Read Online Nature Girl by Jane Kelley - Free Book Online Page B

Oreos are still hanging from the roof. I’m not worrying about how much Mom is worrying about me. She doesn’t even know I’m gone. She thinks I’m sleeping in a cider mill. (Which proves how little she cares about me!) I’m not even worrying about Alison that much. She’s got doctors and nurses and Mrs. T. and Lucy all taking care of her. Everybody always says she’s got the
good
kind of cancer, so she’s going to be fine. Her hair will grow back.
    But I am worrying a little about Lucy being mad at me. Lucy hardly ever gets mad, so I don’t have much experience with that. And then as I lie there in the darkWoods on my anti-bed, I remember another time when Lucy and I had a fight.
    It was last November, right after the Halloween when we wore different kinds of costumes for the first time ever and Patricia Palombo made Lucy walk with her. I wanted Lucy to come over after school. In fifth grade, we spent almost every afternoon together. But once middle school started, Lucy said she was too busy. I kind of understood that. We did have more homework. And since her mom was tired all the time, Lucy had to do lots of chores like she was a farm girl or something. I guess I should tell you that Lucy’s parents are divorced and her dad lives in a foreign country so he is never around. Anyway, I asked her and asked her until finally she came home with me after school.
    We did our homework. We ate a snack. And then we just sat there.
    “What do you want to do?” I said.
    “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
    I didn’t understand. Lucy and I NEVER had trouble figuring out how to have fun. We always just had fun. I hoped it wasn’t because we were sixth graders. “Do you think we’re so old that we can’t have fun anymore?”
    Lucy sighed.
    Then I thought, Oh no, we ARE old. Lucy was just sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.
    Then suddenly she sat straight up. Her eyes flashedlike the good old Lucy. She said, “I know what to do! I can be Joan of Arc!”
    When we were younger, we always used to act out stories. Once we got to middle school, I figured we were too old for make-believe. But I was so relieved that we were going to DO something that I said, “Great.”
    Lucy had been reading this book about Joan of Arc, so she got to be Joan because she knew all about it. She said I could be the King of France. I agreed, since I didn’t have a clue about who he was. But then she started explaining how he was a big crybaby. And the whole point of the story was that I had to be a total loser so she could save me.
    I didn’t like that. In the past, we had been equal partners in the adventures. So I said, “Maybe I could be somebody else and we could save the King together?”
    “No. It’s really important that
I
be the one who does the saving.”
    She was so determined that I said, “Okay.”
    But being a whining loser was boring. So when she acted out how those dead saints told her to save me, I said, “If you hear voices, maybe you should go see a shrink.”
    Then she said, “Watch it or I won’t save you.”
    “I don’t need to be saved,” I said.
    “Yes you do. I have to practice.”
    Of course, NOW I know why she said that. NOW I know why she thought she needed to practice saving people. But back then, all I knew was that I didn’t likehow she was talking to me, so I said, “Can’t we play something without any whining losers?”
    Then she said, “You shouldn’t complain about my idea since you never have any ideas AT ALL!”
    So I shut up. I clenched my teeth so tight they started to grow together. I squeezed them even tighter because my lips were wobbling. There was a little leaking from somewhere near my eyeballs, so I squeezed my eyelids shut too. But I couldn’t do anything about my ears.
    By the way, someone should redesign people’s ears because there’s no way to shut them. I don’t think I could ever SEE anything that was as awful as HEARING Lucy say I never had any