Glory BE by Augusta Scattergood
Readers Theater
(Narrator)
That night after supper, our daddy, Brother Joe Hemphill, head preacher of the First Fellowship United Church, took his second dish of cherry cobbler to the front porch to practice his sermons for preaching on Wednesday night and next Sunday morning. Emma was nowhere to be seen. And it looked to me like Jesslyn was up to no good.
(Glory)
Why’d you do those dishes all by yourself? Where’s Emma?
(Jesslyn)
Emma went home early.
(Narrator)
Jesslyn wiped her hands on the dish towel, slipped the pearl ring that used to be our mama’s back on her finger, then turned around and gave me one of her looks.
(Glory)
What for? Emma never goes home early.
(Jesslyn)
Something about company at her house. I wanted to help out.
(Narrator)
If Emma had been standing in our kitchen right then, she would have been telling me, “Gloriana June Hemphill, you are too nosy for your own good.” Even though Emma might call it snooping, I didn’t believe Jesslyn would be washing and drying those dishes for the pure D. niceness of it. I had to be nosy.
(Narrator)
Jesslyn pranced upstairs to our room. I followed her. While she primped in front of the mirror, I reached under my bed for my secret shoe box of treasures. Shells from the times we visited our grandma in Florida, two Jesus bookmarks I’d won at Vacation Bible School, a bag of collected bottle caps, ten copper pennies, wax lips. My new Rock City postcard. I’d saved it all to bet with.
(Glory)
Wanna play Junk Poker?
(Jesslyn)
I’ve got better things to do. Besides, I dumped my shoe box out.
(Glory)
What’d you do that for? You made up Junk Poker when we were little, before I could hardly count to twenty-one and beat you. Now that I’m getting good and winning all your junk away from you, you don’t want to play with me?
(Narrator)
Jesslyn smiled into her mirror, dug through the mess of lipsticks and bobby pins on her dresser, and pretended I wasn’t in the room.
(Glory)
Why’re you getting so dressed up?
(Jesslyn)
Mind your own business, Glory.
(Narrator)
She flipped up the curl of her hair and painted on Persian Melon lipstick. I untied the purple bow on my Buster Brown shoe box and lined up my Junk Poker treasures on the bumpy chenille bedspread.
(Narrator)
Jesslyn smeared Vaseline on her eyebrows, a trick she learned from her stuck-up pep squad friends. Says when they march up and down the football field, shiny eyebrows give them “a movie star look.” I blew on my Cracker Jack whistle.
(Glory)
Where’re you going?
(Jesslyn)
If you must know, to the library with Mary Louise. To plan her birthday party.
(Glory)
Sure are getting fixed up for the library.
(Narrator)
I held a shell up to my ear, pretending to listen to the ocean, biting my lip thinking about how Jesslyn didn’t care one bit about my birthday.
Our daddy knocked real quiet on our bedroom door. I stuffed my treasures in my shoe box quick.
(Daddy)
Everything okay, girls?
(Narrator)
He never was one for much talk unless he was in front of pews full of people waiting for the Good Word.
(Jesslyn)
Daddy, now that I’m going to high school, I’m too old to be sharing a room with Glory. She’s bothersome. And messy. I want Mama’s old sewing room.
(Narrator)
Last summer when the ceiling fan stirred up the heat, Jesslyn and me had pushed our beds close together. During the night we kicked off our sheets and flipped our pillows to the cool side. Finally we gave up on sleep, pulled out our secret shoe boxes, and played cards. Now here she was tossing out all her junk for our game and wanting to move to the sewing room!
(Glory)
I’m not messy.
(Narrator)
I straightened the perfect spines of my Nancy Drew books standing like soldiers on my shelf.
(Glory)
Look at Jesslyn’s stuff.
(Jesslyn)
I have private things.
(Glory)
Besides, Emma uses the sewing machine in there. There’s just that little bed. With my quilt on it. You can’t have my quilt.
(Daddy)
Now, girls, don’t start fussing. Let me think on this.
(Jesslyn)
I’m fixing to walk over to the library
(Glory)
I’m going with you.
(Jesslyn)
You are not. Stop sticking your nosy self into my business.
(Glory)
How come we never do stuff together anymore? Last summer you bought me a diary for my birthday present and taught me how to jump Double Dutch. Now you pitch a fit if I walk to the library with you.
(Jesslyn)
Mary Louise and I don’t need you hanging around while we’re planning her party.
(Narrator)
Jesslyn smiled in the mirror one last time and did a little dance down the stairs.
Mary Louise, my fanny. I peered in that mirror at my dishwater blond ponytail and tried to imagine myself in Persian Melon lipstick. Or my hair done up in Jesslyn’s big brush rollers. Jesslyn’s hair flipped up at the ends. Mine looked like it hadn’t seen the right side of a brush all day.
I followed Jesslyn down the stairs, but the back door banged shut in my face before I could ask her any more questions.
(Glory)
Daddy, I’m going over to the library.
(Daddy)
Be careful. It’s getting dark out. And maybe you can walk home with your sister?
(Glory)
Yes, sir
(Narrator)
I wondered whether Jesslyn was even at the library.
I skipped down the front steps and headed off to find my sister.