mine an’ Alba’s, an’ make a fresh route for her.”
“Nah.” Alba huffed and puffed, acting like she was carrying a whole ton of coal instead of a little ol’ pouch of books. Bettina just knew Alba’s pack weighed less than hers. Probably all magazines and no books at all. “Can’t do it that way or she’ll be zigzaggin’ like a rabbit all over the mountain. Miz West’ll likely make all new routes for each of us.”
Glory’s mouth fell open. “All new? I ain’t hardly got used to the one I got now.”
Alba shrugged. She braced herself, then heaved her bag over her horse’s rump. She swiped her forehead with the back of her hand, making her curly pale blond hair fluff up. “Won’t bother me none to learn a new route. ’Specially if it’ll keep me from havin’ to cross Tuckett’s Creek. Neither me nor Biscuit”—she rubbed her horse’s white nose—“are fond o’ that rushin’ water.”
“You think you got it bad?” Glory put her fist on her hip, acting all sassy, the way movie starlets did when they were fixing to let loose on somebody, most often on the rival for their man. “My route near goes straight up to get to the Pascals’ place. Have to do it on foot. Poor Posey here can’t climb such steep slopes. Don’t know why the Pascals is on the list anyhow. Don’t reckon there’s a one of ’em in that cabin who even knows their ABCs. All they want is picture books.”
Alba snickered.
Bettina’s face burned hot. She real quick took the two paper-wrapped salt-pork-on-biscuit sandwiches she’d made for her lunch out of her pocket and slid them into the book pouch. Then she flopped the bag across her mule’s back and swung herself on after it. “Ain’t gonna know what’ll change until the new gal comes, so we might as well get to deliverin’.”
Glory made a sling with her hands and helped Alba onto her horse. That Alba was helpless as a newborn in some ways. Then Glory climbed onto her horse’s back. She grabbed the reins and sent a smirk at Bettina and Alba. “Be safe.”
This time Bettina snickered along with the other girls. Every morning, Miz West told them the same thing when they left for their routes. The comment always made her want to laugh. City lady…scared of the dark, most likely. There wasn’t one solitary thing out on the mountain that scared Bettina. Her scary thing lived under her very own roof. But soon as she and Emmett married up, she’d be able to leave Pap and be safe and happy. Emmett was so big, so strong. He’d never let Pap hurt her again.
That new girl couldn’t get to Boone’s Holler quick enough to suit Bettina.
Alba set off through the trees to the west, Glory went southeast, and Bettina guided her mule in a northeasterly direction. Her first stop was right close—Nanny Fay’s cabin, set at the edge of what folks considered the border of Boone’s Holler. She slid her hand into the bulky side of the pack while passing between the low branches of close-growing maples. Miz West made things easy by arranging the books so’s they were in the order of her stops. Her fingers closed around the top one, which felt as thick as a stack of flapjacks, and she pulled it out. A colored picture on the cover showed two boys fishing on what must be a riverbank because a boat of some sort floated on the water. There probably wasn’t no pictures inside, though. Only skinny books had pictures on their insides.
“Don’t reckon there’s a one of ’em in that cabin who even knows their ABCs. All they want is picture books.” Glory’s snide voice rang in Bettina’s memory.
Bettina gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t never be caught looking inside the skinny books, no matter how much the pictures enticed her. She held the book chosen for Nanny Fay out in front of her and scowled at the big letters printed at the top of the cover. She knew t, a, and e because her name had those same letters in it. But the whole words? She growled under her breath. “Fat as this thing is, it’s gonna have lotsa words in it.” And she couldn’t even make sense of the two on the cover.
Mule broke through the trees into a small clearing. Nanny Fay’s cabin sat a little off center in the open spot. A garden stretched all the way to