In 1933, Mary Alice and Joe are ages eleven and thirteen. They receive 25? a week from their father, and if they can slip away from Grandma and chores, they can each buy an orange Nehi, their favorite drink and one that reminds them of home in Chicago. This year, Mary Alice is all wrapped up in tap dancing, a craze that has swept the country because of Shirley Temple and all the other tap dancers.
While the children are buying soda, Mary Alice strikes up a conversation with a girl waiting tables, a thin pale girl who looks like a ghost. A woman pulls up to the store. She is tough looking and hard, and she demands the wages that her daughter, the pale girl, has earned. Mrs. Cripe says.....
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