Dear Diary (2 page)

“Oh, I’m scared. I’m really scared.” Tommy held up his hands, rolled his eyes and made faint, whimpering sounds, then he picked up his stick again. Sean stood right in front of Rory, facing her. He started shoving her shoulders with his hands, short, vicious thrusts that sent her stumbling backward again.

Her spine suddenly connected with a warm body.

“What’s going on?” a boy’s voice asked from behind her.

Rory turned swiftly, so thankful for a witness she could scarcely speak. “They’re hurting that poor frog! It’s half-dead already. And they’ve been pushing me around and calling me names.”

She recognized the boy right off. He was new. He’d started school that morning, and he was in her third grade class, she thought with sinking hopes. The sixth-graders would kill him.

“Beat it, dickhead,” Tommy snarled.

“Leave that frog alone.”

Rory glanced sideways at her newfound friend, filled with horror tinged admiration. Did he know what he was inviting? Tommy and Sean would have been happy to pulverize her to the ground. What would they do to
him?

“Who’s gonna stop me? You?” Tommy taunted. His eyes grew smaller and meaner as he glared at the boy.

“Maybe,” he answered.

Nick. Rory suddenly remembered his name. He was tall for third-grader, over a head taller than Rory. But he didn’t have the meat or muscle of the two bullies. He was doomed to lose.

“You and what army?” Sean sneered.

“You pull the wings off flies, too?” Nick responded. He was tense and sober. Rory realized he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. She longed to leave before he got hurt.

“Come on,” she said, moving closer to him.

But Nick had thrown out a challenge. Tommy smiled a mean smile, swung his stick around, then crashed it down on the frog.

Rory screamed. The frog leaped, unscathed. Tommy swore a blue streak. And Nick hurled himself against Tommy in a flying tackle that sent the older boy tumbling into the scum-covered pond.

The smell of rotting vegetation filled the air. For a moment there was utter silence.

With a roar of rage, Sean pounced on Nick, slugging him with the power and experience of three extra years. Nick fought back, but Sean kept right on beating like a boxer. Scared, Rory jumped on Sean, digging her fingers into his scalp and pulling on his hair the way he’d pulled on hers. He shrieked with pain.

Tommy staggered, dripping, from the pond. “My shirt!” he bellowed. “My new shirt! I’m gonna kill you, you little fucker!” he growled in fury.

“Get her off me!” Sean howled, and Rory was jerked away and tossed aside like a rag doll. She staggered to her feet.

Nick lay completely still on the ground.

Tommy, too infuriated to notice, savagely kicked the toe of one soggy tennis shoe against Nick’s thigh. Nick’s eyes stayed closed.

Sean was breathing hard, looking down at him. Blood trickled from the corner of Nick’s mouth.

“You killed him,” Rory sobbed. “You killed him.”

“No, I didn’t! Shut up!” Sean yelled.

“You’re gonna go to jail,” Rory said in a shaking voice.

“Let’s get outta here.” Sean’s face was turning white.

Tommy’s was still red and angry. “No, I—”

“Come on!” Sean shouted, grabbing a fistful of Tommy’s shirt. “He’s dead. I killed him!”

“Let go!” Tommy roared.

“I’m outta here!”

Sean tore down the trail, disappearing in a plume of dust kicked up by running heels. Tommy stared down at the unmoving Nick. Fear crawled slowly across his bulldog face. He then turned and followed after Sean, at first slowly, then racing faster and faster as if from the devil himself were on his heels.

Rory felt ready to faint. She didn’t do well with the sight of blood. She never had. Little sobs issued from her throat as she bent down to touch Nick’s unmoving form. “Are you dead?” she asked, scared.

“No.” He squinted open his eyes. “Are they gone?”

Rory bobbed her head in relief.

“I thought playing dead was safer.” He tried to sit up, groaned and managed to prop himself on his elbows. “My chest hurts.”

“Maybe you have broken ribs.”

Nick thought that over. “Maybe.”

“And you’re bleeding—” Rory pointed in horror at the thin trickle of blood drying on his lips and chin “– from your mouth.”

“A lot?” he asked hopefully.

She nodded vigorously.

He probed the damage with his tongue, wincing a bit. But his expression lightened. “My lip’s gonna swell up.”

“Your whole face is gonna swell up.”

He bent forward and Rory decided it was time to help. She grabbed part of his arm and half-hauled him to his feet. He was covered with dust. His black hair had turned a strange gray color. One eye was starting to shut.

“Did he kill the frog?”

“No, he missed.”

“Good. What a dumb ass.” Nick shook his head.

Rory agreed. “The frog got away. I think he’s back in the pond.”

“What’s your name?” Nick asked. “Aren’t you in my classroom?”

She nodded. “Rory Camden. You’re new. Do you live around here?”

He pointed toward the far ridge where the more expensive homes in Piper Point lay, then sucked air between his teeth and winced with pain.

“Hurt?” Rory asked, grimacing with sympathy.

“Not too bad.”

“My house is right over there.” She swept her arm toward the tract homes nestled at the bottom of the hill. “You want to come over and get fixed up?”

Nick pondered that seriously for several moments. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last.

Rory led the way down the trail to where it ended at the small neighborhood roadway. She asked curiously, “You still got all your permanent teeth?”

“I think so.”

He was beginning to look really terrible. One side of his face had swollen up as badly as when Rory’s little sister, Michelle, had gotten stung by a wasp. Rory began to feel anxious. She wanted her mom to make sure Nick was okay.

Rory’s house was the second one on Maple Street. It was white with black shutters and there was a pot of yellow petunias on the front porch. She took Nick around the back and opened the kitchen door. Her mother was standing at the sink, peeling carrots. “Mom? I brought a friend home. He got beat up by some older kids.”

Mrs. Camden glanced at Nick and tsk-tsked. But she hardly changed expression.

Rory’s chest tightened. She recognized that look. Mom had gone inside herself again, and it was kinda like she wasn’t there. It seemed to be happening a lot now, too. Rory had learned to walk softly when Mom was in one of her moods, because otherwise her mother would scream or burst into tears. Only Michelle, in kindergarten, could still be her spoiled childish self when Mom was low; Mom didn’t seem to mind that Michelle didn’t understand.

“Take him to the bathroom Rory,” her mother said on a sigh, then to Nick: “What’s your number? I’ll call your mother.”

“I can call her,” Nick said.

Mom looked skeptical but gave in easily. Rory saw the telltale smudges of mascara around her eyes and knew she wasn’t really thinking about Nick at all. Not wanting to be the reason her mother might break into tears again, Rory hurried Nick away from the kitchen and to the bathroom.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror and looked infinitely happier. “Wow.”

“You’re gonna have a black eye.”

Nick grinned and glanced her way. “So are you.”

“I am?” Rory crowded into the bathroom, staring at her own face. Her cheeks were streaked with grime and her brown hair was the same dusty gray shade as Nick’s. There was a small cut above her eye and now that she could see it, she felt the swelling.

Nick started laughing and so did Rory. It was great! From the other room she heard a funny hiccupping sound and blocked it out. Mom was crying again. She wasn’t going to think about that now or wonder at its cause. She wasn’t.

She flung her arm around Nick’s shoulder and declared with forced cheerfulness, “We need a picture.”

“Do ya have a camera?”

“Yep.”

Rory ran upstairs to her bedroom. On the way there, her footsteps crunched on glass. She looked down and her heart lurched. One of her parents’ wedding photos was smashed on the hallway carpet.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she was besieged by nameless fears. Something dreadful was happening to her parents. Sometimes she didn’t think they even liked each other. Once more she blanked out her mind and continued to her room, though it was difficult with Mom sobbing quietly in the kitchen.

After retrieving the camera she stopped at her sister’s door, pushing it open a crack to peek in on her. Michelle was playing tea party with her dolls and glared at Rory. “You’re not invited, so shut the door!” she demanded.

“Sorreee.”

Back at the bathroom, Rory said, “Here,” and handed Nick the camera. He held it in front of them, as far as his arm could reach, pointing the lens their way. “Get in close,” he ordered. “Make sure we’re both in the picture.”

Rory squished up next to him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
Flash.
“Better take another,” she suggested. “Just in case.”

Flash.
“How about one more?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Flash.
He handed her back the camera and grinned.

“You wanna be friends?” asked Rory.

“Sure. Why not?”

Rory managed to grin back. Nick was so cool. He hadn’t made fun of her once for being a girl. She grabbed his hand and pumped it hard. “Pleased to meet you, Nick… what’s your last name?”

“Shard.”

“Pleased to meet you, Nick Shard. Whenever I need help, I’ll call on you.”

“Same here,” he said, and they both grinned at the sight of each other’s battered face.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH

Chapter Two

Piper Point High School
Tonight I’m going out with Nick. No big deal. We’ll probably just go to see a movie. I think Nick is bored. Why else would he ask me to go with him? He just broke up with Vicki Fischer. Never liked her. Never will, but she’s got big boobs and it’s hard to compete. Not that I want to. Nick and I are friends. Just friends and that’s the way it should be.

“Mom?” Rory called, pushing open the kitchen door. It was hot. Way too hot for June, but then, sometimes the weather in Piper Point could be unpredictable. She felt scratchy and sticky all over. “Mom?”

There was no answer and the house was so quiet she could hear the hum of the refrigerator. Rory could tell she was alone. It was just as well, she supposed, taking the stairs two at a time to her room. Mom wouldn’t appreciate her coming home from school at noon, even though she only had study hall and pep assemblies the rest of the day. The end of the school year was only a few days away.

Stripping off her hot sweater and jeans, she stood beneath the needle-sharp spray of the cooling shower, then quickly donned a pair of white shorts and a pink tank top. Later she planned to wear something a little more sophisticated. Why, she didn’t analyze. It was just Nick she was going out with, but she wanted to look better anyway.

Her hair lay hot on her shoulders, so she sat down at her vanity and wound it into a bun, staring hard at her own reflection as she did so. She really didn’t like looking at herself. All her flaws were there to see. She was too gangly; her arms and legs didn’t seem to fit the rest of her. Her nose was too pugged, her lips too wide, her eyes too direct. More than one guy complained about her sarcastic sense of humor, which Rory preferred to think of as wry, and she’d spent most of this year watching the boys hover around her sweeter, precocious thirteen-year-old sister, Michelle, who was also well-endowed, rather than take a second look at her. Not that big boobs were the answer necessarily, but it sure felt sometimes like they helped.

Rory leaned her elbows on the vanity top, propped her chin on her hand and sighed deeply. She didn’t
really
care whether she had guys looking at her or not, she reminded herself. The boys at Piper Point were all geeks, anyway‌—‌except for Nick‌—‌and Rory was no more interested in them than they were in her. She was nothing like Jenny Sumpter, Piper Point High’s brightest star. She didn’t possess Jenny’s long silky hair, or her deep brown mysterious eyes. Rory’s hair was too wavy, her eyes too big that they swallowed her face. She was just okay looking, and she was too smart to believe her mother’s assurances that she would someday be a real looker. She knew parental bullshit when she heard it.

Thinking of Mom, Rory frowned. Something was going on between her parents, the same something that had ebbed and flowed in waves of tension for years. Sometimes Rory thought they should divorce, but deep down she didn’t want them to. She’d do almost anything to keep it together and yet, the way they were with each other… it just was really hard sometimes. The last few months had been the worst. The atmosphere around her parents was thick and hostile. Her father was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was short-tempered, anxious and dissatisfied. Rory just tried to stay out of his way. And her mother had grown even more remote and there were lines of discontentment etched beside her mouth. The one time Rory had brought up her parents’ problems to her she’d been cut off by a sharp response. It was all too weird and unnerving to consider. Best to forget it.