Stella by Starlight Read Online Free PDF Page A

got up the nerve to ask her something she’d always wondered about. “How’s school?”
    What Stella really wanted to know was what the rooms looked like—the books, the desks, even the pictures the Mountain View teachers posted on their walls. She would love to have just a teeny peek inside Thelma’s classroom.
    But Thelma just shrugged. “Grumpy teachers. Lots of reading and reciting. Basically boring. How about yours?”
    Stella couldn’t understand how school could ever be boring. “It’s not bad,” was all she told Thelma. Butshe wondered if white kids ever had trouble figuring out writing and reading stuff.
    Barbara Osterman, the daughter of the mill owner, must have been listening, because she stepped close and said in a low voice, “I don’t get why we gotta go to different schools anyway. Seems kinda stupid to me.”
    Stella agreed 100 percent, but she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to say that to a white child. She glanced down to pick at the bubble-gum wrapper in her hand.
    A tall, thin white boy whom Stella knew only as Kenneth leaned over and whispered to Thelma, “School together? Ha! We don’t go to school with them because we don’t have to.” Stella kept her eyes on the Bazooka as Kenneth went on. “They’ll never amount to anything. My daddy says if they learn to cook and sew and clean, that’s all they’ll need. Hey, can I have some of them Zagnuts?”
    Stella wanted to call him a Zagnut, or a Dum Dum, or a word that was not a candy, but a curse. Instead she gritted her teeth and looked away to notice that Paulette was slipping out the door. Without her classmates. For a moment Stella wondered if Paulette wasuncomfortable with what Kenneth was saying, but she quickly realized that wasn’t it. Through the front window she saw Paulette’s father on his sleek black stallion, reining in the horse. Paulette hurried to greet him. She held her hand out, and her father smiled and placed a bill in it.
    Randy, who’d joined Stella by the window, grabbed her elbow. “Did you see that?” he exclaimed as Paulette tucked the money into her purse and headed across the street to her school. Her father rode off in the other direction, breaking into a full gallop.
    â€œFive dollars!” Stella breathed. “I’ve never had that much money in my life.” But her mind was churning. Dr. Packard’s saddle was shiny black. And it was decorated with silver studs that glinted in the sunlight, that would have glimmered in the moonlight. . . .
    â€œAll right, young ones,” Mrs. Cooper called out, interrupting her thoughts. “I don’t want the teachers getting angry at me because you were late for school again. You may each take one Hershey’s Kiss as you leave.”
    As the children from Riverside School and thechildren from Mountain View School filed out of the store, each grabbing one silver-wrapped chocolate from Mrs. Cooper’s basket, it struck Stella that everyone got the same thing, no matter which school they went to.

7
Piano Frogs
    Mrs. Grayson, as they had predicted, was in the doorway waiting for them as they arrived. They were late.
    â€œIs she mad?” Hugh asked, ducking behind his brother.
    â€œNot enough to use the paddle, I don’t think,” Herbert replied.
    Stella thought she saw a hint of a smile cross the teacher’s lips as they scooted past her to their desks. Grades one to eleven, about thirty-five students altogether, sat in one room. There was no twelfth grade—students got a diploma and could go to college when they finished eleventh. Stella remembered how proud folks had been last year when Liza Twitty had left for college in Atlanta.
    The potbellied stove was already stoked with logs the older students chopped each afternoon. The wooden desks of the younger children sat closest to it, but the whole room felt toasty.
    Stella