Something hard hit the back of her head. Even with
her cottony black hair standing every which way, she felt
the blow. Her eyes stung with tears as the pan clattered to
the floor. She looked around to see Annie Cook’s empty
hands and satisfied sneer.
“Sassy lil’ heifer! You betta think twice fo’ you open
yo’ mout’ t’ Miss Maddie!”
The child blinked through blurry eyes and carefully
arranged the teapot and sugar bowl on the round silver tray.
Why did people around this house throw things? As
long as she could remember (in all her nine years), one or
the other person was always yelling at her, telling her to
move faster, or listen harder, or do better. Nobody ever
asked how she got the roses to grow taller than she was
(she talked to them), or how she knew to put what book at
Mistress’s bedside (she’d taught herself to read them), or if
she was too tired or too hungry to do anything (when she
always was both).
She knew she didn’t belong to these people—to the
mistress, who was unmarried and unmarriageable. The girl
had not belonged to the mistress’s sad, sickly mother or her
mean, rich father. There had been a brown houseboy, Jeff,
who was older than the old man, and more sour. The girl
remembered the way Jeff limped around on cold mornings,
his leg stiff and twisted from an old fracture that never
healed right. The young mistress had turned him out when
her father died. Jeff couldn’t stand females or children any-
way. And Annie Cook was always too busy cooking food,
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