In Search of Mockingbird - Softcover

Ellsworth, Loretta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805096957 ISBN 13: 9780805096958

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2007

Synopsis

A runaway seeks Harper Lee for answers

Sometimes the things that need to be discovered aren't so easily found at home. Erin is certain that this is true in her case. A book is all that connects Erin to her mother, who died when she was a baby. But how much can Erin really learn about her mother from a tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird? On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Erin decides it's finally time to find out. And so begins her bus journey from Minnesota to Alabama in search of Harper Lee, the reclusive author of Mockingbird.

In a novel full of quirky characters, strange coincidences, and on-the-road adventures, Loretta Ellsworth deftly traces a unique voyage of self-discovery.

About this title

About the Author

Loretta Ellsworth is the author of the acclaimed middle-grade novel The Shrouding Woman. A former schoolteacher and mother of four grown children, Loretta lives in Lakeville, Minnesota.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter Three
 Greyhound Bus Station
 
March 13, 1986, 7:30 p.m.
 
 
Dad’s  like Atticus. 
He’s the first to volunteer for a good cause.
I remember hanging on Dad’s pant leg at a golf
fund-raiser,
riding in the golf cart,
cheering him on at each hole. 
I was only seven years old, and
so proud to have him as my father.
And there’s one other way he’s like Atticus.
Neither one ever talks about his dead wife.
 
Since this is my first time on a Greyhound bus I sit alone and try not to choke on the exhaust fumes.  A woman across the aisle flashes me a tired smile as she rubs her daughter’s back.  The girl rests her crimped blond hair on a makeshift pillow, a large, white teddy bear with black plastic eyes and a red embroidered nose.  She looks about ten.  She’s wearing pink jelly shoes, white lacy socks, and a puffy painted t-shirt with clouds on the back.
The bus pulls out, heading for the interstate.  Patches of dirty Minnesota snow splatter up the sides of the bus.  The high pitch whine of the pavement beneath us drowns out the voices of the other passengers.
My worried reflection flickers in the window.  I tilt my head to see the tangled mess of hair hastily gathered up into a ponytail.  It’s the color of dirty sand.  If I had my way I’d be a peroxide blonde like Madonna, but Dad won’t let me dye my hair.
“It’s the same shade as your mother’s,” he once said, the only time he ever mentioned her.
I try to relax, knowing that they won’t find out until morning, when Dad or Jeff will pound on my bedroom door.  Jeff will say, “I’m never giving you another ride to school if you don’t get your butt out of that bed.”
Dad’s more subtle.  He’ll say, “Come on, birthday girl.  Wake up.  Just because you’re sixteen doesn’t mean you get to sleep in.”
Of course I’ll be hundreds of miles away by then.
The girl across the aisle kicks one foot out.  The pink shoe hits her mother’s elbow, and the woman lets out a small yelp and massages it.
“Mommy!”  The girl whines because her mom has stopped rubbing her back. 
I stare at the lacy trim on her ruffled socks.  When I was her age I wore Jeff’s hand-me-down T-shirts.  I should have ended up a real tomboy like Scout.  But instead of climbing the tall oak trees in the backyard with my brothers, I curled up underneath it with a pile of books while Jeff and Bruce dropped acorns on my head.
For Christmas, Dad bought me a basketball, an NBA leather one. He just doesn’t get it.  Even Susan, his soon to be new wife doesn’t get it.  I guess that makes sense, since she’s a volleyball coach.  She can talk sports with the best of them.  She watches football and reads science fiction.   I open Mom’s diary and settle in to spend the next two hours reading.  I start over and go through it more carefully this time, cherishing every word as I read about her life in 1963.  Partway through a small picture falls out of the middle.  A school picture of her.  “Kate Kampbell – 10th grade” is printed on the back.   The name doesn’t seem to fit the girl with the black-rimmed glasses, teased hair, and uneven smile. 
She’s a silent memory in our home, like the first years of our lives never happened.  When I was ten, I asked Jeff if he remembered her at all. 
“No, but it doesn’t matter, because we have Dad,” he answered.  “It would have been a lot worse if she died after we’d gotten to know her.”
“Why would it be worse?”
“You don’t miss what you never had.”  He nodded his head knowingly with all his twelve-year-old wisdom, then picked up the basketball on his way out the door. 
But I didn’t agree with him.  I always missed her even though I never knew her.
A muffled voice interrupts my thoughts as the bus driver speaks into the loudspeaker.  “We’ll be stopping in Clear Lake, Iowa, for approximately twenty-five minutes.  You may depart the bus, but be back onboard no later than ten thirty.”
Panic rises inside me and I pull out the schedule. 
“It’s ok,” I whisper to my jumpy stomach, “that stop is listed here.” I hug my overstuffed backpack to calm the flutters.
A blouse pokes out through the top, and I wonder if I should have packed more than just two outfits.  I also brought a pack of cards, colored pencils, and my science textbook.  I intend to keep up with my homework, except for algebra, which is a lost cause, and Spanish, because I still can’t trill my r’s, so I figure what’s the use? 
I turn off the overhead light and stare out the window into the darkness, watching the headlights of the passing cars.  The quiet voices of the other passengers have grown louder since the driver’s announcement, and I can see from the tops of their heads that several people are shifting restlessly.
The bus pulls into a Burger King parking lot off the interstate in Clear Lake.  I look at my watch.  It’s just after ten.  I pull on my winter jacket and get off the bus, my backpack hanging off one shoulder.  Even though I’m not really hungry I order French fries and a Coke.  I’m too keyed up to even think about getting any sleep. 
 It takes me two minutes to finish the fries.  The Coke is for later.  I’m the first one back on the bus.  I sit in the same spot, an inconspicuous seat right in the middle.  It seems to be working.  Other than the woman in the seat across the aisle, no one has even made eye contact with me. 
I pull out the bus schedule and go over it again, silently repeating the names of our stops: The Boondocks, Iowa and Siskeston, Missouri.  There are two transfers in my trip, one in Kansas City, and one in Montgomery, Alabama, that will take me to Monroeville. 
 I open my journal.  My birthday officially starts in two hours.  Drawing a picture of a birthday cake with sixteen candles on top, I scribble “Happy 16th Birthday, Erin!”
Two new passengers enter the bus.  There are plenty of empty seats; the place is barely half full.  My coat is strung out on the seat next to me in an antisocial attempt to guard my privacy.
A man wearing a painter’s cap sits down near the front.  A pack of cigarettes hang out of his coat pocket. They’re on the verge of falling, but he doesn’t notice.
A woman with golden-brown skin, thick makeup, and curly blond hair draped down past her shoulders picks up my coat off the seat next to me.  I look back at the empty spots behind me but the woman doesn’t take the hint.
“Is it ok if I sit here?” She asks in a nasal voice.
I give her an unenthusiastic nod, stick the coat behind my back, and return to my journal.
The woman removes her coat and sits down, placing a macramé purse on her lap.  She looks at me and flashes a friendly smile.  “I’m going to Kansas City.  How far you going?”
“Alabama,” I say in my most mature-sounding voice.  I avoid her eyes as my stomach tightens and I imagine the fries coming up.
“That’s a long way for a young girl like you.  Do you have relatives there?”
The woman is wearing a low-cut V-neck sweater that ends above skintight black leather pants. Several necklaces dangle down the front of her top.  The lines in her neck and the creases in her blue eye shadow remind me of Dad’s Aunt Esther, who is sixty years old and still buys Mary Kay cosmetics by the carload.
My hands are perspiring.  I’m not good at lying.  But she’s looking at me expectantly and I have to say something. 
“I’m visiting relatives.  My grandmother,” I add as calmly as I can. 
“How sweet.  Traveling all that way to visit your grandmother.  She’s lucky to have a granddaughter like you.”  The woman buys the story, and I relax a bit.  She smiles again, revealing one tooth stained red with lipstick.
“In what part of Alabama does your grandmother live?”
“Monroeville.”  I lie again, although this time it seems easier.
“I should introduce myself, since we’re going to be seatmates for the next five hours. I’m Sedushia Manly.”
I have a sudden urge to giggle, but I clear my throat instead.
“That’s an unusual name.  How do you spell it?” 
“S-E-D-U-S-H-I-A.  It’s not really my given name.  It’s my stage name.  I picked up the last part of the name from a town just north of Mason City where I’m a regular.  It has a ring, don’t you think?”
“Uh, sure.  Are you an actress?” 
“Actually I’m an exotic dancer.”
I’m not sure what an exotic dancer is but I have an idea.  I desperately want to ask Sedushia if she is a stripper, but instead I bite down on my lip and think of a less direct question.
“Do exotic dancers wear lots of beautiful costumes?” Her white beaded necklace with plastic orange and lemon slices clashes against two other gaudy necklaces.  Silver looped earrings sag from her ears.
“I’ve got four outfits that I made myself.  My favorite is a black lacy two-piece with shiny beads on the frin...

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0805096957
• ISBN 13: 9780805096958
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192