As the Natchez Belle dwindled around a lazy, cypress-shadowed bend Pigtail Anne became a superior being, wrapped in a cosmopolitan aura. A wide-eyed little girl on a swaying deck, the great outside world rushing straight toward her from all directions.
Pigtail could take that world in her stride. She liked the fashion page best, but she was not above clicking her tongue at everything in the paper.
"Kidnap plot linked to airliner crash killing fifty," she read. "Red Sox blank Yanks! Congress sits today, vowing vengeance! Million dollar heiress elopes with a clerk! Court lets dog pick owner! Girl of eight kills her brother in accidental shooting!"
"I ought to push your face right down in the mud," Jimmy muttered.
"Don't you dare! I've a right to see what's going on in the world!"
"You said the paper was for Uncle Al!"
"It is—when I get finished with it."
Jimmy started to take hold of his sister's wrist and pry the paper from her clasp. Only started—for as Pigtail wriggled back sunlight fell on a shadowed part of the paper which drew Jimmy's gaze as sunlight draws dew.
Exciting wasn't the word for the headline. It seemed to blaze out of the page at Jimmy as he stared, his chin nudging Pigtail's shoulder.
NEW FLYING MONSTER REPORTED BLAZING GULF STATE SKIES