Love, Ruby Lavender: Chapters 18–27

“It’s a wonder you two weren’t cut worse than this,” she mused, as she finished dabbing both girls with Mercurochrome.

“I need to go find her.”
“Wait for morning, honey. It’ll keep until morning. Bemmie is a resourceful old girl.”

Dove stifled a yawn.

She took the towel off her head and used it to rub her hair vigorously.

He was kneeling in his garden, digging for worms with a silver trowel.

Mr. Tolbert and I rushed up the street to Miss Eula Dapplevine’s abode, from whence the screams came, and found a disturbing scene: glass broken around the greenhouse, definitely a destructive act in our quiet town, and two distraught girls, Ruby Lavender and—visiting for the summer—Miss Helen Dove Ishee, niece of Halleluia School’s new fourth-grade teacher, Ferrell Ishee.

Mr. Tolbert and I rushed up the street to Miss Eula Dapplevine’s abode, from whence the screams came, and found a disturbing scene: glass broken around the greenhouse, definitely a destructive act in our quiet town, and two distraught girls, Ruby Lavender and—visiting for the summer—Miss Helen Dove Ishee, niece of Halleluia School’s new fourth-grade teacher, Ferrell Ishee.

Mr. Tolbert and I rushed up the street to Miss Eula Dapplevine’s abode, from whence the screams came, and found a disturbing scene: glass broken around the greenhouse, definitely a destructive act in our quiet town, and two distraught girls, Ruby Lavender and—visiting for the summer—Miss Helen Dove Ishee, niece of Halleluia School’s new fourth-grade teacher, Ferrell Ishee.

As it turns out, this fiasco comes on the heels of another equally disturbing incident, in which Melba Jane Latham, daughter of Leila and the late Lionel Latham, was doused with a can of peacock-blue paint after being scared out of her wits by a chicken owned by Ruby Lavender.

As it turns out, this fiasco comes on the heels of another equally disturbing incident, in which Melba Jane Latham, daughter of Leila and the late Lionel Latham, was doused with a can of peacock-blue paint after being scared out of her wits by a chicken owned by Ruby Lavender.

The upshot is twofold: (1) that there has been death and destruction at the Pink Palace, as two chicks in the greenhouse died from falling out of the nest before hatching as a result of alleged rock throwing by Melba Jane Latham in retaliation for (2) the death of Melba Jane’s acting career due to having her hair cut off at the roots, because of its irreversible blueness.

The upshot is twofold: (1) that there has been death and destruction at the Pink Palace, as two chicks in the greenhouse died from falling out of the nest before hatching as a result of alleged rock throwing by Melba Jane Latham in retaliation for (2) the death of Melba Jane’s acting career due to having her hair cut off at the roots, because of its irreversible blueness.

She and Herman have been sneaking out to meet each other at night. They are having what Miss Mattie calls “a clandestine romance.”

l am flabbergasted! I am stupefied with joy! Bemmie has laid an EGG??

l am flabbergasted! I am stupefied with joy! Bemmie has laid an EGG??

Of course, Herman seems to be sweet on just about anybody. Somebody's going to have to talk to that man. He has no decorum.

The cicadas shrilled from the trees.

A feeling of weariness took over, and Ruby leaned against the bridge, her stomach folding into itself along the rail.

Miss Mattie stopped mixing the paint and said she knew her brother and that he had never for a minute entertained the notion of staying in Raleigh overnight, that he had never spent a night away from Miss Eula and he wasn’t about to start that night.

Ruby’s face flushed and her throat was on fire.

She walked down the porch steps and into the sultry August night.

Ahead she could see the lights of the schoolhouse, like a beacon in the gathering dark.

Her five other children were sprawled all over the aisle and hanging off seats on the edges of the rows.

She was holding an oaken bucket, swinging it at her side and taking small, measured steps toward the front of the stage, where there was a crudely constructed well. It leaned to the right, and Ruby thought it might fall over if someone touched it.

The branches were laden with bright red apples that were fixed onto the branches with chicken wire.

Melba began her soliloquy. She spoke in a voice loud enough to peel paint. "How dear to my heart—dear dear dear to my heart—are the scenes of my childhood! Oh! How dear!”

A piece of chicken wire snagged at her long black wig.

Apples fell to the stage, plop! plop! plop!—and as Melba Jane stopped her whirl, the apple tree wore a shiny black wig and Melba Jane Latham stood on the schoolhouse stage in front of the town of Halleluia, little wisps of hair on a bluish scalp, practically bald.

“I remember the days when...” She faltered. Her eyes filled with tears. She stood there. Motionless.

Ruby realized, with a crazy rush of bravado, that she was standing in front of the entire town of Halleluia, Mississippi, next to Melba Jane Latham, who was practically bald and totally mute.

Ruby hooked her arm in Melba’s and danced her off the stage. Melba let herself be escorted.

Your public wants to bestow accolades upon you!

Your public wants to bestow accolades upon you!

Rosebud clucked and strutted behind her in the moonlit dark, stopping to investigate every bug and bit of dust.

So I bustled myself over there and watched from the shadows.