Sons from Afar Read Online Free PDF

had gone off on his bike twenty minutes earlier. James—looking around at the moist brown fields and the pale sky filled up with filmy clouds—regretted not having ridden his bike in to school.
    He crossed the road to stand next to Maybeth. She was dressed almost exactly like him, in jeans, shirt, and sweater, but you’d never mistake Maybeth for a boy. It wasn’t just her figure, although she had a really good figure. It was the way her hair curled around her head, too, the way her eyes looked at you, something about the way she held her shoulders and when she moved—feminine. “It’s warm,” James said to her.
    â€œYes,” she said, her mouth turned up in a not-quite smile, her hazel eyes peaceful.
    â€œYou okay for school today, and all?” James asked.
    She nodded. She’d tell him if there was something she didn’t understand, in math or English or science. Maybeth didn’t need any help in home ec—she got B’s in the course, her first B’s ever in school, and they’d probably have been A’s if there hadn’t been some written tests she had to take. Chorus, too, when she was in ninth grade next year and got grades in chorus, that would be an A, James was willing to bet. He was honestly glad there were things Maybeth was good at. She earned her C’s and D’s with hard work, and he never could see how she just kept on trying, working, not being discouraged by the grades. He couldn’t see how she did it, but he sure respected her for it.
    â€œThere’s a unit test in science on Thursday,” she told him.
    â€œWe’ll start on it tonight,” he assured her.
    The school bus lumbered around the big curve and drew up in front of them, filling the quiet morning with the noise of its engine and the smell of gasoline. They climbed on. Maybeth went to sit with friends, a bunch of girls who called down the length of the bus to her. James slid into an empty seat. As soon as his backside was settled on the stiff plastic, and his bookbag was at his feet, he felt the mix of dread and anticipation he couldn’t seem to get used to. He’d have to go to practice at the end of the day, for a couple of hours. There was no getting out of that. If itrained, they had chalk talks, where James couldn’t understand what the coach was saying and just sat there hoping nobody would ask him any questions, watching the clock tick the minutes away, trying to push the hands faster with his mind. But before the day ended in practice, it would begin with French. French was the only class he had with Celie Anderson.
    Mr. Norton had the twenty-four students in French II-A sit in alphabetical order, so James could watch Celie Anderson from the middle of the third row; he could start off each day with his eyes filled with Celie Anderson. He never got tired of looking at her. Her hair, which he had finally decided was mahogany-colored, was cut shoulder length and hung thick, straight, and heavy. When she moved her head, her hair brushed across her shoulders, brushed against her cheeks. She had dark eyebrows, with almost no curve to them, and dark eyelashes that set off her greenish eyes as perfectly as black velvet sets off diamonds. Her nose was straight, narrow, and just the right length. Her face was almost heart-shaped and her skin, whether creamy pale in the winter or tanned from summer sun, was smooth and clear. All the makeup she ever wore was just the faintest lipstick on her mouth. She didn’t need anything to make her look better. Celie Anderson almost always wore skirts, with a light blouse in warm weather, with sweaters for cold seasons. She wore fall colors, mostly, rusts and brown, gold, but she had one black turtleneck sweater that was James’s favorite. In her black turtleneck, she looked like a New York actress, dramatic, and full of passions. He thought Celie Anderson was about the same height as Maybeth, but they looked