A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power EPUB & PDF

A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online

• Status: Available for Free Download
• Author:Mona Susan Power
• Language: English
• Genre: Native American Literature
• Format: PDF / EPUB
• Size: 2 MB
• Price: Free

Sissy ~ 1960s
It’s the spring of 1969 here in Chicago, and Mama says Old Mayor Daley
has his big fists wrapped around our necks. She says he doesn’t care about
brown people like us. “If this city had a proper name, it would be
‘Prejudiced, Illinois,’” Mama tells me while she braids my hair. I’m in the
second grade at school, so I know what that word is all about. It’s a mean
word that says we can’t eat in just any restaurant, even if my parents have
enough money, and we can’t move to just any neighborhood. If I got to
name our city, I’d call it “Sweetland,” because sometimes you have to be
nice to people and places and dolls if you want them to be nice back.

Though it doesn’t always work.
I almost forget what my real name is. I have so many names. When
Mama’s in a good mood, she calls me Sissy or Prunella—after one of
Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters. I think she’s the sister whose knee cracks.
Mine doesn’t. They play the Cinderella show on TV every year, and one
year Mama promised we were gonna watch it together. “It’s a big musical,”
she said. “You’ll love it!” She forgot I’d already seen it and knew all the
songs by heart. But when I spilled a glass of milk at the dinner table—my
hand knocked it over since I can be clumsy like that—Mama said, “No
TV!” She said I had to learn to be more careful but changed her mind later
when Dad asked her to let me watch. I only missed a little bit, the opening
number.

I feel funny when I hear new songs, almost like I forget to breathe. Can
you walk inside a song? I think I do.
Mama says I have a “Christian name,” though we left the church in a huff
a few months back, when Mama shared in confession that she never felt the
presence of anything sacred except at the Sun Dance we go to in North
Dakota at summer solstice—the one Mama says is “private” because it’s
illegal. Dad said she was looking for trouble to say such things to old Father
Weasel (his name isn’t really Weasel). Mama gave him a look, and he went
quiet. I know what he was trying to say. Sometimes Mama’s in a mood she
can’t keep all to herself; she has to spread it around. She’ll pick a fight with
anyone, and it’s no use tiptoeing, being sweet and well-behaved, because
she’ll get you on that, ask why everyone walks on eggshells near her like
she’s a crazy person. Then you’re in the doghouse.

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