The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O'Connor

you?” Velma interrupted.
    â€œPrincess Starletta Rainey.”
    â€œRainey?” Velma’s eyes narrowed. “Where do you live?”
    Starletta pointed toward the woods.
    Velma looked over at the path that zigzagged through the trees. “Is your daddy T-Bone Rainey?”
    Starletta skipped in a circle around one of the graves.
    Â 
    JAY BOB
BEST DOG EVER
JUNE 16, 1955
    Â 
    â€œYes, he is,” she said.
    â€œI know him,” Velma said. “His daddy used to deliver firewood to me when he wasn’t no bigger than you.”
    Starletta kept skipping, not even looking at Velma.
    Popeye felt the wrath-filled air swirling around Velma.
    â€œI
know
,” Velma snapped, “that your daddy would not approve of three younguns running wild and unsupervised in these woods.”
    Starletta stopped skipping and thrust her chin up. “That is most definitely
not
true,” she said.
    Popeye’s insides danced with delight at little ole butterfly-winged Starletta standing up to Velma, something he had never done in all his born days and never intended to do, not even when he was old.
    Velma’s face twitched. Her hand fluttered up and pushed at her thin gray hair. Popeye could tell that all she wanted to do in the whole world, at that moment, was find herself a rolled-up newspaper and swat Starletta’s skinny legs.
    But, of course, she couldn’t.
    So she turned to Popeye and said, “Let’s go.”

26
    THEY TRUDGED SILENTLY down the path in single file.
    Popeye, Elvis, Boo, and Velma.
    Starletta skipped along behind them, humming.
    Every now and then, Velma whirled around and told her to go on home, but Starletta ignored her.
    They turned left at the Indian pipes and followed the creek until they got to the dam the boys had made. By the time they reached the field behind Popeye’s house, they could hear the folks up at the Holiday Rambler.
    â€œA little more to the left!”
    â€œGive her some gas!”
    â€œOn the count of three . . .”
    And then, just as they rounded the curve, the Holiday Rambler drove out of the hole in the road with a roar, sending up swirls of dirt and gravel.
    A cheer rose into the warm summer air.
    Prissy, Calvin, Walter, Willis, and Shorty whooped and clapped.
    Dooley and Shifty high-fived each other.
    Glory and Furman Jewell grinned down at everyone from the window of the motor home.
    Elvis yelled, “Hot dang!” and ran over to join the others.
    Velma nodded at Dooley with the teeny-tiniest little smile at the corners of her thin lips.
    Starletta skipped over to the motor home, her wings flapping so much it was a wonder she didn’t lift right up into the sky like a bird.
    It seemed like everybody was just as happy as happy could be.
    Everybody except Popeye.
    When Popeye saw the shiny silver motor home drive out of the hole in the road, a wave of melancholy settled over him.
melancholy:
noun
; a deep sadness
    If the motor home wasn’t stuck anymore, then the motor home could drive away.
    If the motor home
could
drive away, the motor home
would
drive away.
    And Popeye would be left behind.
    Left behind with nothing but the shed and the mailbox and the weeds and the ditch.
    â€œCome on, y’all,” Glory called from the window of the motor home. “Let’s go for a ride.”
    When the door of the Holiday Rambler opened and everybody piled in (even Boo), Popeye’s melancholy followed him like a rain cloud. He sat in the diner booth squished between Elvis and Calvin, across from Walter and Willis and Shorty. Velma and Dooley and Shifty sat on the fold-down bed. Star-letta and Prissy hopped around in circles, holding hands and giggling until Glory told them to sit down and behave.
    Then the motor home began to move. It bounced and squeaked and rumbled up the gravel road, but when it turned onto the main highway, it settled into a steady purr. A warm breeze blew through theopen windows,