Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

to me. An old man with a lump on his head pops his knuckles. A pigtailed little girl carries a loaf of bread to her momma. They just look, well, normal, just folks out in the morning, like anybody else. It’s strange to me how little the town has changed but how different I feel about it, like maybe I’m the one who changed.

The third man rides us straight to the jail.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he says. “It’s just the safest place for y’all, till we can get everything sorted. I’ll off and fetch the doctor.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the real inside of a jail. It looks about like I thought it would, one cell, iron bars, and a little cot. There aren’t any prisoners, which is all right with me. The third man lays Tommy down on the cot, helping him prop his leg up so it doesn’t hurt. Hanging on one of the walls is a wanted poster, one of me and Tommy, our faces in black ink with WANTED printed in huge letters up top. I don’t know, it makes me feel good seeing it. I can’t explain why. Maybe something left over of Gruff in me, something that is a little proud to be on a poster, to have folks out searching for me. To be a wanted woman, a real bandit. If I didn’t think they’d get mad I would roll it up and keep it for myself.

“I’ve never been in a real jail before,” says Tommy.

“Me either,” I say.

“I don’t like it,” he says.

“Can’t say it’s my favorite.”

“Goldeline?”

“Yeah, Tommy?”

“Our adventure’s over, isn’t it?”

Adventure? I never thought of it like that. I always just thought it was life.

“I guess so,” I say.

“Thank the Lord,” says Tommy.

We’re not in the jail ten minutes before the doctor comes calling. He’s bald, with a white mustache, spectacles on his nose, bumbling around like he just woke up. He sets about examining Tommy’s leg. He’s followed by a fat lady in a fancy purple dress, long and frilly with ruffles. The dress is so tight I don’t know how she crammed her body into it. There’s some danger to her, like her dress could explode and spill her naked butt out at any moment.

“Where is he?” says the woman. “Where is my darling Thomas?”

I’ve been at Aunt Barbara’s a year now. It was fine, all good times, at first. For starters, Aunt Barbara is the richest person I ever met. Her house has two stories, built just for her, if you can believe it. I even had my own bed, my own room. First week home she took me shopping, bought me all kinds of dresses, all colors, perfume, my own bone-handled mirror. She taught me how to put on makeup, which I did until Tommy saw me one day and laughed himself silly.

“You look like a clown,” he said. “You look like you could be in the circus.”

I would have clobbered him, except that’s not how it worked with Aunt Barbara. In fact, you couldn’t hardly do anything at Aunt Barbara’s house. She wouldn’t tolerate any noise, not while she was reading, or had ladies over, or even when she was just sitting there, not doing a thing. You had to sit quiet, in shoes that pinched your feet. And the dinner parties, the tea parties. Never say a word, hold your back straight, chin up, keep quiet, like I was some durn porcelain doll.

Don’t scowl, Goldeline. You have such a pretty face when you smile with it.

Don’t sigh.

Don’t droop your head, it’s rude.

Don’t interrupt.

Don’t.

Don’t.

Don’t.

It’s all I ever hear.

Tommy wasn’t much help either, at least not at first. When we got to Carrolton, he went around telling everybody I was his girlfriend. It was hard to put a stop to that. I was scared of hurting his feelings. But once he got it through his skull that I wasn’t anybody’s girlfriend, we were fine. Best friends even, like I never had before. Aunt Barbara has an upright piano, her very own, and she always let Tommy play whenever he felt like it. It was good to have a house full of music.

Winter was lovely, with a big fire in the hearth and all these blankets and warm clothes and never being cold. Especially when Aunt Barbara was at one of her million social engagements and it was just me and Tommy in the house. Aunt Barbara tried taking me to some of her events and dinners and things, but I failed her so bad at all of them that she finally just let me alone. That was much better, when she left me and Tommy sitting by the fire. That’s when it felt most like family. I’d read to him from an old fairy book, or sometimes I’d just make up a story of my own. Those were the best times, the happiest I’d had since Momma died.

Still, I didn’t like the other kids much, all Tommy’s friends. Because he made friends real fast, even though he’s still got a little bit of a limp. People always wanted to be his friend because of all the stories. Our stories, his and mine. He’d tell them to any kid who would listen, rattle off about him and me being bandits, me being the legendary “Ghost Girl of the Woods.” I liked that part, all the other girls, dainty soft little darlings who I could whoop with my pinky finger, looking at me with big terrified eyes. I liked parading around them in my fancy dresses, bossing them, knowing I was prettier and smarter and tougher than they’d ever be.

“You got to stop it,” Tommy said to me one day. “Being so mean to them. How do you ever expect to make any friends if everybody’s scared of you all the time?”

“I don’t want any other friends,” I said. “You’re my friend. That’s the only friends I need. Why do I have to have any other