I am sorry to say we don’t share much of a resemblance, but you and Lucille have similar eyes, and that has made Lucille happy as can be. She says she is going to write you a long letter all about herself with lots of details and a lock of her hair. You don’t have to write her back, but she will be your devoted servant if you do.
And thank you for telling me about what your school is like. I don’t know that I’d care to go to a school that was just girls, especially when some of them sound awful mean. I think any girl named Bertha is bound to be sour, and you are wise to stay out of her way. I’m happy to hear that your teacher, Miss Gardner, is sweet-natured, and that you are her pet. I wish Miss Sary’s school had a chalkboard so I could clap erasers against the brick wall at the end of the day the way you do.
There is one part of your letter I have read over and over again, where you said my letters have set straight why your mama’s apple stack cake has always been your favorite and why you have always felt homesick for a place you never been. My letters made you see that you are a mountain girl just the same as me.
Now, don’t that just make perfect sense? Your mama is a mountain girl, after all. I think when you come to visit, you won’t feel homesick no more because you will be right at home.
And yes, we will do all them things you asked to do once you get here. We’ll hike up to Aunt Jennie’s and go looking for Oza, and if you are truly wanting to learn to make souse, then I’m sure Mama will be happy to show you how, but you might think twice after you see the recipe.
And yes, we will visit Miss Sary and look at her encyclopedia with James and make plans for our travels, and we will go to a barn dance of a Saturday night and I will teach you all the words to “Cluck Old Hen.”
Lucille can’t wait for you to meet Chandelier and James is wondering if you are the kind of girl who likes to go fishing. I told him that I thought you most likely was.
Oh, we will have so many adventures when you come to visit! But you know what I most look forward to? Sitting on the porch of an evening, where I will tell you all of my stories and you will tell me all of yours. For now, I will put your picture beside my bed and think of you each night before I go to sleep. I am counting the days until your arrival. Until then, I remain
Your Cousin and Own True Friend,
Arie Mae Sparks
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Caitlyn Dlouhy for once again making the magic happen, and Jessica Sit for being a fabulous magician’s assistant. Thanks to Michael McCartney, who did such a marvelous job designing this book, and to Clare McGlade, whose copyedits made the book a better place to be. Thanks to Justin Chanda, world’s best publisher and rooftop gardener, for his ongoing support. Thanks to Doug Broyles, for sharing his knowledge of Old Time music and trying to teach me to play the fiddle, bless his heart. Thanks to the good folks of the N.C. Folklife Institute for letting me raid their archives. A tip of the hat is owed to David Whisnant, whose book All That is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region inspired this story. Much love to Amy Graham and Danielle Paul for their constant encouragement, and to Clifton, Jack, Will and Travis Dowell for being the best family (and dog) a writer could ask for.
frances o’roark dowell has spent a lifetime listening to old-time and mountain music and is one of the only people in America who still writes letters. She’s the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels, including Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award and the William Allen White Children’s Book Award; the bestselling The Secret Language of Girls; Chicken Boy; Shooting the Moon, a Christopher Award winner; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; and The Second Life of Abigail Walker. She lives with her husband and two sons in Durham, North Carolina, and can both fiddle and quilt.
Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster, New York
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Also by Frances O’Roark Dowell
The Secret Language of Girls
The Kind of Friends We Used to Be
The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away
* * *
Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Blasts Off!
Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Erupts!
Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Gets Slimed!
Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Gets Cooking!
* * *
Chicken Boy
Dovey Coe
Falling In
The Second Life of Abigail Walker
Shooting the Moon
Ten Miles Past Normal
Where I’d Like To Be
* * *
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Frances O’Roark Dowell
Jacket illustration copyright © 2014 by Robert Hunt
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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The text for this book is set in Federlyn NF and Palatino LT.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dowell, Frances O’Roark.
Anybody shining / Frances O’Roark Dowell. — First edition.
p. cm
Summary: In a series of letters to her cousin, twelve-year-old Arie Mae relates her life in a mountain valley of North Carolina in the 1920s.
ISBN 978-1-4424-3292-5 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-3294-9 (eBook)
[1. Mountain life—North Carolina—Fiction. 2. North Carolina—History—20th century—Fiction. 3. Letters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D75455An 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013032730
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Anybody Shining Page 12