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I spent near five minutes running my finger up and down the page in myAmerican College Dictionary, looking for the word that Alice Pruitt had spat out at me like a bad peanut. I found the word on the same page as a lot of other words starting with “ill”: illegal, ill-fated, ill-gotten, illicit. When I sounded out the word,illegitimate, there was no question that it was the same word that Alice had used.
I had told Alice that I would eat worms and die before I’d tell her where the Voodoo Shack was hidden deep in Hazard Swamp. That was our club pact. We had all sworn to eat worms and die if we broke any of the club rules. Luckily, the only rule so far was to keep the whereabouts of the Voodoo Shack secret, and none of us was just dying to tell Alice Pruitt how to find it.
When I had recited this pact, Alice put her hands on her hips and stuck her nose in the air so high she liked to give herself a nosebleed.
“Who wants to join your ol’ club anyway?” she had said in a voice that reminded me of chalk taking a bad turn on the blackboard. “Besides, I’m thinking of forming a club of my own, and it won’t include…your kind.”
What did she mean, my kind?
“The membership of my club will be restricted to those who can trace their lineage back several generations. Mother is helping me with a list. It certainly won’t include any kids from trashy families, or—”
“Who are you calling trashy!” I yelled, giving Alice a small shove.
“And it won’t help to resort to violence, Iris Weston—I guess that name will just have to do, since you don’thave a father. Well, that’s not exactly true. Everyone has a father, it’s just that those who will be in my club will know who theirs is.”
“That so?” I snorted.
“Yes, Iris, that’s so. Mother says that you’re illegitimate and should therefore be disqualified from my membership roster.”
I knew it was a name-calling word—illegitimate. Alice was not about to call me something nice, and just the sound of it had a bad ring to it. Course, she was just ticked off because I wouldn’t tell her where the Voodoo Shack was. But I didn’t like the notion that Alice Pruitt’s mother was discussing my—what was that word?—lineage.
“And you’re a sissy-pants,” I had zinged back at her. I couldn’t think up any great comebacks.
I hadn’t given Alice’s hissy fit much thought until I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to do my homework. Usually I had better thin
