Emma rolled belly-flat. Chocolate-brown feet stuck up over pots and pans.

Once upon a time… she scribbled in thick black letters. She dabbed the pencil on her tongue.

“Emma. Emma Jean!” mama’s voice found her on the porch behind the moving-boxed. Emma wiggled her big toe. She needed just one more minute.

“Emma Jean Turner!” Mama yelled, her raised voice squeaking. “You keeping an eye on the little ones? Don’t let me have to hide that paper and pencil.”

That was the last thing Emma wanted. The Turners were migrant workers and followed the crops. String beans that hung like long green fingers. Tomatoes red and ripe. Many was scarce. “Scarcer than hen’s teeth,” Daddy said. That means no extras. No store-bought books. Emma had to make her own. She needed her paper and pencil.

“I know where they are,” Emma called before Mama could make good her warning.

She knew exactly where they were. But Emma checked the cardboard box just to make double sure. Baby Hannah napped without wriggle. Robert Earl galloped on his stick pony.

Emma leaned on the crook of her arm. Thick black letters formed words on brown paper. Words from pictures that floated through her mind like lazy clouds over the apple orchard.

Lizzy the lizard had to fan the green pea soup until it got cool…she wrote on a piece of grocery bag. It smelled so good she licked the pot clean. Ate the whole thing. Than she got… Emma thought for a while. “Got pukey-green sick,” she said out loud.

Robert Earl rode by on his stick pony. “I like your stories.” He laughed. “They sound yucky.”

Emma smiled. She liked them too. She’d keep them always, forever. Emma fastened the brown pages with safety pins. One day she’d have a regular book. The store-bought kind. Meantime, Emma hugged the grocery-bag book with the stories she’d made up herself.

Just then Hannah blinked wide-eyed. Emma scooped her up, then called for Robert Earl. He was only six. This year she turned eight so Mama had put her in charge.

Emma led the way around the moving-boxes. She made double sure Robert Earl followed her inside the one-room house that sat at the edge of the apple orchard.

Emma saw that Mama had hung quilts separating the sleeping places form the cooking and eating places. She put Hannah down near the sleeping place.

“You can unpack that box there.” Mama pointed to the cooking and eating place. “Everything needs to be put away. Tomorrow is a workday. Tomorrow is apple picking.”

Emma emptied one box and started the nest. Mama’s hard-times jar lay tucked between blankets. It was just about half full of loose change. Solid nickels. Rusty red pennies, Thin dimes, And every now and then a fat quarter.

“What are we going to do with all this money?” Emma knew before she asked. She just wanted to make double sure.

“That money being saved ion case we run out of something important before payday,” Mama informed her.

“That’s why she call it the hard-times jar. ‘Cuase it’s for hard times,” Robert Earl said. He was silent for a quick minute, than added, “But I know what Emma would so with all that money. She’d buy her a real book. Wouldn’t you, Emma?”

“No extras,” Mama said as she went about her buysness.“No extras,” Robert Earl repeated.“No extras,” Emma whispered to the hard-times jar.

Answer question 1

The next morning, while darkness still filled the windows, Daddy nudged Emma.

“Time to roll out with your working clothes on,” he whispered.When Emma pushed through the quilt curtain, Mama pointed to

the corner. “The was pan over yonder. And your plate waiting.”

Emma dabbed the washcloth over her face and passed it on. “Here, Robert E., wash,”

“Roll out with your working clothes on,” Robert said, waving the cloth at Hannah.

“Robert Earl, don’t bother with Hannah. Wash.” Mama’s head was already wrapped for work. “Emma, eat. And we’ll leave for the orchard.”

“We taking red beans and rice for lunch?” Emma asked, her words full of cornbread.

“Red beans and rice,” said Mama.“Everybody ready? Apple-picking time,” said Daddy, grabbing the

box of food.

Before sunshine spread through the trees, Daddy laid his extra-long ladder in their branches. All the way to the top he climbed, picking high above Emma’s head. Mama seated Hannah in an empty crate. She pulled apples that hung down low.

“Apple-picking time,” she said, turning to Emma.Emma had already picked herself one. It tasted of morning, cool

and crisp. Emma licked the sweetness dripping down her chin.

Robert Earl gathered red fruit off the ground. “Some of these all gushy,” he said with a mouthful of apple.

“Pick only the good drops form under the tree,” Daddy told him.

Daddy’s large sack quickly running-over full. He released the strap, and the round redness rushed into crates with loud thuds.

The sound of spilling apples gave Emma another idea. She needed one minute. Lizzy tumbled over and over, stomach hard as bricks… Emma pulled out a piece of brown paper and scribbled.

“Emma, Emma Jean!” Mama called from between the branches. “Do you want me to hide that pencil?”

That was the last thing Emma wanted. She slid the pencil and paper back in her pocket. She piled apples high in the crate. She’d work plenty to add money to the hard-times jar. That way there’d be some left over for extras. That way she’d get a store-bought book.

Sometime after the sun climbed over the tip of Daddy’s ladder, Mama passed red beans and rice. Emma set her tin plate down and scribbled, … all the other lizards around Lizzy-they got pukey-green sick, too. She wrote in between mouthfuls. And that’s why lizards are green instead of brown. Emma dabbed the pencil on her tongue. The End, she finished. Emma turned the paper over. She’d planned on making another story right then. But Daddy called that it was time for work again. Answer question 2

One evening, when the trees in the orchard grew thin shadows, Mama sat Emma down.

“Emma Jean,” she began, “tomorrow you won’t be picking apples.”

“I won’t?” Emma’s eyes filled with tears. How could she add money to the hard-times jar? How could she ever earn enough for extras if she didn’t got to the orchard? “I have to,” Emma cried.

“I’m sorry,” Mama told her. “But you’ll be going to school.”“School?” Emma frowned. “I never went to school before when

we came up on the season.” That’s what some folks called coming up north to work the crops.”Why can’t I just wait until we get back to Florida? Please,” Emma begged.

“I know how you feel. But you’re eight now. You shouldn’t be missing any school,” Mama said, hugging Emma’s shoulders.

The very next morning Emma stood at the end of the dirt road. Her stomach felt all squiggly.

“You’ll be fine,” Mama told her as the bus drove up.

Answer question 3

But she didn’t feel fine. She wished she was back at the orchard as the bus stopped in front of the red-brick school.

“You must be Emma,” a lady said, meeting her at the door.“Yes, ma’am,” Emma nodded.“I’m Miss Miller, the third-grade teacher,” she said, her lips

curving into a smile.Emma looked down and watched her foot move back and forth.

She didn’t like being eight anymore. And she didn’t like Pennsylvania either.

“You’ll like my classroom,” Miss Miller assured her. “We have lots of girls and boys your age.”

Miss Miller face reminded Emma of buttermilk, all creamy and white. “Come along.” She took Emma’s hand. “Let’s go in.”

Emma walked into the third-grade room. There were lots of boys and girls just like Miss Miller had said. But none were chocolate-brown like her. They all looked like Miss Miller. Emma’s stomach felt squiggly. She had never gone to school with people Miss Miller’s color. Down south it was not allowed. Down south it was against the law.

Answer question 4

“Emma,” Miss Miller said, “let me show you around.” Miss Miller led the way. Her hair was rolled at the back like a thick doughnut.

“This is our classroom,” she told Emma. “And this” – she pulled back a curtain to another room – “is our library.”

Emma’s eyes grew larger than quarters. Books. Walls and walls of books. From the floor halfway to the ceiling – books. The store-bought kind.

“You may rread any of these books,” Miss Miller told her. “none can be taken home,” she cautioned, “but you are free to read as much as you want during activity period.”

“Hanest?” Emma asked.“Honest,” Miss Miller promised.And that afternoon, when Miss Miller announced activity period,

she told the class they could work on arts and crafts or choose books from the library.

Every day Emma would chose books. She squeezed them and hugged them. She carried them to a chair in the corner. “I love you,” she whispered, breathing in the smell of them.

From then on Miss Miller would say, “Why Emma, I can hardly tell where that stack of books end and you begin.”

On Friday, Miss Miller stood in front of the blackboard. She faced the class. “Make sure you take your sweaters and jackets home. And remember to return all books to the library before you go. Have a nice weekend.”

Emma was the last one in the coatroom. She hugged the two books still in her hands. She was going to put them back on the shelf after she got her sweater. Instead, she slipped them between the folds of her sweater. I’ll just borrow them, she told herself. She was positive no one would miss them.

Answer question 5

At home, Emma snuggled into a corner. She held the books on her lap – all two of them. The covers were slick and shiny. One had a picture of golden carriage shaped like a big pumpkin. Emma ran her fingers over its smooth pages. She imagined how grand it would be to ride in such a fine carriage. The other one showed two mice in fancy dresses. Each carried an umbrella. Emma could hardly wait to find out where they were going.

That night she read beneath her sleeping cot. Her fingers followed every word. Letters stretched across the page like blackbirds seated neatly in a row.

On Sunday, Mama pulled two books from under Emma’s cot. “Emma. Emma Jean. What are these books doing here? I thought they were not supposed to leave the school.”

Emma watched her foot move back and forth. “I only meant to borrow them for a little while. They have plenty more at school.” Emma let out a long sigh. “I don’t have any store-bought books.”

“It makes no difference,” Mama said. “These books don’t belong to you.” Mama turned to Emma’s face to hers. “What must you do?”

“Put them back on the shelf,” Emma said softly.“And you must tell Miss Miller what you’ve done.”Emma had those squiggles again. This time the made her heart

leap right up to the edge of her skin.“Do I have to?”“Yes, you do,” Mama said.

Answer questions 6 & 7

Monday morning Emma missed recess. She stood in front of Miss Miller’s desk. Her stomach had the squiggles.

“I took these books home from the library.: Emma looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. Honest.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Miss Miller said smiling. “And I know you’ll never take them again.”

“Never, ever,” Emma promised.

Answer question 8

That evening, Mama sat Emma down. “I’m proud of you for owning up to what you did,” she said. “That must have been hard.”

“The hardest,” Emma told her.Mama unscrewed the hard-times jar and placed six shiny

quarters in Emma’s hand.“From the hard-times jar?” Emma asked.“That’s what the hard-times jar for. For hard times,” Mama said.Robert Earl smiled. “Bet I know what Emma gonna do with all that

money.”Emma squeezed the quarters. She knew. And they would be the

store-bought kind.

The End