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Sour Lemon and Sweet Tea

By Julane Fisher

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Chapter 1 The Ghost
MY TWIN SISTER sits on the front porch kicking her legs back and forth off the edge. She fiddles with the long braid hanging down her back as we wait for our friends. I rest my elbows on my knees and stare at the blue sky, watching the white puffy clouds form into various shapes. One looks like a baseball diamond and a bird flies so close to it, it seems like he’s dodging the ball as it soars out of the park.
The air is thick with humidity and sweat beads gather on my forehead in thick droplets. Sitting up, I swipe the back of my hand across my forehead. It’s almost too hot to play baseball, but it won’t stop me because I’ve been waiting for this day all year long.
“Good gravy, Ellie.” Mama shakes her finger in front of Ellie’s face. “Take off those Daisy Dukes and put on some proper clothing for a baseball game.”
Mama points to Ellie’s short-shorts, named for the character on my favorite television show, The Dukes of Hazard, a new show that comes on every Thursday night. The Duke brothers drive a car they call The General Lee, stirring up more trouble than Georgia dirt, and every girl in town wants to look like their beautiful cousin, Daisy.
Ellie’s shorts are really just a pair of blue jeans that Mama picked up at a yard sale. Ellie took scissors and chopped them shorter than a pixie haircut.
As Ellie stomps into the house, muttering under her breath, I snicker because Ellie never gets in trouble. I’m the one always stuck in a tangled mess.
My family lives on a chicken farm in Triple Gap, a sleepy town forty miles north of Atlanta, where I know just about everyone, and where just about everyone I know is a farmer. We’re the only farm in town with a baseball diamond built right in the middle of the front yard.
Since we live near Atlanta, my older brother Jesse wanted to name our team the Braves. However, since most of my brothers and sisters are twins, my brother Jimmy decided to name our family team ‘The Twins’—as in the Minnesota Twins. It struck me as kind of odd because we don’t live anywhere near the state of Minnesota. In fact, I didn’t even know where Minnesota was until Jimmy showed me on a map.
Even though my last name is Liles, most folks call us the Twin Family and for good reason. Twins Jimmy and Jesse turned thirteen right before school let out. Ellie and I are eleven, but we turn twelve in July. My brother Billy is nine, and he happens to be the only Liles child born without a twin. Six-year-old twins, George and Grace make three sets of twins. Mama has always called George and Grace, ‘The Twins.’ I have no idea why since nearly all of us are twins. Besides, it sounds like a baseball team.
Anyway, having more than one set of twins in any family is peculiar, but having three, like we do, is apparently uncanny—at least according to Mrs. Buzby.
Mrs. Buzby is our organist at First Baptist Triple Gap. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, she feels the need to endlessly mention to Mama that the multiple sets of twins in our family is weird. Well, she doesn’t say weird because it’s not polite, but that’s what she really means. Mrs. Buzby ends every one of her sentences with “bless your heart,” which gets on my nerves—as if my heart needs any blessings from her.

A truck the color of cherry tomatoes tears down our driveway stirring up red dirt and the tinted windows shield me from seeing who is inside. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t belong to any of my friends because I don’t know anyone that can afford such an expensive truck. When the door opens, a tall man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes steps out. He wears a black, three-piece suit with a tie that matches his eyes.
He stares at me, so I stare back, neither one of us speaking. It reminds me of the old Wild West movies I’ve seen on TV with the dust flying in the air and a man standing with his hands on his hips. I can almost hear music playing in the background as we yank our guns from their holsters. When a girl steps around the hood of the Ford, I’m jolted back into the present.
It’s Violet—my arch nemesis.
Last year, Violet moved to town and was placed in Mrs. Periwinkle’s class with Ellie and me. Mrs. Periwinkle was the nicest teacher I’d ever had. Violet, on the other hand, is the meanest girl I’ve ever known. She also happens to be the richest girl in town, so no one dares challenge her. Except me.
I have a habit of saying stuff right back to her whenever she decides to open her big, nasty mouth. Like the time she made fun of my favorite teacher. You have to laugh at the irony of a girl named Violet making fun of her teacher named Periwinkle. Although talking back has gotten me in more tangled messes than I can count, my words come flying out like a hawk chasing a rat.
Ellie strolls back out to the porch wearing shorts down to her knees and a red and blue striped shirt. “Can’t believe Mama made me change clothes,” she grumbles. Spotting Violet standing in front of me, Ellie stops.
Violet scowls at me sitting on the porch steps. “Why are you farm girls sitting around? Shouldn’t you be working or something?”
“We’re waiting for our friends to get here,” Ellie smiles. “Everyone’s coming to our farm today to play baseball.”
“And you weren’t invited,” I growl, putting my hands on my hips.
Violet’s eyes scrunch together, and she puts her hands on her hips too. “Who says I wanted to be?”
“Well you’re here, aren’t you?” Crossing my arms across my chest, I glare at her.
“I came with my daddy. He has business here.” Violet nods toward the back of my house where her daddy disappeared. “He bought a brand-new 1979 Ford truck.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and throws her nose in the air.
"So?” I say.
“So, it’s the best there is. The fanciest model they make.”
I roll my eyes and groan.
Violet scans the yard, her nose still pointed to the sky, when she spots my brother. Her ugly frown turns upside down. “Oh, hi, Jesse.” Violet fiddles with her curls and bats her eyelashes.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“Uh, hi.” Jesse frowns and turns away.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Um, practicing for the big game today.” Jesse tosses the baseball in the air then catches it with his glove. “You here to play ball? You’re awfully dressed up.”
She looks ridiculous. Her pale pink dress has tiny blue flowers sprinkled all over, and a white bow rests below her chin. Her knee socks, pulled up high on her legs, are topped with white sandals. Considering I’m wearing jean shorts and a yellow and blue striped T-shirt, she is way overdressed.
Plus, it’s ninety-five degrees out here. Violet’s got to be sweating like a sinner in church.
“I don’t play baseball. That’s a boy’s sport.” She gawks at me.
Shuffling my feet in the dirt, I kick dust onto Violet’s white sandals.
“What did you do that for? You’re going to pay for that, smelly farm girl,” Violet squawks like a chicken.
“Violet,” Ellie interrupts. “Why don’t I show you our tire swing while you wait for your daddy?”
Our swing is the one Pappy, my grandfather, built for Ellie and me. He took a tractor tire and hung it from a large branch on the old oak tree that nestles against the house. Why would Ellie want to take Violet to our special place? Moping, I stomp all the way to the swing.
Shouts echoing from inside the house lure me in as my habit of spying on the grownups kicks into high gear. Ellie says it’s like stirring up a bee’s nest and one day it’s going to get me in trouble.
When Ellie catches me wandering toward our house, she wags her finger in front of her face. “One day you’re gonna get stung, Lillie. I’m tellin’ ya.”
But I haven’t been stung yet.
Slinking to the open back door, I press against the kitchen wall and peer around the corner. The back door slams shut making me cringe. Daddy and the man from the truck stand in the family room. The man waves a stack of papers in Daddy’s face as Mama appears from the long hallway that leads to her room.
Spotting Mama, the man’s scowl curves into a smirk. “Ruth. Good to see you again.” His voice is as sweet as maple syrup. “You look as beautiful as ever on this fine afternoon.”
Does Mama know this man?
“Why you no good, dirty…” Daddy starts to say something else, but Mama interrupts.
“What are you doing here, Duke?” Her voice is anything but sweet.
“We need to talk. I tried explaining all this to Tommy Ray, though you know him. He won’t listen.”
“Now is not a good time. We have a lot of children coming here today, so we are quite busy. I have to kindly ask you to leave.”
“Hang on, now. Listen a minute. I’ve got a buyer for your land. It’s a good offer.”
“I told you, Duke. I ain’t selling.” Daddy’s jaw tightens, and a vein in the middle of his forehead pops out.
“I think when you see this offer, you’re going to change your mind.” Duke continues. “Development is coming to Triple Gap, Tommy Ray. You can’t stop it forever.”
He must be talking about the shopping mall. Many folks think it’s high time for the town to grow, since it is 1979 and all. It sounds exciting to me, but since almost everyone in Triple Gap is a farmer, they’re not too keen on giving up their land to build shopping centers.
Daddy takes a step closer and points his finger in Duke’s face. “Now you listen here. I’d rather lose my land than sell to the likes of you.”
Lose our land? Am I moving? Where am I going to live? My heart beats in my chest making air escape from my lungs in heavy puffs.
“I’d be careful what you wish for if I were you.” Duke scowls.
“Get off my property, you thief.” The vein on Daddy’s forehead pops out again.
“That’s enough. Both of you,” Mama shouts. “Tommy Ray, we’ll need to finish this conversation another time.” She glances over her shoulder and nods toward me.
Gulp. I’ve been caught. I duck behind the wall, but not before Daddy catches my eye. His face turns as red as a raspberry.
Oh no, I’m in trouble now.
“You need to leave, Duke.” Mama’s voice is like ice.
Keeping my body flat against the wall, I tilt my head back around the corner.
“Alright. But look this offer over, will you?” He hands her the stack of papers and walks down the steps. He reaches the bottom stair and turns back around. “This buyer already bought the piece beside you, so this may be your last chance.”
Daddy opens his mouth to say something as Mama squeezes his shoulder. “Let it be, Tommy Ray.”
My feet reach the back door when Daddy hollers. “Lillie Mae. Not a word of this, ya hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mama’s face stiffens and her lips purse together. “My goodness, Tommy Ray,” she whispers. “After all this time. I never thought…he’s been gone for fifteen years.”
As I stumble out the door, my legs feel like they’ve turned to stone. Violet sits on the tire swing, and Ellie dangles from a large nearby branch.
“You okay?” Ellie asks. “You’re so…pale…like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I did.” My body shudders. “Maybe I just did.”

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