Summary

Chapter 8 begins as the day after Daddy’s incident, though Dixie and the reader do not know exactly what happened. Mama is distracted and jumpy, and the children see her on the phone with Aunt Margie crying. Dixie and AJ decide to get out of the house and play, so Dixie grabs a sheet out of the hallway closet to play with flying– something they had been wanting to play since they had seen flying squirrels on the TV show Wild Kingdom. As Dixie climbs the tree and gets ready to unfold the sheet, she realizes it is Mama’s very special lacy tablecloth from Granny Ham. As the children climb down, the tablecloth snags on a branch tearing a hole.

They run back to the house and find Mama outside at the edge of the woods, her face tear stained. Mama realizes...