Betsey Brown (22 page)

Betsey couldn't understand how anybody didn't know Carrie wouldn't hurt nobody less they hurt her a whole lot. Carrie wouldn't have cut nobody, not less they hurt her a whole lot.

Somehow the extra stretch to the thickest limb of her tree by the terrace gave Betsey the breath she needed to settle on other thoughts. The moon was peeking through an orange haze. Basketballs were patting driveways like so many conga drums. There was Eugene lurking in the twitch of an eye. Carrie had said it was okay to have feelings like that. Special feelings that tingle and rush through the body. Wrens hovered by the telephone wires.

Betsey lingered over her city making decisions and discoveries about herself that would change the world. In one way or
another, anyone who could hear merengues and basketballs, feel loose and free in a comforting oak, was surely going to have her way.

But Carrie would have said there was nothing dishonorable about being an Ikette, either.