Excerpt: Under the Flag of Stars and Stripes

Mrs. Perry was really kind. Perhaps it was her constant confinement to her bed which had made her patient and kind, but she was up there with Mr. Walter in my book. They were both nonjudgmental and the only people I could get along with all the time, besides Mary.

We chatted about all sorts of things during those last fifteen minutes. I told her how I couldn’t stand my parents and they me, how I dreamt of leaving Radley and traveling wherever I wanted, how I still had no idea what I wanted to do for an occupation. In return, she told me all sorts of things, like how there’s always a family of birds sitting in a nest on the tree outside her window each spring, how she read her Bible on a daily basis, and how, when Ethan first met me, he popped into the house with a huge grin on his face after the first day of kindergarten.

“Momma, Momma, guess what?!” he had cried, plunging onto her bed.

“What?”

“I met a girl!”

She had laughed. “Of course you did, Ethan. I’m sure there are many girls at your school.”

He had shaken his head impatiently at this. “No, Momma,” he explained carefully, so she would understand. “I mean I met a girl who’s really pretty and smart and fun. Her name’s California Abigail Doyle.” He spoke my name as though it belonged to a saint. “She didn’t wanna go to school, you see, but her momma forced her, and so she had to go. It was either that or stay in her bedroom,” Ethan said gravely, “and that wouldn’t have been any fun at all. Oh! But Momma, you have to stay in your bedroom a lot, too! You must be really bored a lot, now that I’m off at school. Do you want me to borrow any books at the school library for you? There’s a bunch of books, and I hate reading, but you might like ‘em!”

She had said that would be very nice, and they could read them together whenever he got back from school.

“But anyway,” he had continued. “California said she doesn’t like to be called California; she likes being called Abby better. You know? Because of her middle name? But I think California is a real pretty name, too. Maybe she thinks it’s a bad name? So I’ll use California so that she realizes that’s a good name, too. But Abby fits her, too. But anyway, the teacher said she had an ‘attitude’, and I guess she kind of does, but I gave her my crayon to share and she smiled really prettily at me. She’s not bad at all, although the teacher said she sort of is.

“Momma,” Ethan said in all seriousness, “I think I’m gonna marry her someday.”

I about died when Mrs. Perry told me all this. “So the reason he claims he likes me is because I smiled at him when he gave me his crayon?”