Mrs. Fulson took down the thick wooden paddle hanging on the wall behind her desk.
Patsy told the teacher it was all her fault, begging her not to whip Flannery. “Please, Mrs. Fulson, I stole Flannery’s seat!” Patsy had insisted, stomping her little brown and white saddle shoes to make it true.
“Cheaters,” Mrs. Fulson scolded. “I should take you to Mrs. Moore’s classroom and let her keep you.”
Mrs. Moore was the second-grade teacher.
“God made us the same. And being the same ain’t cheating, Mrs. Fulson. We’re one and the same,” Patsy argued.
Mortified at getting caught, then whipped, Flannery rubbed her welling eyes.
Patsy gently touched her sister’s quivering shoulder. “Don’t cry, Flannery. . . . Oh, you don’t have to cry.” Patsy patted and pulled Flannery to her. “I’ll cry for us today,” she said solemnly.
Furious at being duped, calling Patsy a trickster first, and then a swindler, Mrs. Fulson jerked the bolder twin away, giving her the first whipping and some extra licks, then turned to Flannery for the same. When the teacher was through, she handed the girls pointy paper dunce caps and sent them both scurrying to opposite corners to face the wall for the rest of the day.
Mrs. Fulson sent an explanatory note home with the girls, threatening to kick them out of third grade. They dared not give it to Honey Bee, knowing that he’d find out their wrong to its full extent, and that a lie added to the serious crime they’d originally committed would mean even double or triple their punishment.
After supper, Honey Bee called them outside. “Go pick your paddle.” He pointed to the willow, expecting them to get the switches he’d tan them with.
Dutifully, the girls walked slowly over to the tree, broke off the smallest branches, and handed them to Honey Bee. After a few squirming seconds he asked the girls if they had been cheating.
Patsy pushed herself in front of Flannery and said, “Oh no, Honey Bee. Only me. Flannery was just caught smiling.” Patsy yanked Flannery to her side. “See, Honey Bee?” Patsy poked Flannery, urging her to smile for him. “Show him, Flannery.”
Flannery beamed the same as she had in school for Mrs. Fulson. Patsy lifted a sweet but dimple-less one too, and let a tear weight her lash for insurance.
“Well, hell’s bells,” Honey Bee chortled low, looking at his smiling daughters, shaking his head and dropping the switches. “I can’t be whipping ya’ll, looking all sweet and smart like that. Run on into the house and help Mama with the dishes, and no more cheating, or tricking poor Mrs. Fulson, or she’ll send you to second grade, and I’ll burn up your hineys with big fat switches.”
“You get the dishes and set the table. I have to brush my hair,” Patsy’d bossed Flannery, skipping off.
Mrs. Fulson had the two separated into different classes at the beginning of fourth grade.
Soon, Patsy began hanging out with other friends at school, picking pretty Laura Adams for a best friend over Flannery but dropping Laura just as quick when a boy came sniffing.
Flannery stayed after school more, hanging with her small baton group, hoping for Patsy’s favor when she was in between boys and friends.
But Patsy was never alone and only chummed with her sister when she needed something.
On their fifteenth birthdays, Patsy sweet-talked Mama into taking her to a real hairdresser. Mama took Patsy to Junie Bug’s Hair Styling, where she had Miss Junie give Patsy a hair color bath like the coppery colored one that Suzy Parker wore. Patsy had been begging for the new do ever since she’d spied the famous woman’s hair in the magazines.
“Get the blond,” Patsy ordered Flannery. “Make her get blond, Mama.”
As usual, Flannery agreed. It had always been Patsy who had her say, the first and final words between the two, content to lead and let Flannery puppy dog behind her.
Rather than hear the fuss, Mama’d always let her.
When the first drops of Junie’s hair dye lit Flannery’s scalp on fire and burned, Mama stopped the hairdresser cold, wouldn’t let Miss Junie touch another strand.
Instead, Mama bought Flannery ribbons at the dime store to hide her mousiness in braids and ponytails. Flannery’d hid her platinum, skunk-spotted hair under an ugly old scarf Patsy insisted she wear. The only good thing about it all was when Patsy kicked Violet Perry for making fun of Flannery.
Flannery felt hurt and lost. If she had thought hard enough about it, she would’ve rightly guessed that it had really started the Easter before they turned ten.
Patsy had thrown a hissy over wearing identical dresses that year, insisting Mama let her wear something different. “Mama,” Patsy’d demanded, “I’m almost ten. I want a different dress. A purple poplin one with a red satin ribbon like the one Cora Wallace’s mama is making. One like my best friend’s dress.”
But Mama wouldn’t hear of it back then, agreeing only that Patsy could wear a different color sweater over her dress.
“But we’re best friends, Patsy,” Flannery had chimed, embarrassed, thinking something was wrong with her.
“Cora is my new friend,” Patsy told her. “And my best.”
Hurt, Flannery lashed back, “Mama, I want a different dress, too. And prettier than those ol’ ugly colors Patsy picks out.”
Patsy snickered. “You’d still be ugly. Stinky, like Honey Bee’s old whiskey and that nasty ol’ fishy river.”
Those digs cut, and after Patsy said enough of them, Flannery began to feel them in the worst ways. “At least I’m not a priss pot, always crying and—”
“Stinky pig. And my friend Cora says you can’t put a ribbon on one,” Patsy spat.
“I hate you!” Flannery screamed.
Patsy jerked hard on Flannery’s braid. Flannery hit back.
Honey Bee caught them bickering and swatted both of their tails.
Flannery’d burst into tears, running up to her room. Later, Honey Bee called his girls to the porch and said, “Daughters, you’ll make yourself a heap of friends and even lose yourself a might more, but you’ll never lose what’s in your blood, what belongs in that blood and to each of you. Your sister. Lose that blood, and you will become weak. Stay good to each other, so you can stay strong.”
Flannery thought she should be Patsy’s best friend. Told Patsy she was hers, even over her group of baton girlfriends nobody else hung with.
But Patsy liked her new friends just fine, and pulled to the attention they gave her, ignoring Honey Bee.
Flannery felt lost, halved, like an arm had been split off. After all, they were born together, one and the same, and that was about the closest friend you could ever have. And any less of a friendship was betrayal if it wasn’t. Wasn’t it?
Mama said there wasn’t any harm in Patsy’s wanting to make different friends and maybe Flannery should try it too. “After all, you’ll marry one day, and have yourself a different life.”
Honey Bee kept Flannery busy with chores in the barn, took her out on the river in the boat, and taught her more about his business.
*
Flannery snuck glances over to the Henry boys waiting to escort Patsy to the dance. Something was rotten, and she could smell it stinking and sticking all over those two.
Patsy said, “I’ll be home directly after prom. Don’t wait up, tadpole.”
Hollis Henry stood there by the tree, shifting his eyes Patsy’s way, stripping off tears from the willow’s drooping branches.