“I got it.” Willie Frank snapped his fingers. “We could rob the store and his house and sell his property for some big bucks. Or, we could pour molasses in his gas tank—” He abruptly stopped talking and shook his head. “No, that ain’t mean enough. He’d buy all new stuff and get his car fixed in a heartbeat. Instead, we’ll steal his car and push it in a sink hole. He is so attached to that old jalopy, losing it would hit him real hard. Whatever we do, we’ll let him know we done it because we know he was the one that called the sheriff on y’all. And I’ll let him know that if he does something to get at y’all again . . . I’ll turn the Ku Klux Klan loose on him.”

“Hmmm.” I pressed my lips together and caressed my chin. “Willie Frank, you just hit on something. Since you brung up the Klan, we could lynch him ourselves instead of doing any of that other stuff. A lynching would definitely point the finger at the Klan.”

“Hmmm. A lynching just might be the solution. Let me think on it.” There was a hopeful look on Willie Frank’s face.

Me and him started walking out of the room. We stopped when Yvonne stamped her foot and cussed under her breath. “I’ll be glad when we get this over with. I’m sick of living next door to, and entertaining, a low-down, funky black devil like Odell!” she blasted.

I raised my hands in the air. “All right. We done said enough about this for now. Let’s get back out there and go on about our business.”

Ten minutes after we returned to the living room, Joyce came up to me while Odell was talking to Aunt Mattie. “Milton, we would love to stay longer, but we’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”

“Already?” It was hard for me to sound disappointed, but I done my best. I even frowned.

“Odell is tired and itching to go home and get in bed. His daddy and stepmother really gave him a run for his money this weekend,” she explained with a apologetic expression on her face. “Poor Odell was so beat when he got home today.”

“I bet he was. Poor Odell . . .” I muttered. It was so hard not to sound sarcastic. But even when I did, Joyce didn’t pick up on it.

“I don’t know how much longer he can keep going out there to help take care of Lonnie. I might take a notion and go talk to that old man about moving in with us. We’d have to make sure Ellamae is out of the picture first, though.”