The Little Friend

Often, other people in Harriet’s house are asleep. One day, while alone, Harriet goes through her father’s gun cabinet. The guns are not loaded, but there’s some ammunition. Harriet imagines shooting Mrs. Fountain and uses a Winchester to spy on other neighbors through the scope.

Harriet and Hely attend Sunday School, where their teacher is Roy Dial, who also runs a Chevrolet dealership. Mr. Dial judges the children in his class and feels like it’s not worth his time to teach kids from certain families, such as the Ratliffs and Odums. Curtis Ratliff is disabled, and Mr. Dial doesn’t call on him to answer questions. He believes Ratliffs and Odums will turn out like their parents, who use substances and pay their car notes late, despite any efforts he might take in teaching them. However, he respects Harriet and Hely’s families and is disappointed when they can’t answer his questions properly. Mr. Dial assigns the children to write down anonymous goals, then refuses to read Curtis’s. On Harriet’s paper, she just draws a simple black mark, which disturbs everyone. Harriet is troubled because she doesn’t know what her goals are. She could try to win the library’s summer reading contest, but she has already accomplished that. Harriet admires warriors and magicians, but society thinks that because she’s a girl, she can only grow up to be a limited number of things, none of which interest her. This makes her resent and dread womanhood. She begins timing her breath-holding sessions so that she can do magical escape tricks like Harry Houdini.

Edie and the great aunts plan a trip with their church to visit historical sites in South Carolina. Roy Dial will provide a bus to transport the congregants. Harriet asks Edie to renew their family’s country club membership so that she can use the pool, but Edie declines. Harriet goes to sign up for the summer reading contest and sees that another kid is already far ahead of everyone else: Lasharon Odum, whom Harriet’s never heard of. She spots the child, who is very young, reading, as she does all day every day at the library. She looks unkempt and it seems like she might not have anywhere else to be. Harriet gains access to the old newspaper collections to research Robin’s death. At home, she presses Allison for details, who was outside and four years old when Robin died. Allison claims she remembers nothing, but Harriet asks her to record her dreams, as this might reveal something about it.

Harriet forges her father’s signature on a check to the country club, then delivers the money and swims in the pool. Hely’s older brother, Pemberton, who was once Robin’s friend, is a lifeguard there. Pem also has a crush on Allison. Harriet asks if he knows who killed Robin, and he claims Mrs. Fountain probably did because she has tons of bodies buried on her property. However, this is not taken seriously. Other kids at Pem’s school would sometimes brag about killing Robin, but kids are wont to brag, especially ones like Danny Ratliff, who has all sorts of stories about murdering people and throwing poisonous snakes into moving cars. Immediately, Harriet asks where to find Danny, but Pem warns that Danny is dangerous and was recently released from prison. However, Pem doesn’t think Danny was Robin’s killer because, at the time, he was a child. Now he’s in his early twenties like Pem. Harriet thinks the killer’s young age might explain why they were never discovered. Pem warns her that the Ratliffs are a large and dangerous family—Eugene is a preacher, weird but mostly harmless, but Farish is even more dangerous than Danny.

Harriet goes home and reads on her porch. Lasharon Odum appears with a baby, apparently her sibling. Allison loves children and speaks to them enthusiastically, even though Ida has forbade her from speaking to working-class white children because she claims they’ll give Allison a disease. Lasharon really wants to talk to Harriet, not Allison, but Harriet ignores her until Ida chases the Odums off. They leave a library book behind, and Ida throws it away. Later, Allison returns it to the library along with money to replace the damaged copy. Pem drives home and passes Allison’s house, where she’s outside alone. He invites her out with him, and she goes. Harriet resents this, and when Allison returns, she claims she doesn’t know where she went.

From old newspapers in the library, Harriet learns that Edie tried to resuscitate Robin before the ambulance arrived, her mother was hospitalized afterward, and the sheriff did not find any leads or suspects. She now considers Danny Ratliff a suspect and finds his address listed as simply “Rt 260” in the phone book. She calls the number listed and someone answers, but she hangs up. Hely passes the time in summer by fishing, but Harriet declines to go with him.

Harriet’s great-aunt Adelaide cleans her own house, claiming she cannot afford a housekeeper, but Edie, Tat, Libby, and Charlotte each employ Black women to do it for them. Adelaide is the youngest sister, and Harriet worries she might remarry someday, whereas Libby will remain single. Edie is divorced, and Tat is widowed. Edie arrives at Addie’s house to complain that Mr. Dial is now charging them for the bus. Harriet asks what they know about Robin’s death, but they just send her home.

Hely has a crush on Harriet because she is brave, smart, and manipulative. While fishing, he daydreams about winning her affections and marrying her. There are other people around fishing—old and young, Black and white. Suddenly, some white men start shooting at everyone from a bridge. The other fishers start running away. Hely dives into some bushes and wonders if the shooting is racially motivated or not. Meanwhile, at the Dufresneses’, Allison calls Harriet over—she found an injured blackbird with its wing stuck in some tar. They debate options and try to pull it free, but it dies pretty fast. Hely appears and tells Harriet about the shooting by the river. To his disappointment, this doesn’t impress her.

Harriet visits Libby, who never married, due in part to her duties taking care of Judge Cleve when he was alive. She has employed the same housekeeper, Odean, since before the Judge’s death, and the two are extremely close. Harriet asks Libby about Robin’s death, and although she doesn’t treat Harriet coldly (she never does), she doesn’t have anything useful to share besides the wisdom that some things are mysteries. This is lost on Harriet. Odean enters and announces there’s been a shooting by the creek—it was the Ratliffs.

Harriet returns home and asks Ida about the Ratliffs. Ida dislikes them because they don’t have much money, yet they want what’s beyond their means; Ida, in contrast, simply does not want things she can’t afford. Ida also shares that the Ratliffs have been known to commit crimes and not get arrested, in part because the police are corrupt. For example, they set a church on fire and injured people (including Ida) with no repercussions, and they also don’t seem to be in trouble for shooting at people by the creek. Ida disliked Danny Ratliff, who used to play with Robin, because he stole and said swear words. Ida chased Danny away shortly before Robin’s death. Harriet is now convinced that the Ratliffs have the police in their pocket and that Danny killed Robin. She tells Hely her goal is to kill Danny, but she has never shot a gun; Hely claims he can teach her, although secretly, he doesn’t know how to shoot either.