Anybody Shining by Frances O'Roark Dowell

leg, his limp, the fact that he can’t run and play like other children. For a boy his age, it’s quite a handicap.”
    â€œI don’t mind none. None of us children do. Everybody’s happy for Tom to be here.”
    â€œYou don’t mind any ,” Mrs. Wells corrected me. “You must learn to speak properly if you’re to advance in this world, Arie Mae. Now, Tom tells me you two plan to hike through the woods tomorrow to a place called Pilgrim’s Gap.”
    â€œThat’s right,” I told her. “We aim to find Aunt Jennie Odom. Tom wants to collect some of her stories.”
    Mrs. Wells frowned. “Yes, well, I’m afraid such a journey will not be possible. You see, it’s not only Tom’s leg that bothers him. Tom had scarlet fever as a young child and itweakened his heart. Therefore I must ask that you not overtire him. He wants to do things that normal children do, but he simply cannot.”
    My knees got a little bit wobbly when she said that, and my fingers and toes went cold. I have knowed children with weak hearts, and they ain’t often long for this world.
    â€œArie Mae, this is strictly confidential.” Mrs. Wells leaned toward me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You mustn’t tell Tom I’ve told you this. He doesn’t know how damaged his heart is, because he’s never been one to overdo and I haven’t wanted to worry him. But since we’ve come to the school, I suspect he’d climb a mountain every day if he had the time. But he can’t, and he mustn’t. Do you understand what I’m saying, Arie Mae? You must keep him to quiet activities when the two of you play together.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said. “I’ll be careful not to wear him out.”
    â€œGood,” Mrs. Wells said with a nod. “Now carry these things outside. I believe Miss Pittmanis about to lead the children in a game of Mother May I, and when that’s over we shall eat.”
    Well, I carried that bread and butter tray outdoors with a heavy heart. I had never felt sad about Tom’s leg, at least not too sad, because it seemed to me he made do right well on one good leg. But a weak heart was another story. A weak heart was not to be messed with. Now I’d have to come up with lies to tell Tom about why we could not go to Aunt Jennie Odom’s or even trek up to see Miss Sary. I ain’t as strict about the truth as James is, but to lie to Tom seemed to me a terrible thing.
    When I got to the yard James had all the children, even the ones from Baltimore, tied up in a game of Green Man’s Garden. Now, Green Man’s Garden is a right good game if you have enough children to play, so I could see why James done it. What you do is divide into two sides. One side starts the game by calling over, “Where are you?” and the other group calls back, “In the green man’s garden!” First group says, “What are you doing in the green man’sgarden?” and the second group might reply, “Eating the green man’s grapes!”
    To that the first group calls out, “The green man will get you!” And everybody starts running around then, the first group of children trying to catch the ones in the garden. If you get aholt of somebody, you throw them into the soup pot.
    Now, what James had done was get the mountain children and the Baltimore children all mixed up, so it wasn’t one group against the other. And everybody was laughing and a-running and having a jolly time. But Miss Pittman was standing to the side, next to Ruth, and I could tell from the way her lips was pressed together in a thin line that she did not like this game one bit! You could see she thought it was a low-down, mountain children’s game and that Mother May I was the game we all should be playing.
    Part of me had been itching to get into that game myself, but then I seen Miss Pittman’s