1. Glory Be GLORY BE Legend has it the second my mama pushed me out she took one look and said, "Glory be!" The nurse mopping sweat drip drip drip p i n g from Mama's forehead uttered, "Amen," and that's how I became "Glory." Not Gloria, like the old ladies smoking Camels, gossiping in lawn chairs morning noon night. I'm Glory. The gold at the end of the rainbow. The lucky charm. The black-haired blessing, or if I've been sassy, "glory, glory hallelujah," with a shake of the head because it is always a battle with me. Mama, though, she claims my name had nothing to do with luck or God.

She was just glad that labor was D.O.N.E. Done. Either way, I was Glory from that day forward. Where was my daddy, you ask? Good question. THE question, really, because that answer explains everything that's led up to TODAY: nine years later and one day after my dog, Roux, disappeared vanished vamoosed and now is nothing but a dot of light in my heart.

That's why I am walking this very crooked line along the burnt-up summer grass behind the school instead of sitting in my seat like the "good little girl" Ms. Roche always tells me to be. I am a girl. But I am not good. And I am not little. Sorry, Ms. Roche, you're out of luck, because Glory be GONE and she ain't coming back until she finds her dog.