I ask my mom once why Mrs. Kohl signs the words of the songs for the deaf people in the congregation. If you can't hear the music or the notes, then it isn't really a song, is it? She thinks about this for a moment and says for me not to worry because she believes they can probably hear that organ music right through the soles of their feet. And later as she's washing up the dinner dishes that night, she tells me about Helen Keller, that little girl who was blind, deaf, and dumb. She says that girl knew Jesus himself even before her teacher was finally able to tell her his name with her hands.

The recess bell is blaring now.

One time before I had any friends here at Bigelow Elementary, I am laying on my back on the grassy knoll right beyond where the blacktop ends, looking at the clouds scrawled across the sky, wondering why that fat Mrs. Moore insists on calling me The Little Southern Girl. As if I don't have enough troubles already. I don't even hear the bell ringing across the playground to go inside, and all the kids and the teachers leave me out there until I finally remember myself and come straggling back in, shamefaced as Trent and Troy snigger and laugh and Mrs. Moore begins scribbling a letter for me to take home to my dad.

Last week I draw Laurie a picture of my grandparents' barn with a big cupola and a weathervane on top in between Sunday School Class and when Big Church begins. I draw her six horses in the meadow next to the trout pond, although I think I previously might have told her there were nine. I can't remember. Anyway, she claps here hands together, and her blue eyes sparkle, because she thinks I am something else. The words of the stories are strung between us like crisp white sheets, and they are billowing in the sunshine. Laurie teaches me the sign language word for friend.