hey there booksy welcome back to my channel we're back for the next installment in the read aloud read along of my Angela's I know where the Caged Bird Sings we've been reading together chapters of this book and we've been to going a little bit slower than I had anticipated we started this series a long time ago and I thought we'd be finished in February but sometimes reading aloud takes a while which is why I know some of you have been saying that you're enjoying hearing me read aloud is that a few having to do it yourself so what about today for chapter 20 which in this edition starts on page 149 so if you have a copy of the book and you like to read along with me then go ahead and do that otherwise stay tuned I'm gonna be reading aloud if you are new to the series and you want to start with chapter 1 the previous videos have been linked in the playlist down below so you can start there otherwise here we go with chapter 20 ackA Backa soda cracker ackA Backa boo ackA Backa soda cracker I'm in love with you the sounds of tag beat through the trees while the top branch is waived in contrapuntal rhythms I lay on a moment of green grass and telescope the children's game to my vision the girls run about wild now here now they're never here never was they seemed to have no more direction than a Saturday ago but it was a shirred if seldom voiced knowledge that all movements fitted and worked according to a larger plan I raise a platform for my mind's eye and travel down on the outcome of a kabocha the gay picnic dresses - to stop and darted like beautiful dragonflies over a dark pool the boys black whips in the sunlight popped behind the trees where their girls had fled half-hidden and throbbing in the shadows the summer picnic fish fry in the clearing by the pond was the biggest outdoor event of the year everyone was there all churches were represented as well as the social groups Elks Eastern Star Masons Knights of Columbus daughters of Pythias professional people Negro teachers from Lafayette County and all the excited children musicians brought cigar box guitars harmonicas Jews harps combs wrapped in tissue paper and even bathtub bases the amount and variety of food would have found approval on the menu of a Roman epic your pans of fried chicken covered with dish towels sat on the benches next a mountain of potato salad crammed with hard-boiled eggs whole rust-red sticks of Bologna were clothed in cheesecloth homemade pickles and chow chow and baked country hams aromatic with cloves and pineapples fight for prominence our steady customers had ordered cold watermelons so Bailey and I shoved the striped green fruit into the coca-cola box and filled all the tubs with ice as well as the big black wash pot that mama used to boil her laundry now they tules sweating and the happy afternoon air the summer picnic game ladies a chance to show off their baking hands on the barbecue pit chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was guarded in the family like a scandalous affair however in the ecumenical light of the summer picnic every true baking artist could reveal her price to the delight and criticism of the town orange sponge cakes and dark brown mounds dripping Hershey's chocolate stood layer to layer with ice white coconuts and light brown caramels pound cakes sand with their buttery weight and small children could no more resist licking the icing than their mothers could avoid slapping the sticky fingers proven fishermen and weakened amateurs sat on the trunks of trees at the pond they pulled a struggling bass and the silver perch from the Swift water a rotating crew of young girls scaled and cleaned the catch and busy women in starched aprons salted and roll the fish and cornmeal then drop them in dutch ovens trembling with boiling fat on one corner of the clearing a gospel group was rehearsing their harmony practiced tighter sardines floated over the music of the county singers and melted into the songs of the small children's ring games boys don't let that ball fallen under my cakes you do end it with me on you yes ma'am and nothing changed the boys continued hitting the tennis ball with paling snatched from a fence and running holes in the ground colliding with everyone I had wanted to bring something to read but mama said if I didn't want to play with the other children I couldn't make myself useful that cleaning fish or bringing water from the nearest well or wood for the barbecue I wandered into a retreat by accident signs with arrows around the barbecue pit pointed men women children toward fading lanes grown over since last year feeling ages old and very wise at 10 I couldn't allow myself to be found by small children squatting behind a tree neither did I have the nerve to follow the arrow pointing the way for women if any grown-up had caught me there it was possible that she'd think I was being womanish and reported me to mama and I knew what I could expect from her so when the urge hit me to relieve myself I headed toward another direction once through the wall of Sycamore trees I found myself in a clearing ten times smaller than the picnic area and cool and quiet after my business was taken care off I found a seat between two protruding roots of a black walnut tree and leaned back on his trunk heaven would be like that for the deserving maybe California - looking straight up in the uneven circle of sky I began to sense that I might be falling into a blue cloud far away the children's voices and the thick odor of food cooking over open fires where the hooks I'd grabbed just in time to save myself grass squeaked and I jumped at being found Louise Kendricks walked into my Grove I didn't know that she too was escaping the gay spirit we were the same age and she and her mother lived in a neat little bungalow behind the school her cousins who were in our age group were wealthier and fair but I had secretly believed Louise to be the prettiest female in stamps next to mrs. flowers what you doing sitting here by yourself Marguerite she didn't accuse she asked for information I said that I was watching the sky she asked what for there was obviously no answer to a question like that so I didn't make up one Louise reminded me of Jane Eyre her mother lived in reduced circumstances but she was genteel and though she worked as a maid I decided she should be called a governess and did so to Bailey and myself who could teach a romantic dreamy ten-year-old to call a spade a spade mrs. Kendrick's could not have been very old but to me all people over 18 were adults and there could be no degree given or taken they had to be catered to and pampered with politeness then they had to stay in the same category of look-alikes on the like and being alike Louise was a lonely girl although she has plenty of playmates and a ready partner for any ring game in the schoolyard her face which was long and dark chocolate brown had a thin sheet of sadness over it as light but as permanent as the viewing goes on a coffin and her eyes which I thought her best feature shifted quickly as if what they had sought had just a second before eluded her she had come near and the spotted light through the trees fell on her face and braids and running splotches I had never noticed before but she looked exactly like Bailey her hair was good more straight and kinky and her features had the regularity of objects placed by a careful hand she looked up well they can't see much sky from here then she sat down and arm away from me finding too exposed roots she laid thin wrists on them as if she had been in an easy-chair slowly she leaned back against the tree I closed my eyes and thought of the necessity of finding another place and the unlikelihood of there being another with all the qualifications that this one had there was a little peel of a screamin before I could open my eyes Louise had grabbed my hand I was falling she shook her long braids I was falling in the sky I liked her for being able to fall in the sky and admit it I suggested let's try together we have to sit up straight on the count of five Louise asked want to hold hands just in case I did if one of us did happen to fall the other could pull her out after a few near tumbles into eternity both of us knew what it was we laughed at having played with death and destruction and escaped Louise said let's look at that old sky while we're spinning we took each other's hand in the center of the clearing and began turning around very slowly at first we raised our chins and look straight at the seductive patch of blue faster just a little faster then faster faster yet yes help we were falling then eternity one after all we couldn't stop spinning or falling until I was jerked out of her grasp I greeted gravity and throw into my fate below no above not below I found myself safe and dizzy at the foot of the sycamore tree Louise had ended on her knees at the other side growth this was surely the time to laugh we lost but we haven't lost anything first we were giggling and crawling drunkenly toward each other and then we were laughing out loud uproariously we slapped each other on the back and shoulders and laughed some more we had made a fool or a liar out of something and didn't that just be it all in daring to challenge unknown with me she became my first friend we spent tedious hours teaching ourselves a tute language you yeah call you know tottenham or what waukesha toot since all the other children spoke pig latin we were superior because truth was hard to speak and even harder to understand at last I began to comprehend what girls giggled about Louise would rattle off a few sentences to me in the in unintelligible tough language and would laugh naturally I laugh to snickered really understanding nothing I don't think she understood half of what she was saying herself but after all girls have to giggle and after being a woman for three years I was about to become a girl in school one day a girl whom I barely knew and had scarcely spoken to brought me a note the intricate fold indicated that it was a love note I was sure she had the wrong person but she insisted picking the paper loose I confess to myself that I was frightened suppose it was somebody being funny suppose the paper would show a hideous beast on the word you written over it children did that sometimes just because they claimed I was stuck up fortunately I had got permission to go to the toilet an outside job and in the reeking gloom I read dear friend MJ times are hard and friends are few I take great pleasure in writing you will you be my Valentine Tommy falda I pulled my mind apart who who was Tommy Felton finally a face dragged itself from my memory he was a nice-looking brown skinned boy who lived across the pond as soon as I had pinned him down I began to wonder why why me was it a joke but if tommy was the boy I remember it he was a very sober person and a good student well then it wasn't a joke all right What evil dirty thinks did he have in mind my questions fell over themselves an army enriched Street hates to dig for cover protect your flanks know that the enemy close the gap between you what did a Valentine do anyway start him to throw the paper in the foul-smelling hole I thought of Louise I could show it to her I folded the paper back in the original creases I went back to class there was no time during the lunch period since I had to run to the store and wait on customers the note was in my sock and every time mama looked at me I fear that her church gaze might have turned into x-ray vision and she could not only see the note and read his message but would interpret it as well I felt myself slipping down a sheer cliff of guilt in a second time and you're they destroyed the note there was no opportunity the take up bell rang and bill erased me to school so the note was forgotten but serious business is serious and it has to be attended to after classes I waited for Louise she was talking to a group of girls laughing but when I gave her our signal to waves off the left hand she said goodbye to them and join me in the road I didn't give her the chance to ask what was on her mind her favorite question I simply gave her the note recognizing befouled she stopped smiling we were in deep waters she opened the letter and read it aloud twice well what do you think I said what do I think that's what I'm asking you what is there to think looks like he wants you to be his Valentine Louise I could read what does it mean oh you know his Valentine his love there was that hateful word again that treacherous were that Yana but you like a volcano well I won't most decidedly I won't not ever again have you been his Valentine before what do you mean never again I couldn't lie to my friend and I wasn't about to freshen old ghosts well don't answer him then and that's the end of it I was a little relieved that she thought it could be gotten rid of so quickly I tore the note in half and gave her a part walking down the hill we minced the paper in a thousand shreds and gave it to the wind two days later on monitor came into my classroom she spoke quietly to Miss Williams our teacher Miss Williams said class I believe you remember that tomorrow is Valentine's Day so named for st. Valentine the martyr who died around 80 to 70 in Rome the days observed by exchanging tokens of affections and cards the 8th grade children have completed theirs and the monitor is acting as mailman you'll be given cardboard ribbon and red tissue paper during the last period today so that you may make your gifts glue and scissors are here in the work table now stand when your name is called she had been shuffling the colored envelopes and calling names for some time before I noticed I had been thinking of yesterday's plain invitation and the expeditious way Louise and I took care of it we who were being called to receive Valentines were only slightly more embarrassed than those who sat and watched as Miss Williams opened each envelope Helen gray Helen gray a tall dull girl from Louisville flinched dear Valentine Miss Williams began reading the badly rhymed childish drivel I seized with shame and anticipation and yet had time to be offended and the silly poetry that I could have bettered in my sleep Marguerite and Johnson my goodness this looks more like a letter than a Valentine dear friend I wrote you a letter and saw you tear it up with your friend Miss Elle I don't believe you meant to hurt my feelings so whether you answer or not you will always be my Valentine TV class miss Williams smirked and continued lazily without giving us permission to sit down although you are only in the seventh grade I'm sure you wouldn't be so presumptuous as to sign a letter with an initial but here is a boy in the 8th grade about to graduate blah blah Blee blah you may collect your Valentine's and these letters on your way out it was a nice letter and Tommy had beautiful penmanship I was sorry a tour of the 1st his statement that whether I answered him or not would not influence his affection reassured me he couldn't be after you know what if he talked like that I told Louisa the next time he came to the store I was going to say something extra nice to hear unfortunately the situation was so wonderful to me that each time I saw Tommy I melted in delicious giggles Hannah was unable to form a coherent sentence after a while he starts including me in his general glances that's chapter 20 we'll be back next time for chapter 21 if you like this video give me a thumbs up subscribe if you haven't already and let's talk in the comments let me know what you're enjoying about this book I really enjoy this we'll look back at my Angela's childhood a lot of what she's describing is not my own experience and so it makes it that much more intriguing to read about what it was like growing up in the south during this time let me know what you're enjoying about the book I'd love to hear your takeaways from this story so let's talk in the comments and until next time happy reading