Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper

father beamed. Stella tried not to show how satisfied she felt.
    â€œSo what?” Mr. Pineville smirked, seemingly unimpressed. “I’ve seen a trained monkey that can count to three!”
    â€œMy daughter is not an animal, sir,” her father said sharply.
    â€œYou watch your tone, boy, or I’ll throw all of y’all out of here,” Mr. Pineville warned. He pulled three sheets of paper from the pile in front of him. “Answer these questions. You got fifteen minutes. And don’t be gettin’ any answers from your pet monkey!” He leaned back and laughed.
    Stella swallowed hard. She’d never been called an animal before. She certainly wasn’t going to let that man make her cry, however, so she focused on her father’sbushy eyebrows, so like her own. She bit her lip and stared at those eyebrows, and those brown eyes beneath them that looked at her with such love and assurance. I am a stone. I am a stone, she thought fiercely.
    The heat had risen on her father’s face as well, but Pastor Patton firmly guided him to a counter on the far wall before he could respond. There was nothing to write with at the counter.
    Mr. Spencer dug into his pants pocket and pulled out three pencils. “I come prepared,” he said with a shrug.
    Stella leaned over and read some of the questions as her father went through the test.
    1. Name the attorney general of the United States.
    2. What is a tribunal?
    3. What is a treaty?
    4. What officer is designated by the Constitution to be president of the Senate of the United States?
    5. Write the preamble of the Constitution of the United States.
    While the three men wrote their answers, two others, white men, sauntered into the office. “Hey,Amherst,” the tall, skinny one said. Stella recognized him. He was one of those fellows who was always sitting on the benches outside the general store in Bumblebee, playing checkers or sleeping. He liked to yell at her and her classmates as they left the candy store, sometimes calling them names.
    â€œWell, if it ain’t Johnny Ray Johnson! What y’all up to?”
    â€œMe and Maxwell Smitherman here come to sign up to vote.”
    Stella tried not to stare. Mr. Smitherman! He was a foreman at the mill. She took in his patent-leather shoes and his gold pinkie ring. So this was the man her father’s friends complained about—his unfairness and downright meanness. Why, he was the one who made Mr. Winston, who had showed up one minute late to work one day, take a load of logs out of a wagon and carry them on his back instead. It had taken him long past midnight to finish. None of the other men had been allowed to help.
    â€œThat’s my job,” Mr. Pineville was saying amiably. “Just sign your name on this here form, and you’re all set!”
    â€œThat’s it?” asked the man called Maxwell.
    â€œThat’s it. Just sign on this here line, and I’ll see you on Election Day.”
    Stella’s father instantly shot an angry look in Mr. Pineville’s direction. The pastor frowned at him, and he returned to the test reluctantly.
    But the man named Johnny Ray was now staring at them . “What you got goin’ here this morning—coon school?” he asked.
    Mr. Pineville and Mr. Smitherman laughed. “Naw, they think they gonna vote next month. They takin’ the test.”
    â€œYou ever have one of ’em pass it?” Mr. Johnson asked.
    Mr. Pineville guffawed. “Most of the time they too stupid to write their names.”
    Maxwell Smitherman strolled over and poked Mr. Spencer in the side. “Ain’t you s’posed to be over at the mill sweepin’ up, boy?”
    Mr. Spencer raised his chin. “I took the morning without pay, sir,” he managed to say. “I aim to work overtime tonight to make up for it.”
    Smitherman snarled, “Don’t plan for any pay for the rest of the