Robin pitched a fit when Mama put their suitcases by the front door. “I don’t want to go back to the hospital,” she yelled. “I hate it there!”

“It won’t be like last time,” Mama promised. “You’ll only be in the hospital for a week of physical therapy.”

Scruffy started howling along with Robin. I scooped him into my arms and knelt beside her cot. “I wish you didn’t have to go, but you can’t ride Surelick until they take the cast off.”

Robin grabbed my free hand. “They’re gonna saw it off. What if they cut me in two?”

I looked up at Mama. “How do they get her out of the cast? It won’t hurt, will it?”

Mama made a time-out sign with her hands. “Girls, stop and listen. It’s a special kind of saw that doesn’t cut skin.”

Robin’s eyes darted between Mama and me. She squeezed my hand. “I tell you what,” Mama said. “I’ll have the doctor show you how the saw works. I won’t let him start until you’re completely comfortable with it. I promise.”

“Cross your heart?” Robin asked.

Mama made a big X sign across her chest. “Cross my heart,” she said.

After Dad loaded the suitcases, I held the screen door open for him and Grandpa to carry Robin to the car.

“Take care of Scruffy and Surelick,” she said.

“I will. Don’t worry.”

Mama put her arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry to leave you again, but your grandparents will take good care of you. Remind your granny about the Back-to-School Ice-Cream Social on Thursday.”

I said okay, but just thinking about a new school made my arms and legs itch.

Dad tooted the horn, and Mama hurried down the steps. As the car pulled away, Grandpa was the only one waving. I jammed my hands in my pockets. What if the doctors couldn’t fix Robin’s leg? What would happen to my family then?

After supper at Granny and Grandpa’s, I paced around the den. I was tired of worrying about Robin and bored without Ruby Lee. There was nobody to push me on the swing, or wade in the creek with.

“Walk outside with me,” Granny said. “I could use some help watering the hydrangeas.”

I followed Granny outside and filled up the watering cans with the garden hose.

“You’re awful quiet,” she said. “Are you worried about going to a new school?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“No need to be nervous. You already have friends.”

I scuffed my sandal in the dirt. “I’ve been wondering about that. I know it’ll be hard, but maybe I should make up with Ruby Lee.”

Granny bent over and turned off the spigot. “Course you should make up with Ruby, but remember what me and Miss Irene told you about school. Times are changing, and we don’t need trouble.”

“I think times are barely changing.”

“It seems that way because you’re young,” Granny said. She walked over by the front porch and pulled some dead leaves off one of the hydrangea bushes. “Time passes much faster when you get old. To Miss Irene and me it’s a miracle that blacks and whites will be going to the same school. We never expected to see such as that.”

I emptied the rest of my watering can on the last blue-flowered bush. “I miss Ruby. I wrote her a letter, but I don’t know if she’ll read it.”

Granny squinted off into the distance. “I’ve been friends with Miss Irene nearly sixty years. If we were as stubborn as you and Ruby, no quilting or canning would ever get done.”

“Ruby’s as stubborn as an old mule.”

Granny laughed. “You’re just as stubborn as Ruby Lee. Why don’t you call her and get it over with? One of you has to make the next move.”

But the truth was, I was afraid to call Ruby. I needed the letter to soften her up first.

Back in the den, Grandpa snored in his brown reclining chair. His chin bobbed against his chest, and he sounded like a noisy freight train.

“We need a project to keep our hands busy,” Granny said. “If you’ll get my sewing basket from the corner shelf, we’ll make a surprise for Robin.”

Granny’s sewing basket was full of buttons and colored threads. I handed it to her, and she pulled a white pillowcase from the bottom. “How about sketching an outline of Surelick on here?”

I peered over Granny’s shoulder. “Sure, I can do that. But what are you gonna do with it?”

Granny searched through her basket and chose a dark-brown embroidery thread. “We’ll embroider around your sketch and make a special pillowcase for Robin. What do you think of this color?”

“No, not that one. It’s too dark.” I searched through the basket and picked a golden-brown thread.

“I believe you’re right,” Granny said. “The little fella is exactly the color of caramel candy.”

I moved to the kitchen table and spread out the pillowcase. I got a clear picture of Surelick in my mind. I drew him cantering through the pasture, because Robin loved to run. If she could just get well enough to ride, maybe everything would turn out okay.

When I finished drawing, I carried the pillowcase to the den and showed Granny.

“That’s darn near perfect,” she said.

I pulled up a stool and Granny asked me to thread the needle. “I have trouble seeing close up,” she said. “That’s what happens when you’re old as dirt.” Granny took tiny stitches, pushing the needle through the fabric and poking it back through from the other side.

“Robin will love this,” I said. “She wants a Western room.”

Granny looked up from her embroidery. “You girls share a room. What do you want?”

I wanted something I couldn’t have … the lavender library back. “I can’t have what I want. There’s no privacy when you share a room with your little sister.”

“Reckon not,” Granny said, “but we could sew up a nice quilt for your bed.” She looked over at Grandpa. “Bet he’ll have a crick in his neck from sleeping in that chair.”

I gave Grandpa a gentle shake on my way to bed. While I was putting on my flowered pajamas, the phone rang. I cracked the door open, just an inch, and listened to Granny.

“Don’t worry about Sarah,” she said. “We’re looking after her. How’s Robin?”

I put my ear closer to the door.

“I’m not surprised,” Granny said. “Physical therapy sounds like hard work. I hate she’s having so many problems. I really do.” Granny was quiet for a while, and then she said, “Charlie, don’t get discouraged. Robin will learn to walk again. The Bible says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.”

I climbed into bed. I whispered, “Please help Robin learn to walk again. Please.” I wondered about faith, mountains, and mustard seeds. I punched my pillow and flopped onto my back. I was still staring at the ceiling when the clock struck midnight. I wished I had Ruby to tell my troubles to. That would help a whole lot.

The next morning, Grandpa dropped me off at the library as soon as it opened. Mama and Dad were too busy with Robin to answer my questions, and Granny was stuck in the past. She and Miss Irene didn’t want Ruby and me to be friends at school, but maybe they were wrong. Mrs. Brown, our librarian, had answered almost any question I’d ever had. She would tell me the truth.

I was the only customer except for Mr. Johnson, and since he was fast asleep, he didn’t really count. I marched up to the checkout desk. “Mrs. Brown, do you have time to answer some questions?”

“Of course I do. On what topic?”

“School integration.”

Mrs. Brown fiddled with the chain attached to her glasses. “Sarah Beth, you are always full of questions, but I didn’t anticipate this one.” She straightened her shift and smoothed the sides of her beehive hairdo. “For those with an inquisitive mind, there’s no such thing as a boring day in the library. Come with me.”

Mrs. Brown pulled a scrapbook from a locked file cabinet. We sat beside each other at one of the empty tables, and Mrs. Brown opened the book. “I’ve been saving newspaper and magazine articles about civil rights since Brown versus Board of Education back in ’54.”

I found out real quick that I’d been sheltered from most of the hatefulness. Mrs. Brown said, “In Arkansas, it took the National Guard to integrate Central High School.”

“Do you think that’ll happen in Shady Creek?”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe so. It’s been fifteen years since the Supreme Court ruled. We’ve watched all the violence unfold elsewhere, and the committee charged with school integration is working hard to avoid it. I’m on the committee, you know.”

Mrs. Brown started to close the scrapbook, but I grabbed her hand. “Who’s that?”

“Emmett Till,” she said, “but I won’t talk to you about him. One of your parents needs to accompany you to read about Emmett Till.”

That made me want to know about him even more.

Mrs. Brown put the scrapbook back in the file cabinet and locked it. “In Shady Creek, we have blacks and whites working together, priming tobacco and pulling corn. Attending the same school won’t be much different than that.”

“Granny says if I try to be friends with coloreds, I’ll be called names and left out of birthday parties.”

“Ostracized is the word you’re looking for,” Mrs. Brown said. “Your granny could be right.” She patted my hand. “I’ve given you a lot to think about, but should you decide to broaden your circle of friends, you’ll have an unexpected ally. I have it on good authority that the new sixth-grade teacher at Shady Creek will be a Negro. A very intelligent, dignified woman. In fact, Mrs. Smyre will be stopping by here later to pick up some books.”

Now I understood the things grown-ups whispered about, and why my mama was sometimes quick to turn off Walter Cronkite on the evening news. I thanked Mrs. Brown for answering my questions.

“No thanks are necessary. Answering questions is the best part of my job.”

Mrs. Brown turned to leave, but I had one more question. “Where did the new teacher come from?”

“She used to teach at the colored school. The teachers from that school will be integrated in schools throughout the county, same as the students.”

I sat in the library for a long time. I watched Mrs. Smyre stop by for her books. She was with a little girl who looked so much like her—same eyes and mouth—that I knew they were mother and daughter. The little girl giggled, and Mrs. Smyre put her finger to her lips. “Sssh.” The teacher smiled and bent down to tie her daughter’s shoe.

While I watched them, a big lump formed in my throat. I wondered if the little girl was nervous about being in a classroom full of white children. I wondered if it would seem strange to Mrs. Smyre to teach mostly white children, with only a dark face or two mingled in. I hoped the people in my town would be kind to them.

This integration business was hard. After looking at Mrs. Brown’s scrapbook, I didn’t know if I was brave enough to be friends with Ruby. She said I wasn’t standing up for what was right, but I didn’t want to quit eating at Bubba’s or swimming in the town pool. And if we were gonna make up, I had to change. Our families had worked together as far back as anybody could remember. Calling Ruby that name was the meanest thing I could have said. I needed to think about the fine line, and what it meant to cross over it.