"Here's one foot. Well, here's the other one. You may as well have both of them. But now, Bandershanks, don't be expecting too much."
Mama put the chicken feet on a saucer and handed it to me.
"Careful now. They're hot."
"Which door, Mama?"
"It won't matter. Try that one."
She pointed to the door between the kitchen and the fireplace room. I slid myself in behind it and squatted down to wait for all the steam to float away from the saucer. Then I happened to remember that Grandma Ming had said if I wanted to get pretty to stand behind the door and eat a chicken foot, so I stood back up again.
As I got up, one piece of my chicken slid off the saucer and fell to the floor. That was all right. I just wiped it off good with the tail of my underskirt.
When I had finished chewing up every last piece of skin and soft gristle sticking to the bones, I set my saucer on the floor and darted over to the bureau by Mama's bed. But its looking glass had wavy streaks, so I ran across the hall to the big dresser in the front room. After a few minutes I decided I'd have to go back in the kitchen to Mama.
"Mama, them chicken bones ain't no good! I got to the looking glass, and it was— It was— It—"
"It was what, hon?"