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“Sissy, go fetch your mama,” Miss Maybelle said. I ran out the back screen door, hearing it slap behind me. “What’s wrong, baby?” Mama shouted, as she stood up from behind her raspberry patch. “Miss Maybelle said to get you. She sounds upset,” I yelled back. Mama came running toward me wiping her gloved hands on her apron. “Is she on the phone, honey?” “She sure is,” I said, stepping aside so Mama could get in the house. She scooted past me and picked up the receiver with her gardening gloves still on. I’d never seen her do that before. “Hello, Maybelle,” Mama said. She turned to see me standing right behind her. “Go make us some lemonade, honey. Miss Maybelle and I need our privacy.” I did as I was told. From the kitchen, I watched Mama pull the phone as far as the cord would go so she could get a look out the front window. I followed her gaze, and that’s when I first saw Billy. I could tell, by the way he strutted down the middle of our street with that duffle bag slung over his left shoulder and a cigarette hanging from his mouth like it had always been there, that Billy Swanson was bad news. He didn’t look like any of the boys I knew. Billy was tall and solid as a sycamore. He wore a cap pulled down low on his forehead. With the shadows the way they were, I could barely make out his features. For some reason, that made me think he was hiding something. By the way Mama was acting, with her neck craned and her words spilling out all over the place, I knew it was best I stayed put. People in Chantilly Grove were tolerant of family who came to visit, but Billy was another story. Mama and Miss Maybelle seemed sure of that. Even though I was standing in our kitchen with Mama not ten feet from me, I was scared. The kind of scared a rabbit must feel when it sees a hound dog. Until that dog sees the rabbit, that rabbit’s got nothing to worry about. But deep down inside, the rabbit