After that, Reverend Hamilton and his wife never spoke to the justice and Jewel again, and when the Justice died, Hamilton spitefully refused him burial in the small graveyard beside the church. But Jewel said that one bit of dirt was just as good as any other, and she had his body taken over to the cemetery in Parkville, where she visited him every year on his birthday. She even made me and the girls come with her to sing “Happy Birthday,” complete with candles and cake, which we ate by the graveside wearing party hats.
Jewel never said anything, but I knew she was a little afraid of the reverend, not for herself, but for us. She predicted that when he got tired of tormenting her, he would turn his attention to Jolene, Caroline, and me, thinking us easier targets. As we got older, I saw that she was right.
One Monday morning, in fifth grade, I found myself the target of twenty sneering classmates. They called Jewel names and made fun of my hand-me-down clothes. Then Maryann Gates declared that me and my family weren’t Christians, and we were going to burn in hell because the Reverend Hamilton had told them so. In fact, he’d devoted all of the previous day’s sermon to our family of blasphemers and heretics.
Tough as I was, I was still only eleven, and a little put off at finding the odds so grievously stacked against me. I hoped Miss Blount would come to my defence, but she just looked at me doubtfully and clucked her tongue. For lack of a better idea, I spat at Maryann and landed a wad of spittle right on her forehead, (I was a regular marksman with saliva) which got me into trouble with Jewel who said spitting was a low thing to do.
After school the next day, Miss Blount asked me to stay and have chocolate milk with her.
“Would you like a cookie to go with that milk, Darcy?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied.
From her bottom drawer, where she kept her “cough medicine,” she withdrew a paper sack and took out a wafer.
“You must be wondering why I asked you to stay.”
“Not especially, Miss Blount.”
“No?”
“No. I figure you’ll get around to telling in your own time. Besides, I got nothing to do till five o’clock. Then I got to get home and start supper.”
“You cook supper in your house?”
I nodded and burped. The cookie was stale. Probably Miss Blount had been saving that cookie for years, just waiting for some dumb little child she could bribe.
“Can’t your mother cook, Darcy?”
“Sure she can,” I said.
Miss Blount sighed, looking at me with elaborate patience, as she often did with her dullest students. “Then why doesn’t she?”
“Because she’s afraid of ovens,” I answered honestly. In those days, I still had some candor left, just enough to get me in trouble.
“Afraid?” She peered over her glasses. “Afraid of what? An oven can’t chase you all over the kitchen,” she remarked with a laugh.
Miss Blount was making Jewel sound foolish, and I didn’t like anyone doing that but me. “She isn’t afraid of it chasing her around the kitchen,” I said patiently, as if Miss Blount, too, might be one of those dull students. “She’s afraid of lighting it and catching fire and being burned to death. Jewel had a dream once where she saw the inn in flames.”
“You call your mother Jewel?”
“That’s her name.”
Miss Blount shook her head. “This is all very disturbing, very disturbing. How can a grown woman be afraid of a simple thing like lighting an oven?”
“Everybody is afraid of something,” I said defensively. “Look at how you screamed and jumped around and made a fool of yourself when a little field mouse came into your classroom. With you, it’s mice. With Jewel, it’s ovens. If you think about it, Miss Blount, her fear makes a lot more sense than yours. I mean people get burned to death all the time, but nobody’s ever been devoured by a field mouse.”
I was enjoying her blushing and stammering, but it was over all too quickly. “And what are you afraid of, Darcy?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” She raised her skinny, penciled-on eyebrows.
“Well, nothing like mice or ovens. My fears aren’t simpleminded like that.”
I saw her eye twitch at being called simpleminded, but she persisted, nonetheless. “Then what, Darcy?”
I was too young to understand that my brains were being picked for evidence, so I answered truthfully, “Sometimes, I’m afraid I’ll never get out of Galen, that I’ll grow old and die here.” For truly, at that time, I could not have imagined a worse fate for myself.
“And what makes you want to leave so badly? Do you hate it so?”
“No, not especially. But there are places, Miss Blount, so many places and cities and towns beyond Galen.”
“What kind of places do you mean, Darcy?”
“Places like—well, like Kathmandu.” I was too excited now to be careful.
Miss Blount wriggled her nose as if she suddenly smelled something sharp and sour. “Kathmandu?” she asked. “Whatever is that?”
“It’s the capital of Nepal,” I told her.
“Where is that?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it’s very far from here and I like the way it sounds. Kat-man-du,” I proclaimed, rolling the syllables around on my tongue.
The teacher frowned. I had managed to sidetrack her and she was annoyed. “But what about the inn, Darcy? Are things hard for you at home?”
“No. I eat regular, and I’ve got my own room.” Having your own room was no small distinction in Galen, where most kids slept with no less than three siblings to a bed. I was mighty proud of my independence, but Miss Blount was not impressed.
“There are more important things than rooms and food, Darcy,” she said firmly.
“Like what?” I asked, unable to imagine what could possibly be more important than eating regular.
“Well, religious convictions, for one. Christian ideals…”
That did it. As soon as she
