I pull out my teacher lady voice.“ ‘If you can’t say nothing nice, then you ought not say nothing at all.’ ”

When we get to her house, I look over at Aibileen. She’s holding down a laugh so hard she’s gone purple.

“It ain’t funny,” I say.

“I am glad you’re my friend, Minny Jackson.” And she gives me a big hug until I roll my eyes and tell her I have to go.

I keep walking and turn at the corner. I didn’t want Aibileen to know that. I don’t want anybody to know how much I need those Skeeter stories. Now that I can’t come to the Shirley Boon meetings anymore, that’s pretty much all I’ve got. And I am not saying the Miss Skeeter meetings are fun. Every time we meet, I complain. I moan. I get mad and throw a hot potato fit. But here’s the thing: I like telling my stories. It feels like I’m doing something about it. When I leave, the concrete in my chest has loosened, melted down so I can breathe for a few days.

And I know there are plenty of other“colored” things I could do besides telling my stories or going to Shirley Boon’s meetings—the mass meetings in town, the marches in Birmingham, the voting rallies upstate. But truth is, I don’t care that much about voting. I don’t care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver.

AT HOME THAT NIGHT, I get the butter beans simmering, the ham in the skillet.

“Kindra, get everbody in here,” I say to my six-year-old. “We ready to eat.”

“Suuuuppperrrrr,” Kindra yells, not moving an inch from where she’s standing.

“You go get your daddy the proper way,” I yell. “What I tell you about yelling in my house?”

Kindra rolls her eyes at me like she’s just been asked to do the stupidest thing in the world. She stamps her feet down the hall. “Suuupperrr!”

“Kindra!”

The kitchen is the only room in the house we can all fit in together. The rest are set up as bedrooms. Me and Leroy’s room is in the back, next to that is a little room for Leroy Junior and Benny, and the front living room’s been turned into a bedroom for Felicia, Sugar, and Kindra. So all that leaves is the kitchen. Unless it’s crazy cold outside, our back door stays open with the screen shut to keep outthe flies. All the time there’s the roar of kids and cars and neighbors and dogs barking.

Leroy comes in and sits at the table next to Benny, who’s seven. Felicia fills up the glasses with milk or water. Kindra carries a plate of beans and ham to her daddy and comes back to the stove for more. I hand her another plate.

“This one for Benny,” I say.

“Benny, get up and help your mama,” Leroy says.

“Benny got the asthma. He don’t need to be doing nothing.” But my sweet boy gets up anyway, takes the plate from Kindra. My kids know how to work.

They all set at the table except me. Three children are home tonight. Leroy Junior, who’s a senior at Lenier High, is bagging groceries at the Jitney 14. That’s the white grocery store over in Miss Hilly’s neighborhood. Sugar, my oldest girl, in tenth grade, babysits for our neighbor Tallulah who works late. When Sugar’s finished, she’ll walk home and drive her daddy to thelate shift at the pipe-fitting plant, then pick up Leroy Junior from the grocery. Leroy Senior will get a ride from the plant at four in the morning with Tallulah’s husband. It all works out.

Leroy eats, but his eyes are on theJackson Journal next to his plate. He’s not exactly known for his sweet nature when he wakes up. I glance over from the stove and see the sit-in at Brown’s Drug Store is the front-page news. It’s not Shirley’s group, it’s people from Greenwood. A bunch of white teenagers stand behind the five protesters on their stools, jeering and jabbing, pouring ketchup and mustard and salt all over their heads.

“How they do that?” Felicia points at the picture. “Sit there without fighting back?”

“That’s what they supposed to do,” says Leroy.

“I feel like spitting looking at that picture,” I say.

“We talk about it later.” Leroy folds the paper in quarters and tucks it under his thigh.

Felicia says to Benny, not quiet enough,“Good thing Mama wasn’t up on one a them stools. Else none a them white folks had any teeth left.”

“And Mama be in the Parchman jail,” says Benny for everybody to hear.

Kindra props her arm on her hip.“Nuh-uh. Ain’t nobody putting my mama in jail. I beat those white people with a stick till they bleed.”

Leroy points his finger at every one of them.“I don’t want to hear a word about it outside this house. It’s too dangerous. You hear me, Benny? Felicia?” Then he points his finger at Kindra. “You hear me?”

Benny and Felicia nod their heads, look down at their plates. I’m sorry I started all this and give Kindra the keep-it-shut look. But Little Miss Something slaps her fork down on the table, climbs out of her chair. “I hate white people! And I’m on tell everbody if I want to!”