Two for Joy Read Online Free PDF Page B

been! We know what I need — more fun. We know what Jenna needs — more fun, and more of her mother.”
    I remembered the first family meeting rule. “Mom, now it’s your turn to talk.”
    Mom thought for a minute. “The same, I suppose. I need more fun. I need you and Tannie to forgive me for being so bossy lately. And, I guess — I guess I do need some help around here, too. There, I asked for help.”
    We all cleaned up after supper together, instead of Mom doing it all by herself.
    Butt paced around the floor, flipping his pretty tail around, begging for scraps.
    Tannie threw him a potato slice, and he ate it! Mom threw him a broccoli flower, and he ate it!
    Tannie joked, “Butt, are you a vegetarian as well as a pacifist?”
    Butt looked up at her and answered,
Meow.
    “Well, you learn something new every day.”
    We all laughed.

    We made our first pound cake together and then straightened up the house while it baked. Tannie and I sat in the dining room and folded clothes while Mom ran the vacuum. Butt hid behind the couch and pounced at Mom’s shoe when she came around the corner.
    When Tannie’s grandfather clock started its eight o’clock bedtime chimes, I kissed Tannie good night, and she told me, “Sleep sweet, little Phoebe!”
    Mom tucked Butt and me into my bed and read to us for a long, long time. She didn’t rush off to do chores or take care of Tannie. She cuddled up next to me and rested her eyes. We could hear Tannie downstairs playing a sleepy-sounding “Church Bells Do Chime” on the piano.
    “That sounds nice,” I said. Butt curled up by me and kneaded a just-right spot on my Sunbonnet Sue quilt. Mom whispered, “Tannie’s right, Jenna Phoebe: being a family is supposed to be fun.”
    I sat straight up. “I forgot something,” I blurted out.
    Mom reached for the lamp. Butt stood up, stretched his pretty paws, and swished his tail high in the air.
    “Sorry, Butt,” I said. “Will you hand me my Tannie List, Mama? And a pencil, too?”
    I unfolded the paper and reread one through six.
    I realized I had left out the most important one of all.
    Number 7: Remember to ask for help sometimes,
I wrote.
    “That’s better.” I gave the list and the pencil back to Mom. “I added seven for a secret never to be told.”
    She read my words and clutched the paper to her heart. “Not so secret anymore. I’ll make this my number seven, too! That way I won’t ever forget again.”
    Mom kissed my nose and turned out the light.
    The mama mockingbird perched outside my window decided my bedtime was just the right time for singing. I didn’t dream of Tannie or Butt or Mama. Or of roosters or chickens or soccer. I dreamed of fortune-telling crows and cedar waxwings, all loving and helping one another.

Dear Reader,
    I bet you have a special older person in your life. Your Nana or your Dado? Or another elder, who lives in your building or on your street? A wise friend once told me, “Elders are superheroes.” I agree! If elders are superheroes, that means they have superpowers, right?
    Just like Tannie in the book, my grandparents had the superpower of knowing all about birds. I first learned to identify backyard birds from my grandmothers, who often pointed out the flashy blue of a jay, the fiery red of a male cardinal, or the telltale tail-flick of a mockingbird. My granddaddy taught me to whistle the call of the quail: “Bob-white. Bob-bob white.” Even now, these birds remind me of my grandparents and of my childhood in Mississippi.
    Counting crows is a game that my father learned from his mother, and he taught me. The tradition actually started hundreds of years ago with a British nursery rhyme about magpies called “One for Sorrow.” Whenever I see a murder of crows (that’s what you call a bunch of crows hanging out together), I still count them the same way Jenna does.
    Crows, you may know, are very smart birds. They can use their beaks to hammer and crack. They form tight-knit