Leaving Atlanta Read Online Free PDF Page A

into the mouthpiece as if she thought that she had to talk loud enough for
     him to hear her, wherever he was. “Daddy, can you come back? Somebody is getting the childrens!”
    Tasha shook her head. Whenever DeShaun got scared, mad, or even really happy, she started talking like a baby. Her voice got
     all high, and she messed up even simple words.
    Tasha didn’t know exactly what Daddy said to Shaun, but she figured that it was something like he would not be coming home
     right that instant, because DeShaun knocked the can from the table to the floor. Thick syrup and orange peaches landed on
     the yellow linoleum and were smashed under Mama’s shoes as she sprang to take the phone from DeShaun, who was begging her
     daddy to come back and save them. “I’ll call you back,” Mama said into the phone and hung up.
    They slept with Mama that night. She had invited them after they followed her around the house all evening, not wanting to
     be left in a room without her protective adult presence. Sometimes Tasha would feel better if DeShaun was in the room too.
     But today, when she thought about going to her room with her little sister and listening to the record player, she realized
     that being in a room with DeShaun was just about the same as being alone. If something scary happened, what would DeShaun
     do? Probably run to Tasha expecting her to be the one to save the day, since she was the oldest and everything.
    Mama stepped on DeShaun twice while trying to fix the curtain rod in the den.
    “DeShaun, baby,” Mama had said, “don’t stand up under me like that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
    And DeShaun had balled her face up and cried. Mama got on her knees so they would be about the same height and hugged her
     little daughter, who stopped crying enough to say, “Scared.”
    Tasha was frightened too, but she didn’t want to cry about it. As a matter of fact, she wished DeShaun would shut up. They
     wouldn’t be able to hear it if an intruder knocked in the front door with a sledgehammer. No, they would not be aware of a
     single thing until the man came to take them away.
    “Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?” Mama asked.
    DeShaun nodded.
    “What about you, Miss Lady?”
    “Okay,” Tasha said, relieved. “If you want me to.”
    At bedtime, Tasha lay on her father’s side of the bed, awake while DeShaun and her mother dreamed. Tonight was different from
     the other nights she and her sister had gotten themselves so frightened that they were allowed to sleep in their parents’
     big bed. Last June, there had been a ferocious thunderstorm. A power line had been hit and the Snoopy night-light had gone
     dark.
    “Mama!” DeShaun had called.
    “Come on in here,” Daddy had said, sounding sleepy but like he was laughing. Tasha had thought she heard Mama giggle.
    The girls had crawled into the bed between them and slept breathing in Mama’s gardenia talc and Daddy’s Old Spice underarm
     deodorant.
    Tasha remembered the thunderstorm night. Her parents on each side of the bed provided a barrier between them and—what? Not
     the thunder; it boomed away, oblivious to their sleeping arrangements. And she hadn’t been scared of thunder. It was only
     a sound. She had been startled, but not scared. So when had she ever truly been afraid? After watching a movie about a swamp-monster,
     she had trouble sleeping for weeks. But what exactly had she been afraid of? That a swamp-monster would come into her room?
     She
had
opened her eyes at the slightest sound, expecting to be face-to-face with the gooey green beast. But if the monster did in
     fact come into her bedroom, what would it do that was so scary? In the movie, the swamp-monster had the white girl in his
     arms and was heading back toward the muck and the white girl was crying
Help!
Then her boyfriend came and shot the monster with a bow and arrow and kissed the girl. The movie didn’t really show what
     the monster was going to do with the girl