was pretty sure then that he’d taken her dinner. She wanted to go over and demand he give it back. Bu
t she didn’t have any proof. What if she was wrong? That would be even more embarrassing. Would I ever make friends after that? she asked herself. So she sat on the steps by herself, glaring at anybody who came close.

  That evening, she told Tom about the boy. She wondered if she should have confronted Jimmy after all. “Maybe I should have said something to him,” she said.

  “You could have,” Tom responded. “But then he’d say that was his dinner. How would you prove it wasn’t? You’d just be accused of causing trouble. You made the right decision.”

  “Well, he won’t steal my dinner again,” Hallie said.

  “You’ll keep an eye on it, then?”

  “I’ll do better than that.” The next morning, Hallie made her sandwich. Then she took out another sugar sack. She didn’t put her sandwich into the sack yet. Instead, she picked up her pencil and wrote “Hallie” in big black letters. “Now I’ll know if anybody steals my dinner,” she said.

  When she settled into her desk at school, she placed her dinner sack on top of her tablet. Anybody could see her name written on it. She turned around and grinned at Jimmy, then pointed to the sack.

  Jimmy shrugged, as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Nobody stole Hallie’s dinner after that. Still, Jimmy seemed to make a point of being mean to her. He stepped on her foot. He bumped her against the wall as they were leaving the room. He brushed by her desk and knocked her tablet onto the floor. “Hey!” Hallie said.

  “Oops, sorry,” he replied, but he wasn’t sorry. He stepped on the tablet before he picked it up, leaving a shoe print on the cover.

  Hallie couldn’t get the mark off, and she fumed. “You jerk,” she muttered.

  “Hey, it was an accident.”

  Hallie knew it wasn’t. “What did I ever do to you?” she demanded.

  “You’re a squatter.”

  One day, a week later, Hallie heard a grade-school boy on the playground complain that his dinner had disappeared. Hallie had noticed the boy before because he looked rich. He wore store-bought clothes and usually had cake or cookies in his sack. She didn’t know him, but still, she didn’t like the idea of anybody stealing dinners.