P.S. Be Eleven Read Online Free PDF

I’ll say that.”
    My appetite never did catch up to me, although my sisters’ spoons dived happily into their ’nana pudding. I got up and took a few dishes into the kitchen to wash. My Timex was waterproof, but I laid it on the counter while Vonetta and Fern fought over my untouched dessert.

P.S. Be Eleven
    It took one week and one day before we heard from Cecile. Leave it to our mother to make her own postcard. As grand and sturdy as a birthday card.
    Big Ma got it first, along with the rest of the mail. I stopped dusting when she hollered, “What in the world?” I was all eyes and ears; my heart was skipping rope. Cecile’s movable-type letters were bold enough to be seen from down the hall. I sped into the living room where Big Ma sat, going through the mail.
    â€œIs that for us?” I asked.
    She was reading it. Cecile’s card. I couldn’t tell if she had scrunched up her face from reading what Cecile had written or from turning up her nose at Cecile’s movable-typeletters in red, black, and green. She read the card and gave a “Hmph.” Instead of handing it to me, Big Ma dropped the postcard on the table like it was nothing. “Come get it if you want it.”
    You’d think I’d be angry that Big Ma violated our right to privacy and read our postcard. All the rights my sisters and I had been filled with only existed at the People’s Center or out of the mouths of Black Panthers. We were back on Herkimer Street under Big Ma, and we had to keep most of what we learned in Oakland to ourselves.
    I yelled, “Vonetta! Fern!” They raced into the living room. “Guess what came!” I held up the postcard so they could see the lettering.
    They shouted, “Cecile!” and a lot of “Lemme sees.” I handed the card over to Vonetta, who did the honors and read the poem out loud in her poetry-reciting voice. While Vonetta recited, Fern did the dance that told of the summer leaves falling into color, falling away and then breaking through spring branches. Fern twirled to the part about leaves always coming back but in different shades. Then she went spring-leafy crazy on the buds-breaking-through-branches part, and Vonetta had to join her.
    Big Ma called it beatnik nonsense.
    Vonetta cleared her voice to make it deeper and readthe letter part in her Cecile voice:
    â€œâ€˜Dear Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern . . . ,’”
    â€œShe said ‘Fern’!” Fern squealed.
    â€œLittle Girl,” Vonetta kept it up in her Cecile voice, “I am blowing dust off your mind. Do not interrupt the great Nzila.” She cleared her throat and went on. It was all a funny joke to us that Big Ma didn’t get, and for a moment my grandmother not liking my mother hurt like a dull toothache.
    I’m glad you’re all safe .
    Everyone here says hello .
    Write back if you want to .
    Your Mother .
    Cecile .
    â€œI’m going to write,” I said.
    â€œMe too,” Fern said.
    â€œOkay. Me too,” Vonetta said in her own voice. “If you’re writing, I’m writing.”
    Vonetta and Fern fussed over the card until they almost tore it, so I took it away.
    â€œEveryone in Oakland said hello,” I said. “At least they haven’t forgotten us.”
    Vonetta fluttered her eyelashes and said, “You mean, at least Hirohito hasn’t forgotten you.”
    â€œHurraheeto? Hurraheeto?” Big Ma asked. “What’s a Hurraheeto?”
    â€œDelphine’s boyfriend,” Vonetta said.
    â€œOnly ten and starting this mess already,” Big Ma said. “A mercy.”
    â€œHe’s not my boyfriend,” I said, but he was the closest person to a boyfriend I’d ever had. Besides my father and Uncle D. “And I’m eleven.”
    â€œTen. ’Leven. Same difference,” Big Ma said. “And what kind of ooga-mooga name is Hurraheeto?”
    â€œIt’s