The proud rooster

"Momma, where are you going?" he asked.

"Home."

"But you got to go the post office to send daddy a letter like Mr. Henry told you to.

"I can't send it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have any more money. I spent that dime Mr. Henry gave me to buy your candy."

"But what about the letter to daddy? How is he going to know about coming to get us? Momma... Momma..." But she had stopped listening, at least she had stopped answering. Bobby followed behind her as they made their way back down the sun drenched road, heading home, to the home that was no longer their home. His mother walked slower than she had on their way to town and Bobby noticed that her head was bent, staring at the ground and her feet seemed to drag along, lacking the swiftness and vitality they had had earlier. Bobby didn't eat his candy, but held it in his hand, staring at it and then at his mother, not understanding why she had spent the whole dime buying the candy when she had to write that letter.

At home, his mother went into her bedroom and closed the door. She didn't tell Bobby to do anything like she normally did so he went back outside and found the rooster strutting around the yard, arching his back, flapping his wings and raising his head high into the air as he paraded for the hens. Bobby raised his fistful of candy and threw all of it at the rooster, but there was no joy, no laughter, no satisfaction, as the rooster squawked, tucked his head and ran for cover.

GERTUDE JOHNSON WILLIAMS LITERARY AWARD WINNERS

FIRST PLACE AND $5,000 "THE PROUD ROOSTER" by Rosalind Bradley Coles of Richmond, Va. HONORABLE MENTION AND A $1,000 PRIZE GO TO: "OLD BONES" By Joan Jackson Bennett of New Orleans "NAVY BLUES" By Herbert Dyer Jr. of Chicago, Ill. BURIALS" By Deonne R. Fulton of Kingstree, S.C. "A DAY IN THE COUNTRY" By Dale E. Smith of Allston, Mass. "VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS" By Maxine E. Thompson of Inglewood, Calif.

PRELIMINARY JUDGES Nora Brooks Blakely, wrier director of Chocolate Chips theater company Walter Bradford, writer Angela Jackson, writer, assoc. prof of English, Columbia College, Chicago Mary C. Lewis, freelance writer and editor Marilyn K. Marshall, senior associate editor, EBONY Sandra Jackson Opoku, writer and president of OBA C Writers Workshop Charles L. Sanders, managing editor EBONY Charles Whitaker, senior associate editor EBONY

FINAL JUDGES Dr. Margaret Burroughs, writer artist and founder of the Du Sable Museum of African-American History, Chicago Cyrus Colter, novelist, short story writer Leon Forrest, novelist and chairman, Department of African-American Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.

COPYRIGHT 1989 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning