8th Day Page 9

  She was about to give up on the purse, her heart racing so fast that her palms were sweaty, when she felt a hard bulge in the bottom of one of the zippered compartments. Hurrying, she unzipped the pocket and plunged her hand into it, pulling out the cherry red knife. She could hardly believe her luck! She quickly stashed the knife in her baggie, causing her waist band to sag, and put the purse back the way she'd found it. Just as she was closing the closet, a door banged open, and Pat, the cook, came bustling around the corner.

  "Maddie! There you are. What in the world are you doing back here? You're supposed to be helping set up."

  "I thought I heard a cat," she said, thinking this was the lamest excuse she'd ever come up with in her life. To her surprise, it had the desired effect.

  "Really? Out back or in here?"

  "Out back, I guess. I only heard it once."

  "One of the barn cats, probably. Must be hungry." She opened the door and looked outside. "Here kitty, kitty. Here kitty, kitty."

  Maddie followed right behind her. "Here kitty, kitty," she called.

  "Oh, well," Pat said, patting Maddie's head in a way that wasn't completely awful, Maddie thought. "He'll be back if he's hungry enough. We better see what's happening out front, eh?"

  "Okay," Maddie said, heading off toward the serving lines. Her heart was practically in her throat by now, but she'd pulled it off. She couldn't wait until dark when she could stash the new loot in her mattress and explore the hidden parts of the knife in private. She wondered if it had a screw driver, like some of them. If so, the latches on her window were history.

  Heart still thudding, she took her place at the end of the assembly line and went to work. Today she was in charge of spooning out strawberry Jello. Rebecca Patterson, who was even newer to the camp than Maddie, though two years older, was at the very end, squirting a dollop of whipped cream onto each blob of Jello that Maddie passed to her. It was the better job of the two, and Maddie had let Rebecca have it because Rebecca looked like she could use a little fun.

  Since Rebecca's arrival, Maddie had not been called Toad as much. Now Rebecca was the official Toad. She was an emaciated, strung-out-looking blonde with wispy hair cut so short before she arrived that the nurse from hell had been denied her ritual hack job. It was clear from the number of holes in the girl's earlobes and nostrils that she'd once sported an impressive collection of hoops and studs. Since jewelry was not allowed at Camp Turnaround, the holes went unadorned. She had an aqua-colored tattoo on her left shoulder and another on her ankle, which Maddie had seen in the shower. Despite these colorful enhancements, the girl looked washed out. Maddie guessed she'd been into drugs and that that had led to her troubles with the law. Whatever her past, however, the girl seemed to be wilting before their very eyes at Camp Turnaround. She hardly spoke to anyone, went through her daily exercises listlessly, shuffled from class to class with the enthusiasm of a slug, and in general wore an expression of extreme indifference. Even Coach had been unable to scare her into line. She wasn't defiant. She wasn't rude. She just plain didn't seem to care if she lived or died.

  Maddie waited for Rebecca to finish topping the Jello with whipped cream, then handed her another plate. Rebecca was holding up the assembly line with her listlessness, but Maddie felt so sorry for her she didn't complain. She looked up and saw Belinda Pitt scowling down at them, waiting for her dessert.

  "Speed it up, Toad. You're holding up everyone's lunch. We haven't got all day."

  Rebecca was momentarily startled out of her trance and accidentally dropped Belinda's plate, sending the Jello and whipped cream crashing to the floor. She looked down at the mess, then bent over to pick up the fallen plate.

  "Don't even think about giving me that plate back, you idiot. Go get me a clean one!"

  "Now, you're holding up the line," Maddie said quietly to Belinda. "Why don't you go get your own plate. If you hadn't yelled at her, she wouldn't have dropped it in the first place."

  Belinda's pale face turned crimson. "What did you say?"

  "Which part didn't you get?" Maddie asked. She knew what she was doing was suicidal, but right then she didn't care. She was sick of Belinda Pitt.

  The line behind Belinda had definitely started to queue up. The girls that always seemed to hover around Belinda like moths to a flame, crowded in, not wanting to miss the unfolding scene.

  "You're asking for it, Toad," she spat. Now Maddie was back to Toad status. Unexpectedly, this made Rebecca Patterson smile.

  "What are you smiling at?" Belinda said, leaning across the counter to jab her pointed nail into Rebecca's chest.

  Rebecca stepped back, saying in a thin, flu tie voice, "I thought I was the toad. Now she's the toad. Just confused, I guess. Or maybe you're the one who's confused."

  Belinda leaned farther over the counter, snarling. She looked ready to attack. "No, assbite. That would be you. Obviously you've forgotten who's in charge here. Or is your brain so fucked up with meth you can't think straight?"

  "Leave her alone, Belinda," Maddie said. "You really don't need the Jello, anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have put on a few unwanted pounds lately. Maybe you should lay off the desserts for awhile."

  This drew a few giggles from Belinda's faithful followers until she turned and leveled them with a seething glare. Then she turned her wrath on Maddie.

  "You're dead meat, you fucking nigger-skinned Indian."

  Maddie was stunned, but she hid her fear. She turned to Rebecca, her voice rising so the girls behind Belinda could hear. "Apparently, not only is she a fat-assed bully, but she's racist, too. Hey, Dee," she called to the black girl standing a few feet away. "You hear what your friend just called me?"

  "Shut up!" Belinda screeched. She lunged across the counter and grabbed Maddie by the hair, yanking her face down into the Jello bin and holding her under with both hands. Maddie choked, trying to breathe, and panicked. In desperation, she reached up and swung with all her might, slugging Belinda Pitt in the face. Suddenly, Belinda's grip loosened, and Maddie stood up, gasping, her face dripping strawberry Jello. Belinda was sprawled backwards on the floor, her nose bleeding profusely.

  The next few minutes were chaos. Nurse Beckett was summoned, and Belinda was carted off like a fallen hero, with her gaggle of sidekicks crowding around her in a pathetic display of devotion. Coach, who had just entered the cafeteria and saw the tail end of the action, grabbed Maddie by the elbow and marched her out of the mess hall, his prod pressed into her rib cage, his voice menacing in her ear.

  "Don't even think about putting up a fuss, Madeline. You're in so much trouble as it is, you can't afford to piss me off on top of it. Now climb in!"

  They'd reached the ATV with the little metal wagon hitched to the back, and Maddie crawled into it, starting to shiver. The last time she'd seen someone hauled off in the wagon, they'd done two days in Isolation. When the boy had come back, he'd been as meek as a mouse.

  As mortified as she'd been to have her face and hair covered with slimy Jello, and as exhilarated as she'd felt decking Belinda, the only real emotion she could summon at the moment was abject terror.

  Chapter Ten

  As Gracie and I helped her back to her cabin, I was burning with curiosity. Why, I wondered, had Jo Bell pretended to be Joe Bell? Her cabin was perched on a bluff at the edge of the meadow and once we got her inside, I looked through her medicine cabinet for hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin. While Gracie worked on Jo's wounds, I surreptitiously checked out the rest of her belongings — you wouldn't know she was a woman by the clothing in the closet — but there were signs here and there. For one thing, her small library of books included a copy of Patience and Sarah and several volumes of Emily Dickenson. There was a box of tampons under the bathroom sink. Though small, her arsenal of cookware included a fancy copper saucepan and skillet that most cowboys wouldn't be likely to own. There were jars of spices and herbs she'd apparently grown in the little garden out back. There was a case of wine, the bo
ttles stored properly on their sides in a hand-carved rack next to the table. Half a dozen watercolors depicting wild horses in varying degrees of colorful motion adorned the walls. A guitar was propped against the corner of the room.

  But what really gave her away, I decided, were the fine, delicate features. How anyone could've mistaken her for a boy was beyond me. She had incredibly graceful hands with long, fine fingers, delicate wrists, and strong, well-toned, muscled arms. Her cheek-bones were high, her brow strong, and her eyes were bluish-gray, the color of a calm sea. She caught me staring and a puzzled frown clouded her lovely face. I glanced at Gracie who was looking at me with utter bemusement. I felt myself blush and looked away.

  "I've got to check on the filly," Jo said, resisting Gracie's attempt to treat her wounds.

  "These aren't deep but they could get infected if we don't treat them," Gracie said. "Hold still."

  Jo looked down at the tangle of welts and cuts on her chest and arms, her pale cheeks coloring. I knew I should look away, but my eyes were drawn to her. How could I not have noticed her breasts? They were small, but round and firm and I was suddenly envious of Gracie who was gently soothing the lacerated skin. Jo brushed a wisp of blond hair from her forehead where it had fallen loose, seemingly mortified at the attention and the exposure. "Thanks for doing this," she managed, though her cheeks were still blushing. "I guess it's a good thing you two came along when you did." The second Gracie finished with the chest wounds, Jo grabbed a towel and held it in front of her while Gracie went to work on the arms.

  "We haven't officially met, but I've seen you around," Gracie said. "I'm Grace Apodaca. This is my friend, Cassidy James."

  "I've noticed you, too," Jo said, her blue-gray eyes smiling first at Gracie, then landing on me. Again, I felt my cheeks grow warm. "You, I haven't noticed. You must be new."

  "Yesterday," I said, knowing if I didn't leave in the next few minutes, I'd be late for my first class, but somehow not wanting to budge. I checked my watch. "Uh, I'm supposed to be teaching in about fifteen minutes and I left all my books and stuff in my cabin. Can I come by and see how you're doing later?"

  This sounded ridiculously like I was asking her out on a date. Gracie was grinning but I ignored her. Jo smiled, too.

  "I'd like that, Cassidy James."

  By now, Gracie was barely suppressing laughter. "I'll walk you to the door, Champ. Don't worry about the horse, I'll take him back for you. You sure you remember how to get back to camp?"

  I rolled my eyes at her but my color gave me away. I hadn't felt this giddy since, well, since I'd first laid eyes on Erica Trinidad. Which was all the reminder I needed to stuff the feelings back where they came from and make sure they stayed there. But when I stepped out into the bright spring sunshine, I found myself smiling, and I jogged all the way back to my cabin. Actually, I may have skipped once or twice, but I was pretty sure no one was watching.

  I had butterflies in my stomach and I didn't know if it was the prospect of standing in front of a class again, or of seeing Jo Bell later that afternoon. I didn't have much time to dwell on it. As it was, I was a few minutes late for my first class.

  There were twenty kids in all, a mix of boys and girls from the various houses. Maddie wasn't in the first group. I knew from the roster that I'd be seeing her after lunch in my second class. But Belinda Pitt and Dean Dobberteen were sitting right across from each other and I noticed Dean reach up and gingerly dab at his lip from time to time, refusing to even glance in Belinda's direction.

  It's amazing how things come back to you, I thought.

  Camp Turnaround kids weren't that much different from those I'd taught years earlier. I'd once had a class where they'd lumped all the discipline problems together. Camp Turnaround was like that, only ten-fold. But underneath the bad-ass attitudes, these kids were still kids, and they were as curious about me as I was them. A few of them tried to test me right off the bat, which I expected. I gave them the old teacher-look and slung a few well-aimed barbs that seemed to convince them that I knew my stuff. That settled everyone down and by the end of the first hour they were writing their first assignment for me.

  But what really came back to me was how much I enjoyed teaching. I loved the give and take, the raw need in kids' eyes, their vulnerability and the power it gave me to do right by them. I'd forgotten about some of that, and it was a humbling reminder, standing in front of the kids at Camp Turnaround whose needs were so much more than those I'd taught before.

  Wanting to find out as much as I could about them, I gave them the choice of writing a poem, a rap-song, an essay or a short story on their personal strengths and weaknesses. I told them to do their best work so I could assess their writing abilities and interests. The truth was, I was more interested in assessing their personality traits than looking at their writing. If it was a possibility that Miss Sisson had been murdered, it was not out of the realm of possibility that it might have been by a student, or even a group of students. One thing about people — regardless of whether they were hard-core criminals or budding adolescents — they revealed things about themselves on paper that they would never dream of saying aloud. I'd be happy if something jumped out at me, but I wasn't holding my breath.

  The first two-hour block flew by and by the time the bell clanged for lunch, I had a stack of papers to read and a growling stomach. Before I joined the kids in the mess hall, I skimmed the papers. I separated them by type; six rap songs, eight poems, three short-stories and three essays. It only took a glance to know that the rappers weren't very talented, most of them choosing the medium because it sounded like fun, not because they were particularly adept at rhythm or rhyme. Some of the poems were pretty bad too, but setting talent aside, there was a lot of emotion in both piles. Anger and resentment ruled the day and depression was a close third.

  The essays tended to be more detached, but no less revealing. Belinda Pitt, for example, wrote in big loopy letters about her strengths; she was organized, neat, responsible, hard-working, mature and ambitious. Best yet, she was humble, never getting a big head even if she was the most popular girl, whether it was in school or camp. Her only real fault, she conceded, was that she resented her parents for dumping her in this camp so they could justify traipsing all over Europe. All because of a little incident with some boys on the football team! Like she was the only high-school girl who ever flirted! She'd be free of them soon, however, and then she wouldn't have to resent them any longer. Thus leaving her faultless, I presumed, suppressing a grimace.

  What little I'd seen of Belinda Pitt in action, I knew she'd left a few faults out. People who thought that highly of themselves worried me. And the statement about being free of her parents soon was equally troubling. Maybe she just meant that once she reached eighteen, she'd be legally free of them. Or maybe she'd meant something more sinister.

  I saved the rest of the papers for later and hurried over to the mess hall for lunch. The aromas of good, home-cooking greeted me before I even entered. They were right, the food at Camp Turnaround was something to look forward to.

  Pat, the cook and kitchen manager, was standing behind the aluminum serving bins, supervising the student-workers. She was a round, pleasant woman with kind brown eyes and a hearty laugh. She had a streak of flour on her cheek that she swiped at, but missed, only adding another smear of white dust. "You must be the new gal, taking over for Annie. I wondered when I'd get to meet you. I'm Pat Mayberry. You're in the cabin next to mine."

  "Cassidy James," I said. "Boy something sure smells good." I eyed the bins, searching for the source of the heavenly aromas.

  Pat grinned. "Chicken-fried steak, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes and sausage gravy, buttermilk biscuits and chocolate cream pie for dessert. Or there's the salad bar," she said, rolling her eyes. Pat looked like someone who didn't waste a lot of time at the salad bar. I had a feeling she and Nurse Beckett weren't bosom buddies.

  "Let's go with the works," I said, holding out my plate. />
  "Woman after my own heart. Load her up, kids."

  The student workers each stood behind a separate bin, scooping out mountainous portions onto my plate before passing it on. I was surprised to see Maddie in line in front of me and tried to catch her eye. She graced me with a brief glance, then looked away again quickly. She had the same dark expressive eyes as her mother, I thought. But whereas her mother's eyes had looked wounded, Maddie's seemed both frightened and defiant.

  Pat met me at the end of the line. "Come by some time," she said. "I'm usually through here and back in my cabin by eight. If you'd like to swap war stories over a little vino some time, stop by."

  "Thanks, I'd like that," I said.

  Lacy Godfrey was waving me over to the table she shared with Nurse Beckett and Ida Evans. I brought my food-laden tray and joined them, though they were nearly finished eating. Nurse Beckett eyed my plate with obvious disdain.

  "I don't know why she insists on serving those ridiculous portions," she said, taking a dainty bite of her salad.

  "Looks good to me," I said. I took a bite of the potatoes. "Tastes good, too. I hope I'll have room for that chocolate cream pie."

  I'd deliberately set the pie right in front of Nurse Beckett.

  I saw her sneak a quick glance at it, then force her gaze away. The closet junk-food junkie in her was crying out for a bite of that pie.

  "Well, how'd it go?" Ida asked. "Kids give you a hard time?"

  "Not after the first few minutes or so. They tested the water a little, then settled right down. I was a little nervous," I admitted. "But once we got going, I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to my afternoon class."