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“ May I?” her mother corrected.

“ May. I. Help!” Georgeanne sang as she bounded ahead. She knew her mother would say yes. Her mother liked it when she did boy things.

“Yes,” said Adele. “You may.” George leaped up and spun in the air. If she’d had on a dress, it would have belled out and swirled around her knees in the prettiest way. But the happy note in her mother’s voice was nearly as satisfying.

Her mother had seemed glum down by the creek.

George was scared of crawdads, with their shiny beetley bodies and their claws.

“Much too small to hurt you,” said Adele.

“You’d barely feel a pinch.” Why would she want to feel any pinch at all?

Why would she want to get her feet muddy wading around in the creek hunting for the things in the first place?

“They’re good eating,” said Adele. “If you can get enough of them.” George fervently hoped they never would.

The truck was also shiny and beetley, yet far less scary than a crawdad. George had gotten a glimpse of its insides the week before, and she was eager to see them again.

Her mother was always taking things apart, then putting them back together.

The kitchen table, much to the cook’s dismay, was regularly spread with gears and belts and hardware, lined up just so atop a layer of newspaper.

“Don’t touch,” said Adele whenever George approached the table.

She’d clasp her hands behind her back and study the pieces.

It was like looking at a puzzle. Sometimes she could guess which ones fit together; sometimes she couldn’t. Her mother always knew.

“I’m afraid we’re not doing anything very exciting today,” Adele said when they entered the garage.

“We’ll start with the tires.” She held up the tire gauge, round like a clock with a little nozzle poking out of its side.

She twisted the nozzle onto another thingy that stuck out of the tire (“A valve,” said Adele), then tapped the face of the gauge. “What’s that number?”

“Thirty,” said George. She could count all the way to one hundred now. Miss Parry claimed that if you could count to one hundred, you could count all the way to one thousand, but George hadn’t tried it yet.

“Very good. Thirty. Now see these ticks between thirty and forty?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Each tick stands for a number. Thirty-one, thirty-two, all the way to ...”

“Forty!”

“That’s right. What tick is the needle on?”

“Thirty ...” George counted twice. It was important to get this right. “... four?”

“That’s right. Thirty-four. And that’s good. We want every tire to be at thirty-two or more—but not too much more. Thirty-four is just fine.”

George was allowed to check the other tires herself and call out the numbers to her mother.

She was allowed to empty the dirty gas from the sediment bulb and to help top off the oil.

She was allowed to stand on an upturned apple crate and watch her mother point out the cam shaft, the fan belt, and the cylinders.

She was allowed to touch anything she wanted to touch.

“Wait till I tell Helen,” she said as they put away the tools.

“Hmm,” said Adele. “Let’s wash up and go see what your father’s up to.”

Her mother didn’t seem to like Helen. She kept suggesting that George play with the boys instead. That she run around and stretch her legs and fill her lungs during recess. Which showed how little her mother knew about school. George had begun to wonder if she might be wrong about other things too.

Before starting school, George hadn’t spent much time with children other than her cousins.

Aunt Pauline’s boys were older and mostly ignored her.

Uncle John’s kids were her age or younger and wanted her to help muck out stalls and tend livestock.

George was about as interested in cattle as she was in crawdads.

Her first morning at school, she’d stood frozen in the schoolyard, overwhelmed by the mass of children chattering and whooping and swirling past her.

It was a relief when Miss Parry rang the bell, and they all shushed and filed inside.

It took most of the morning for her heart to stop thudding, and she only half listened to Miss Parry.

Mostly she stared at the head of the boy sitting in front of her.

His hair dripped with so much pomade that it darkened his collar.

Many of her classmates knew each other already.

After lunch they clustered in groups behind the schoolhouse.

George and a few stragglers circled the clusters, sizing them up, seeking out gaps they might step into.

George was just getting up the nerve to edge up to a knot of girls when the pomade boy, a straggler like herself, darted up to her and shouted, “Your mother wears pants!” then darted away again.

This was baffling. George wore pants herself most of the time at home.

Her mother had even asked whether she wanted to wear them to school, but something in her granny’s face made George say, “No, thank you. I’d like to wear a dress.

” As soon as she entered the schoolyard, she knew she’d chosen correctly.

The straggler who yelled at her joined a group of boys, who all turned and taunted her. “Pants! Pants! Your mother wears pants!”

The girls gawped. One of them cackled, and the others joined in. George’s ears burned. Her throat got thick and tight, the way it did when she was about to cry.

She turned and ran. She was a fast runner. Faster than every one of those girls, and most of the boys, too, she’d bet. She raced around the corner of the building.

The yard in front of the schoolhouse belonged to the older kids.

Big girls—George guessed they were ten or twelve years old—stood in their own circles.

Older boys played catch nearby. None of them spared her a glance.

She felt ... not exactly safe, but invisible, which came close.

Keeping her eyes on the ground, she slowed to a stroll, pretended to hunt for something in the weeds.

As she passed a clump of bushes, she heard snuffling.

She peered into the thicket, and there, deep inside, crouched a girl her own age.

The girl’s nose ran with snot; her cheeks were red and wet with tears.

She pressed her hands tight across her forehead, as if she had a headache.

“Hey,” said George, easing between the branches. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

The girl startled and dropped her hands to her sides. The pale-blond hair just above her forehead had been sheared to an uneven bristly patch that stuck straight up from her scalp like a boot brush.

“Oh!” said George. The girl cried harder.

George crept closer to her. “Hey, don’t cry. Maybe we can paste it down with some water.”

“I already tri-i-ied that,” sobbed the girl. “It just pops back up.”

George crept close enough to reach out a hand. She wanted to touch the top of the bristles. The girl jerked away. “Just let me see. I can’t make it any worse.” She licked her palm and slicked back the bristles, but they did indeed pop right back up. She slicked them forward. They popped up again.

“See!” she wailed. This girl wasn’t afraid of being called a crybaby. George scooted closer.

“I’m Georgeanne. What’s your name?”

“Helen.”

She put her arms around Helen and squeezed.

“It’s going to be all right, Helen. There, there, now.

There, there.” This was what Adele did whenever George got upset about something.

It seemed to work on Helen too. She quieted down.

George loosened her hold, but Helen put her hands on George’s arms and said, “A little more. Please?”

“Sure.”

Helen’s breath slowed as George hugged her, and after a bit her shoulders went slack. George loosened her hold again, and Helen allowed it this time. She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve.

“What happened?” asked George.

“My little brother got hold of the scissors and snuck up behind me yesterday. Mama tanned him—he could have put out my eye! I almost wish he had. Then she would have had to let me stay home. You got any little brothers at your house?”

“Nope.” She had asked, more than once, for a little sister and had been told no. The answer hadn’t changed when she’d said a brother would be fine too.

“Well, lucky you. I’ve got two, and I hope I never get another.” Helen swiped at the bristles. “What am I going to do?”

“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” said George.

She pushed out of the bushes and ran to the back of the schoolhouse.

The boys were playing mumblety-peg in the shade.

She saw the one she wanted—his head gleamed in the sun.

“Hey, you!” she shouted. “Hey, Pomade Boy!” He flinched, and the other boys hooted. Then they sang out, “Hey, Pomade Boy!”

This time she darted up to him. “What’d you do?

Use the whole jar?” He stiffened and blinked furiously, fighting tears.

Serves him right, she thought as she swiped her hand across the top of his head, raking his hair with her fingers to get as much of the goop as she could.

“Yuck!” she shouted. Then she ran off before anyone could start up again about Adele wearing pants.

Back in the thicket, she crouched next to Helen.

“If this isn’t enough, I know where we can get more,” she said as she plastered down the bristles.

Maybe half of them stayed flat, so her hair didn’t look all that much better.

But when Miss Parry rang the bell, Helen marched back into the schoolroom with her head high.

After a few weeks, Helen’s bristles grew into bangs and the taunting about George’s mother wearing pants died down. The boys left the two of them alone, and the other girls allowed them into their circle.