“That depends on who’s asking,” I said, twisting the skillet handle like a birch-rod in my hand. “What do you mean by coming here at this hour, Larell?”

“I’ll do as I please. It’s only half past seven anyways.”

“Don’t matter none, I’ll have you know Shelley went to bed an hour ago.”

“Now that’s awful strange. You sure about that, Miss Hawthorne? I told her I’d pick her up at this time tonight.”

“Pick her up? And just where’d you aim to take her, young man?”

“Matter of fact, she asked me to escort her down to Johnson’s pumpkin patch for the fall jamboree.”

“Well that’s just too bad, ‘cause my Shelley Dawson ain’t going anywhere near that heathen affair. So why don’t you just turn them britches around and—”

“Shelley!”

Consarn it all, that girl picks the worst times to use the privy. She was coming down the stairs behind me.

“Hi, Larell!” she called. “You ready to go?”

I placed my hands on my hips and looked her in the eye. “Shelley. Clarice. Dawson. You ain’t going nowhere with the likes of him!”