chapter 3

I remember last summer Grandma talking about her neighbor Miss Millie. She’d been her neighbor for a while, but they weren’t exactly friends. Grandma said it was ’cause Miss Millie just kept to herself. Grandma said the reason she kept to herself was ’cause she was a colored lady. I didn’t get why when Grandma would say the word colored , she would kind of whisper it.

As I lifted up the bushes, finding the fence that divided the two yards, I finally saw Miss Millie.

She was tiny—Mama would say she probably weighed less than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She wore a man’s button-down shirt and a long pair of pants, rolled up at the bottom. I couldn’t imagine how she wasn’t melting from the hot day. Her hair looked like a bunch of silver wires all joined together at the back in one heavy braid that went all the way down to her waist. Her face was a road map of lines.

I thought Grandma was old, but if she was old, Miss Millie was even older than Grandma. Heck, Miss Millie looked older than Moses.

Eddie didn’t even take his eyes off her to look at me, and Miss Millie was looking back at him, kind of amused, like they shared a joke. Then she looked at me like she was determining what kind of person I was.

At last she spoke, extra-loud. “You deaf and dumb, too?”

I knew some people called a person who couldn’t talk dumb , meaning he was mute and couldn’t speak at all—but I didn’t like that word. My brother, Eddie, wasn’t dumb in any way.

But in all fairness, Miss Millie probably couldn’t tell that my brother was smart since all he was doing, far as she could see, was standing like a statue in front of her with his mouth wide open like he was a bullfrog just waiting to catch flies.

“No, ma’am,” I kind of mumbled as I watched Eddie snap out of whatever spell he was under when he saw me, and then start driving his plate all over Miss Millie’s yard.

“Huh? You gonna have to speak up, girlie.”

This time I yelled, “No, ma’am. My brother is deaf... but not dumb... He’s not mute either.”

“No need to yell,” Miss Millie told me. “I’m old, not dead... yet.” And she must have felt that was the funniest thing to say, because she started laughing, which turned immediately into a cough.

When it finally stopped, she turned to me and said, “So why’s he doing that?”

But there was something in her voice this time that wasn’t mean or anything, just curious.

“That’s just what he does,” I offered, realizing that explanation was clear as mud.

She continued to watch him as she shook her head. “Bless his heart. Can’t hear a dang thing, huh?”

“Not a dang thing,” I repeated, liking the sound of that word.

“Was it an accident?”

“No. Just born that way. He was in my mama’s tummy when she visited a friend of hers and then found out the lady’s kids had measles. After that, Eddie was born not hearing a dang thing.”

Miss Millie and I both looked back at Eddie just driving his plate. I heard a bit of clicking coming from her mouth as she shook her head and sighed. “Don’t seem fair.”

“Guess not.” I heard an angry barking and growling noise coming from the back door of Miss Millie’s house then. Whatever was making that scary noise had to be huge and I didn’t want to be around if it came out.

Miss Millie coughed a little more and cleared her throat. “So you must be Loretta’s grandbabies?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I was waving my arm to get Eddie’s attention.

Finally, he looked at me, and I signed, “Let’s go!”

Miss Millie let out a cackle. “Woo-hoo! Even I could tell what that means. Do you know all that fingerspellin’ stuff?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I told her, wanting to get away from the growling, which was getting louder and more worrisome. “Well... sorry to bother you. I’ll tell Eddie not to come back anymore. He shouldn’t have come over here. It’s not right.”

And with that, her whole tone changed and her face didn’t look so friendly anymore.

“Well... sure. Sure he shouldn’t be just traipsin’ about other people’s private property. Hearing or not, he better learn not to trespass. I got a right to this property, you know.”

I had no idea what I’d said to change her attitude.

All I knew was that I was ready to hightail it out of that yard—and hopefully out of Rainbow, too—for good.