Ghost Girl by Delia Ray Page A

slamming backward into the gnarled roots of the tree.
    I managed to throw my hands back to catch myself, but when I landed, I heard a funny pop and felt a pain like a pitchfork driving into my arm. I was afraid to look down, afraid of seeing a bone splintering up through my skin. My ears filled with a roaring, so loud that I couldn’t hear the kids around me anymore. I rolled over on my side, hugging my hurt arm. The next thing I knew, Luella was peering down at me, and then Alvin and Dewey with his fat lip. Then I saw their feet shuffling backward, trying to make room. Soon Miss Vest was kneeling in the dirt beside me, out of breath, asking me the same questions over and over.
    After a few moments, her words started to make sense. “Answer me, April,” she said, sounding sterner than I’d ever heard her. “Tell me where it hurts.”
    â€œMy arm,” I whispered. “I think it’s broke.” It was hard to talk with my tongue and lips caked with dust. All I wanted was a drink of cold water, and then maybe I’d feel better. I tried to sit up, but the pain came washing over me again, making me sick to my stomach. I dropped back in the nest of roots.
    â€œThat’s all right,” Miss Vest said. “Just lie still for now.” She got to her feet and I heard her say, “Ida, you stay here while I run inside and telephone Sergeant Jordan to bring the truck up from the marine camp. We need to get April down to a doctor in the valley. . . . The rest of you children, try and give her some room.”
    Once Miss Vest had hurried off and most of the other kids had started to drift away, Ida and Luella stood with their arms crossed, staring down at me.
    â€œSo where’d that nasty Poke run off to?” Ida asked Luella.
    â€œHe hightailed it for the woods soon as he saw Miss Vest coming.”
    â€œI think I must have knocked one of his front teeth out,” Dewey said. He was leaning against the tree, studying a cut on his knuckles.
    Ida looked disgusted. “You’re a sight, Dewey,” she said, glaring at the streaks of dirt and sweat on her brother’s face and the ripped pocket of his jacket. “Wait till Mama sees that suit and finds out you been fighting with Poke McClure. And wait till she sees the doctor’s bill she’s gonna owe for taking care of
her
.”
    Ida’s voice turned sour when she said
her
, like she had just swallowed bad milk. She acted like I wasn’t even there, lying right at her feet listening. I gritted my dusty teeth together as hard as I could and pushed myself up to my knees with my good arm.
    â€œHush up, Ida,” Dewey snapped. “Can’t you see her arm’s broke?” He came over to squat beside me, so close that I could see a smear of blood drying under his nose. “Shouldn’t you stay put till Miss Vest gets back, April?”
    Hearing Dewey say my real name made me even madder. He hadn’t called me anything but ghost girl for more than a year, and now here he was trying to cozy up to me just so he wouldn’t get in trouble. And what would Mama say? At least it wasn’t my right arm, the one I mostly used for chores and writing. I squeezed my eyes shut and stood up all the way, hugging my hurt arm and trying to fight back the ripples of dizziness in my head.
    Just then Miss Vest came running back. “April, wait,” she said. “Let me help you before you make things worse. . . . I called Dr. Hunt, but he’s away at a conference in Charlottesville all week, so the medical aide from the marine camp is coming. At least he can take a look and tell us whether you need a cast or not.”
    She started steering me back to the schoolhouse. Then she stopped and gave Dewey a hard look over her shoulder. “Come on, Dewey. After I get April and everyone else settled inside, you and I need to have a talk.”
    Â 
    I had never been in Miss Vest’s