James, Reginald: "Thank you, Mr. Foster." Ellis Earl Brown waved goodbye to his teacher, then trekked with his sister, Carrie Ann, along the dusty path toward home. Mr. Julius Foster always offered to drive his lime green station wagon all the way to the end of the winding path to drop Ellis Earl and Carrie Ann off directly in front of their house, but regardless of how much 8-year-old Carrie Ann begged him to accept the ride, 11-year-old Ellis Earl always adamantly refused, even when the sky threatened rain, as it did today.

Ellis Earl was grateful that Mr. Foster was kind enough to include them in his carpool of nine students to whom he gave a ride to and from school each day, but Ellis Earl didn't want the other students to see the place they called home.

Because it was Friday, Carrie Ann began skipping down the road, singing a made-up song about how glad she was that she didn't have to get up for school the next morning, but Ellis Earl dreaded the weekend. The weekend meant two whole days with no school and no grand selection of books from Mr. Foster's shelf, except the one book Ellis Earl was allowed to take home to read to his younger siblings and the one book he was allowed to take for himself.

Today, he wasn't at all happy with his selection. Ellis Earl preferred the books with lots of pictures, but his friend Philip loved the Hardy Boys Mysteries, and this is what he had challenged Ellis Earl to take home for the weekend. Ellis Earl wasn't interested in reading the Secret of the Old Mill, but not wanting to be called a chicken, he had accepted the challenge and brought the book home. For certain, he'd do his best to try to read it, as he longed to read chapter books like Philip, but deep down, he knew that his mind would soon wander away from the words if there were no pictures to guide him along.

Besides the absence of Mr Foster's collection of books, there would also be the absence of food, sometimes not even a piece of bread, unless Ellis Earl's family went to visit their grandparents on Sunday, which he dreaded.

This weekend, however, Ellis Earl was in luck. Mr. Foster had given him the leftovers from a surprise afternoon snack for his class. Ellis Earl wished the food could hold them over until Monday, but with 11 people in their house, a half loaf of bread, a half empty jar of peanut butter, two chocolate moon pies and a package of stage planks, wouldn't last until even the next day. The minute Mr. Foster had given him the sack, Ellis Earl had begun figuring out how many sandwiches he could make with the bread and peanut butter. He shared those figures with Carrie Ann. "We got 10 slices of bread," he said. "We can make five sandwiches and cut them in half, or we can each have one slice with peanut butter on top. That's enough for all the children. We'll divide up the moon pies too. Mama can have the stage planks. It'll be nice if she has something sweet for a change."

Carrie Ann stopped skipping and turned to face Ellis Earl. She glared at him. "Mr. Foster said to make sure I got a moon pie," she said. "That mean a whole moon pie, so I ain't splitting it up with nobody."

Ellis Earl waved her off. "Don't be selfish. We can split these moon pies six ways. Everybody ought to get to taste something sweet."

"I'm hungry enough to eat both of them moon pies and all that bread and peanut butter right now," Carrie Ann said, licking her lips.

"Stop acting greedy. We can't eat up everything by ourselves. It ain't right." Having eaten only one meal that day himself, Ellis Earl would've gladly eaten all the food right then and there, had he been as oblivious to their family's plight as his younger sister was, but he wasn't as oblivious as Carrie Ann, so he would never think of devouring a whole sack of food and not sharing it with his siblings, especially 10-year-old Oscar who had become too ill to attend school.

Ellis Earl knew that all the family who were home during the day had probably eaten little more than a couple of biscuits at best. He was fortunate that Mr. Foster always brought lunch for his students. Mr. Foster's food was delicious, so Ellis Earl didn't mind one bit that he couldn't bring his own lunch. Sometimes Mr. Foster even had fried chicken or smothered pork chops, and as if by some trick of magic, he had enough for everyone, even the students who brought their own lunches at times.

"Why we got to walk all the way home from the road?" Carrie Ann complained as she did nearly every day. She hugged her stack of textbooks to her chest with one hand and with the other, tugged her coat collar tighter about her neck. "It's cold out here and my hand is freezing."

Ellis Earl clucked his tongue at Carrie Ann. It was a pity how his little sister could so quickly switch from skipping and singing to slouching and complaining. He peered through the still bare branches of the trees and gazed at the sky. It was overcast and gray. "It's about to be springtime before long," he said, even though he hardly believed that himself. Regretfully, he didn't have a free hand with which to secure his coat collar tighter about his neck, neither could he alternate which hand held his textbooks in order to warm the other in his coat pocket as Carrie Ann did, but cold hands were a small price to pay, to avoid the humiliation he would feel if the other children in the carpool ever saw his house.