He is even more surprised that Byron is kind and polite to her. They are all happy to arrive in Birmingham, where Kenny is surprised to see how tiny and frail Grandma Sands is. Dad decides to drive straight through, much to Momma’s chagrin. On the road, they experience the dark mountains of Appalachia at night. Momma plans a three-day trip in her notebook, detailing every rest stop and sandwich break with two overnight stays. Dad brings home a new drive-around record player. They hope being in the South will provide Byron with a wake-up call toward better and more mature behavior.Įveryone except Byron excitedly prepares for the road trip by sprucing up the car and packing. When Byron defies his parents and has his hair straightened and dyed, Momma and Dad decide to drive the family to visit strict Grandma Sands in Birmingham, Alabama they plan to leave Byron there for at least the summer and maybe the school year. He tries to help Kenny with Joetta’s complaints about wearing winter gear to school but does so with lies that make her cry. He retrieves Kenny’s stolen gloves but harasses and roughs up the younger student who took them. Byron roughs up younger kids, plays with matches in the house, and puts treats on his parents’ credit at the market. Once, Kenny makes the mistake of laughing at Rufus’s clothing along with other students, but Rufus forgives Kenny when Kenny apologizes.Īs the school year passes, Kenny observes Byron’s increasingly disrespectful and problematic behavior.
One day a new student, Rufus, arrives from Arkansas and becomes Kenny’s friend. Kenny is no stranger to teasing kids at school tease him for his excellent reading ability and for his “lazy eye.” Sometimes Byron sticks up for him, but sometimes Byron skips school altogether, leaving Kenny to the bullies. Kenny enjoys teasing Byron with a new nickname, the Lipless Wonder. The rest of the family tries to figure out what to do, but eventually Momma just pulls Byron off and gives him Vaseline for his lips. Kenny discovers that Byron’s lips are stuck to the car mirror after kissing his own image. Kenny begins scraping but hears strange, slurred speech from Byron. Kenny insists Byron do his fair share of ice removal from the Brown Bomber, their 1948 Plymouth. He tells Kenny and Byron to go scrape the ice from the car windows. Unable to reach the landlord about their lack of heat, Dad decides they will spend the night with Aunt Cydney. Kenny, his older brother Byron, his younger sister Joetta, and their parents huddle together on the couch on a freezing Saturday in Flint, Michigan.
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