The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder Read Online Free PDF Page A

now.”
    “No, please. Show us what you have.”
    “Okay,” she said. “Because y’all were so nice to me, y’all can try them on for two cents. I won’t charge you my normal price of a nickel. You get to view them for only two cents! A very big savings and bargain to y’all for one and only one day only.”
    She opened her turquoise purse, pulled out a handkerchief, and laid everything out on it. She told us that the bracelet the big girl was trying to get was truly a ceremony bracelet, found only on small islands far away.
    “The only reason that I even have it,” she said, “is because my father was a prince, but he died. He left my mother the jewels of his kingdom to show his love, and my mother allowed me to keep some as my very own.”
    “What’s your name?” I asked her.
    She rolled her eyes up. Her eyes were huge. You could skip rope inside them. “Sukey,” she said. “My name is Sukey.”
    “I have never heard that name before. Where does it come from?”
    “From a kingdom far away and long ago.”
    Renée was reaching back and straightening her ponytail, taking it in and out of its barrette, something she always does when she is nervous. “Renée, that’s not good for your hair,” I told her. “You’re going to break off that outside part and have short hairs all over your head.”
    “You sure act like you know a lot about hair,” Sukey said.
    “M’Dear—that’s my mother—is the beautician at the Crowning Glory Beauty Porch, and she knows everything there is to know about hair, that’s a known fact.” I reached out to touch Sukey’s shiny black hair, but she jumped away.
    “Sukey, what’s your last name? Where did you come from?” I asked. “Where do you go to school? Who are your parents? Why haven’t we ever met you before?”
    “You better stop asking me all those questions or I’ll take away my jewels and you’ll never see them again. Then I’ll hit you on the head.”
    Well, I figured she was bluffing, like Sonny Boy does when somebody tries to make him afraid. And besides, I was bigger than she was.
    “I was just asking ,” I told her.
    “My royal mother, whose name is Queen Sally, and me came here from another town, and we live in a very big castle over there.”
    She pointed in the direction of Pearl Street, toward the part of town where most of the Negroes live.
    “There’s no castle over there,” I said.
    Sukey started closing up her little turquoise pouch of jewels, and she began to cry real tears, not alligator fake ones.
    “Welcome to our town,” Renée said quickly, trying to distract her. “My name is Renée Jeansonne. I am in third grade at La Luna River School. My daddy is the pharmacist at the La Luna Drugstore. His name is Mister James Jeansonne, and my mother’s name is Mrs. Anita Jeansonne. I like welcoming new people such as you to town. We don’t get a lot.”
    Sukey looked at her like she was shocked that Renée was being so nice. All she could say was “Oh.”
    I felt so bad for asking Sukey all those questions when I should have been nice like Renée. So I told her, “I am Calla Lily Ponder. M’Dear’s name is Lenora Ponder, and my papa’s name is Will Senior, and they have Will and Lenora’s Swing ’N Sway Dance Studio. You can come and dance with us sometime.”
    “Well,” she said, “my name is Sukey Signette and my mother’s name is Sally, and we just moved here from Shreveport, and Hot Springs, Arkansas, before that, and Beaumont, Texas, before that. But La Luna is where Mama grew up. Where she and—um, well, he wasn’t my real father, but my mama’s first husband—they both grew up here.”
    “I guess that makes you a princess, huh?” I said. “But your real father was the prince, right?”
    Sukey started rubbing her face in her hands. “Kind of,” she said, so softly I could hardly hear her.
    “Well, we’re glad you came to live here with us,” Renée told her.
    “Okay,” Sukey said to Renée, and she