Chapter 18
We moved into the little house last week. Around here every body calls it the little house because it’s smaller than Bigmama and Bigdaddy’s other house they live in. I actually like to call it that because I like to pretend it’s The Little House on the Prairie, you know, like on that television show that Michael Landon plays on.
Can’t you just imagine really bein’ that girl on that show, Laura Ingalls, and havin’ a dad like that? I would love to be her!
Our house could be like that one because we live out in the wilderness, too. And it’s small just like the Ingall’s house. I wish Jason and Phil was girls so I could call ‘em Mary and Carrie like Laura’s sisters. I would do it anyways but they are so mean they would probably pull all the hair outta my head.
Sometimes they hold me down and pull the hair outta my arms just because they like to see me get fightin’ mad. I don’t think it’s one bit funny though and if I wasn’t so scared of Mama I would tell on the both of ‘em.
Our little house has two bedrooms so Jason and Phil finally get to have a room of their own. At first I was kinda mad because I’m not a boy so I still have to share a room with Mama. And since we only got two beds, I still have to sleep with her like I’m a little sissy girl or something. But after the first night I realized it was good because it gets awful dark here at night.
Mama says it’s because there are so many trees and not any street lights. Now I’ve been thinkin’ about that panther comin’ back and with the woods bein’ so thick you just know bears are hidin’ in there, too.
All my life I’ve been scared of the dark and it’s worse now that we’re here. Mama says I’m too old to still be scared and I know tough girls ain’t supposed to be scared but I don’t know how to stop bein’ scared by myself.
Our house sits far to the side of Bigmama’s house. It has a screened in front porch and then you walk in the front door and you’re in the livin’ room. If you go straight you end up in the kitchen or if you turn right, you go inside mine and Mama’s room. Straight through our room is the bathroom and Jason and Phil’s room is right off the side of mine and Mama’s.
Jason and Phil’s room is called an add-on, my Bigmama says. Her and her sister built it all by themselves. They wasn’t born to be carpenters so there are cracks all over the place where you can look clean through to the outside. That scares me at night when I have to go to the bathroom so I always ask Mama to go with me. She gets mad and starts callin’ me names like scardy cat and my stupid eyes start to cryin’ and then she calls me cry baby.
I’m tellin’ you, it’s hard to be a tough girl when you live in the wilderness, and your brain don’t wanna work and your eyeballs have a mind of their own.
Anyways, she always ends up makin’ Jason or Phil go with me. They are both way braver than me because they don’t even care if something from outside crawls through the cracks while they’re sleepin’.
Mama said that as soon as it gets cold then she’s gonna close off that room anyways because she can barely afford to heat the inside much less the outside. When Jason and Phil heard that they got so mad because now they’re gonna end up right back where they started, sleepin’ in a room with girl people. Ha! That’s what they get for makin’ my arms look baldheaded.
