Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia Page B

one asked me anything. Vonetta didn’t say a word about it, but Fern went to Big Ma to ask why Pa and Mrs. needed to have a baby. Big Ma said, “Never you mind. That’s your father and his wife’s business,” and then she sent Fern out to the coop with a pan of chicken feed. Fern mistook the chickens clamoring about her for their need to talk, so whatever she had to say about the new baby she said to the chickens.
    There was nothing I could do to stop Miss Trotter from telling her history to Vonetta, or to stop Vonetta from telling Ma Charles. Even when Miss Trotter got the best of Ma Charles there was a gleam in Ma Charles’s eyes when Vonetta “repaid” her with Miss Trotter’s words. One sister said her father knew every flower, leaf, and root, while the other said he never messed with that stuff, but instead went to the colored doctor and dentist in town and bought penny candy for her. They might as well still be in Miss Rice’s classroom pulling each other’s pigtails.
    The dueling between the two sisters went on and on, from one side of the creek and, thanks to Vonetta, back over to the other side of the creek. It seemed the sisters shared their father equally but they were determined to prove which one was the right and true daughter of Slim Jim Trotter. Vonetta was sure to soak up every word, every expression, to reenact later.
    Miss Trotter began the latest round of family history and pigtail-pulling. “So, you see, dear one,” she said sweetly, “it was her mama’s fault the law went looking for my father on the charge of bigamy.”
    Fern’s eyes popped when she heard the new word. Bigamy . I’d have to tell her later it wasn’t the singsong word she might have imagined.
    â€œFound him and jailed him. Took his government workpapers. They were going to send him to the Creek Nation in Oklahoma. State capital is Oklahoma City.” She threw that one in like she was back in Miss Rice’s classroom. “Send him back to the reservation. But first there would be a trial at the courthouse in town.” She stopped to chuckle. “What they didn’t know was my father walked between worlds. No jail could hold him. And he became a crow and flew between the bars and flew to me and became himself and said, ‘Chickweed’—that’s what he called me. ‘Chickweed.’” Vonetta nodded like Miss Trotter did. “‘Papa’s gotta fly away. But I’ll come back to you, my chickweed. I’ll come back.’”
    When we asked Miss Trotter if he came back she said no, and Vonetta matched her sorrow when she retold it to Ma Charles. “Never did.”
    â€œHmp,” Ma Charles said at the end of Vonetta’s retelling. “Is that what she told you? Hmp.”
    â€œMa, don’t start,” Big Ma said.
    Ma Charles waved her away. “Hush, girl. If someone tells it, I’ll tell it. I have a right.”
    â€œRight on,” Fern said.
    â€œThat’s right,” Ma Charles agreed. “Now hear this—especially you,” she said to Little Miss Ethel Waters. “My father was a God-fearing colored man. He didn’t turn into a crow like some demon. No sir!”
    â€œMa, please,” our grandmother pleaded, but Ma Charles was determined to tell her family history, so Big Ma’spleas turned to anger. “This is your doing,” Big Ma said to Vonetta. To me she said, “And you keep bringing them over the creek.”
    I shrugged. “Nothing to do here. So we help milk the cows.”
    â€œNothing to do?” Big Ma repeated. “Is that so? Well, I thought I’d let you have the vacation your Pa and stepmother wanted for you. There’s plenty of ironing if you’re bored. Teach you what wash day is all about.”
    But Ma Charles wanted her say and told our grandmother to hush and gave her side of the story.
    â€œMy papa didn’t turn