The Littlest Bigfoot

The Littlest Bigfoot by Jennifer Weiner

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Authors: Jennifer Weiner
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permitted precisely an hour of reconnaissance in the morning. After that, Teacher Greenleaf, who was almost as old as Old Aunt Yetta but considerably less indulgent, would call her into class. Millie would scramble down her tree and go to her lessons in the dim little school-burrow, which, like most Yare dwellings, was half underground. When her school day was over, she’d visit Old Aunt Yetta’s, where, as part of her Tribe Leader training, she was studying herb lore.
    â€œGinger,” Old Aunt Yetta said, on a rainy afternoon in October. Millie picked up the gnarled beige-colored root.
    â€œFor nausea, morning sickness, and . . .” Millie paused, thinking.
    â€œYou should know this,” Old Aunt Yetta chided.
    â€œDigestion?”
    Aunt Yetta nodded, then named another herb. “Black cohosh.”
    Millie selected a thin branch covered with frilly white blossoms and tiny, round green pods. “Cramps and bone-fret.”
    â€œTincture or tea?”
    â€œUmm . . .”
    Old Aunt Yetta sighed. “Nyeh. Smart as you are, you can’t do better than this? What will you be doing when I’m gone?”
    I’ll be gone too, Millie thought. She’d find a way to shed her fur and keep it from coming back. She was sure it could be done. She’d leave the forest and find her real Tribe. She would . . .
    â€œMillie.” After all these years, Old Aunt Yetta knew exactly what Millie was thinking. Shaking her head, she set out a small snackle; the crumbly, sweet whole-wheat biscuits that she knew were Millie’s favorites; a wheel of goat cheese made from the milk of her own goat, Esmerelda; and a jar of lavender honey. She piled onscones made with chives she’d snipped from her garden; heavy clotted cream; small, sweet apples; dried cherries; and a fun-size Snickers bar as a treat. Like the rest of the Tribe, Old Aunt Yetta was forever trying to fatten Millie up, always keeping a cookie or a sweet in her pocket, putting extra sugar into Millie’s tea, extra butter on her bread, and cream on top of her morning oats.
    That afternoon Aunt Yetta stuck a small candle into the middle of a seed cake. “Happy Name-Night to you, happy Name-Night to you,” she warbled in her off-key, scratchy voice. “I know it isn’t until tonight, but I wanted to be wishing you the best.” Old Aunt Yetta set a wrapped rectangular box with a bow on top beside Millie’s plate. “For when you’re done.”
    The Yare didn’t celebrate birthdays. Instead, they honored the seventh day after a baby was born, when the little one received a name. Millie’s real name was Millietta, but she’d always been called Millie—or Little Bit or Smallfoot (which was a kind of joke about how the No-Furs called the Tribe Bigfoots), or Little Silver, because of her fur.
    Millie smiled and clapped. “Thank you.”
    â€œNyebbeh,” said Aunt Yetta, which, in that instance, meant, “You’re welcome, even though I am still a little upset with you.”
    Millie tucked in, Old Aunt Yetta watching with approval. “Didn’t you eat your snackle at school?”
    Millie shrugged. The truth was, she’d been thinking so much about the noise and bustle across the lake that she’d barely remembered to nibble the cheese and crackers Teacher Greenleaf had served.
    â€œWere you daydreaming?” asked Old Aunt Yetta, who was familiar with all of Millie’s bad habits.
    Millie sighed. “In a No-Fur book I am reading, I learned about elections. Do you know that the No-Furs pick their Leaders, and it doesn’t even matter much what clan they are from?”
    â€œWhat are they calling their Leaders?”
    Millie crunched a bite of apple. “Presiment?”
    â€œPresident,” Old Aunt Yetta corrected her.
    â€œThe name is not mattering,” said Millie. “You could be anyone, from any clan! As long

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