Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (2 page)

She’d been watching squirrels a lot more since she learned they could do stunts.

The three girls that approached her were the ones that “owned” the big wooden bench in the corner of the playground.  If they weren’t playing with the other kids, they were on the bench, braiding each other’s hair, whispering, or doing those games where girls sang a rhyme while clapping each other’s hands.

The three of them whispered and snickered as they passed the freeze-tag game, heading straight for Jenny.  Jenny pretended not to see them coming.  She closed her eyes and hoped they would go away, but she heard their shoes crunch through the pine straw and stop right in front of her.

Jenny opened her eyes.  The three girls stood over her, looking down with their arms crossed.  They wore bright, wide smiles.  It was a look that would grow ever more familiar to Jenny in the coming years of school, the one that was extra friendly and sweet to hide the cruelty lurking behind it.

They were Cassie Winder, a short, freckled, red-haired girl; Neesha Bailey, a black girl who was really into pink camouflage pants; and the leader, Ashleigh Goodling.  She was the daughter of Dr. Goodling, the preacher at the white Baptist church.  Ashleigh stood a few inches higher than anyone in class, and she was the only one who was already seven.  She stared at Jenny with her gray eyes, which were the color of rainclouds and impossible to read.  Like the other two girls, her hair was twisted into three or four giant braids, which they’d given each other.

“
Hey, Jenny Morton,” Ashleigh said, with a too-wide smile. “Whatcha doing, Jenny Morton?”

Jenny just looked back and kept her mouth shut.  She felt suspicious, and a little panicked, and didn’t have any idea what to say.

“Why you always up here alone, Jenny Morton?” Ashleigh asked.

“
I don’t know,” Jenny said.

“
You think you’re better than everybody?”

“
No.”

Ashleigh planted her hands on her hips and leaned forward, putting her eyes closer to Jenny’s. “You think you’re so great.  Then why’s your hair so stupid and weird, huh?”

Cassie and Neesha snickered behind their hands.

“
Do you cut your own hair, Jenny Morton?” Ashleigh asked.

“
No.  My daddy cuts it.”

This was too much for Cassie and Neesha, who burst into laughter.  Ashleigh didn’t laugh but wore a small, tight, satisfied smile.

“Y’all go away,” Jenny said.

Ashleigh’s smile vanished all at once.  Her eyes narrowed, and her voice became low and hissy.

“You don’t tell me what to do, Jenny Morton!  My daddy says your daddy’s just a dumb drunk redneck and he shouldn’t even have a kid!”

Jenny’s face turned hot.  Jenny was stunned at how the words felt, like a hard slap deep inside her face, the pain not instant but suddenly appearing a few seconds later, then spreading fast.

“Well,” Jenny said, “My daddy says your daddy’s nothing but a carnie-booth crook!” Jenny wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but she was pretty sure she got the words right when it came to her daddy’s opinion of Dr. Goodling.

“
Everybody likes my daddy!” Ashleigh said. “That’s why everybody gives him money.  Everybody likes my mommy, too.  You don’t even have a mommy.  Prolly cause you’re so ugly!  She died cause you’re so ugly!”

“
Shut up!” Jenny screamed.

“
You shut up!” Ashleigh countered.

“
You’re stupid!” Jenny said. “Leave me alone!”

“
Leave me alone!” Ashleigh mocked Jenny’s voice, but made her sound extra scared.  Her two friends laughed behind her.

Jenny’s fingers dug into the pine needles beside her, looking for a rock, but instead she found a large pine cone with a lot of pointy tips.  She picked it up, reared back, and threw it as hard as she could at Ashleigh.

It struck the dead center of Ashleigh’s face, between her gray eyes, prickers jabbing her forehead and upturned nose.  Ashleigh just looked shocked at first, but then her face reddened and she shrieked. 

She jumped on Jenny, knocking the smaller girl onto her back in the pine straw, then started slapping her with both hands, back and forth, again and again.

“Stop!” Jenny screamed. Her hand flailed out and found Ashleigh’s face, and she raked her fingernails across it.

“
Ow!”Ashleigh seized a fistful of Jenny’s hair and pulled hard, ripping strands out by the roots.  Jenny grabbed one of Ashleigh’s big braids and yanked it, making her scream again.

A sudden shaking, coughing fit ripped through Ashleigh.  Ashleigh kicked away from Jenny and rolled over to her hands and knees.  She crawled away, wheezing, struggling to breathe.

Neesha and Cassie stepped in front of Ashleigh to protect her, as if they expected Jenny to continue the fight.  Instead, Jenny crawled back from them, stood up, and then backed away some more.

She watched Ashleigh coughing on her hands and knees, and she felt fear deep, deep inside her gut.  She’d broken the biggest “never” of all--never touch another person.

Then she realized that the rest of the class had abandoned their games of freeze tag and kickball.  They all stood on the edge of the playground, watching and pointing at the fight on the slope while jabbering at each other.  Mrs. Fulner, the first-grade teacher, made her way through the crowd of kids.

“
Just what on Earth are you children doing?” she demanded.

“
Jenny Morton hit Ashleigh!” Cassie said.

“
Oooh…” Ashleigh groaned. She lay on the ground now, hands covering her face. 

“
Is this true, Jenny?” Mrs. Fulner asked.

Jenny couldn’t think of what to say to make all the trouble and attention stop.  So she stuck with what she knew: mouth closed, eyes on the ground, until they left you alone and went away.

Mrs. Fulner eventually did turn away, to check on Ashleigh.

“
Ashleigh, honey?” She stood over the girl. “Sit up.  Let me see you.”

“
No,” Ashleigh groaned.

“
Ashleigh, up, now!” the teacher snapped.

Ashleigh sighed.  She rolled up to a sitting position, and she dropped her hands from her face.

Mrs. Fulner, and most of Mrs. Fulner’s class, let out a pained gasp.  Jenny felt a sickening, falling sensation.

A thick red rash of swollen pustules covered Ashleigh’s face, hands and arms.  One big bump high on her cheek burst and leaked a fat teardrop the color of Elmer’s Glue. 

“Ewwwwwwwwwww!” a dozen kids squealed from the playground.

“
She’s got chicken pox!” a boy yelled from the back.

“
It’s from her!” Ashleigh screeched, pointing at Jenny. “She gave me pox!”

“
She gave you
Jenny
pox!” Cassie said.

“
Jenny pox!” one kid shouted, and others took it up: “Jenny pox!  Jenny pox!”

“
Don’t be ridiculous!” Mrs. Fulner said. “Ashleigh, let’s go visit the nurse, honey.  I’ll call your mother.” She walked Ashleigh up the gravel path to the school building.  She reached out a hand, nearly touched Ashleigh’s shoulder, then thought better of it and pulled back.  The teacher shot a glare over her shoulder at Jenny.

The crowd of kids chanted “Jenny pox!  Jenny pox!” until Mrs. Fulner and Ashleigh were inside the building.  Then all of them turned their heads and stared at Jenny.

“What?” Jenny asked. 

The whole class ran away from her, screaming, to the other side of the playground.

When Jenny heard the crash, she was alone at her house, working at the little foot-powered potter’s wheel she’d bought secondhand from Miss Gertie’s Five and Dime.  She’d paid for it herself, with money saved from her after-school job at the library.  The wheel occupied the corner of the dining room, which she and her dad never used for dining.  The dining table itself was invisible under heaps of scattered hand tools, assorted junk her dad was supposed to repair, and mail no one had ever opened.

Jenny could spend hours sculpting clay.  She loved the rich hues and textures, the way it turned warm and fleshy and pliant the more you worked it with your fingers.  It was satisfying to turn the raw shapeless clay into something useful and beautiful.  Jenny could touch plants without killing them, but clay was the closest she could come to touching skin.

She’d only had the wheel for six months, and already ‘Miss Gertie’ (actually, Rose Sutland) was selling some of Jenny’s creations on consignment at the Five and Dime.  Jenny had just finished her junior year of high school, so she was finally on summer vacation and had plenty of time to make more.

The crash came from the side of the house, where the metal trash cans were stored.  The sound broke a deep silence, startling her.  She’d been so absorbed in the new flowerpot, she hadn’t even noticed the record player had long ago finished Side 1 of Patsy Cline’s “Sentimentally Yours.”

It was ten o’clock at night, and her dad wasn’t home.  She didn’t expect him anytime soon.  He’d found some work repainting an old house in town, so he’d probably stopped by McCronkin’s for a drink or ten.

Jenny lifted her foot from the pedal and let the wheel spin to a stop.  There was another crash.  It definitely sounded like a trash can.  Probably a possum or raccoon scrounging for a bite.  Her dad must have forgotten to bolt the trash enclosure again.

Jenny swung through the kitchen for a broom and then walked out onto the screen-walled back porch, which faced the heavy woods behind the house.  Her father had built the porch before she was born.  Most of the old house had been built or rebuilt by his hands at one time or another.

The night was hot and sticky and full of buzzing insects, but very dark, lit only by shafts of moonlight through the tall pines.  She wished the exterior lights on the side worked, but they’d been defunct for years.  If something wasn’t used much, her dad had a tendency to put off repairing it, possibly forever.

Jenny looked out through the porch’s screen wall, but even if she could have seen anything in the thin moonlight, the house blocked her view of the trash enclosure.   She went to the screen door, lifted the hook from its eyehole, and pushed it open.

She cautiously descended the stairs to the yard, holding the broom out before her like a weapon.  She crept past the thorny tangle that had once been a flower bed and looked around the corner of the house. 

She held back a gasp.  She’d expected a small scavenger, but the creature rooting in her garbage was much bigger then a possum.  She couldn’t see it very well.  She tried to remember if coyotes were aggressive, or easy to run off.

Her dad had built the trashcan enclosure out of mismatched fence pieces, with a metal “ROAD CLOSED” traffic sign for a roof.  The gate was from a child’s wooden playpen, complete with a row of colored sliding rings on a crossbar and a smiling sun painted at the corner.  The gate was open now and the creature hunkered behind it ripping open a white kitchen bag. 

As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she realized that it wasn’t a coyote, but a skinny mongrel dog with wild, matted fur.  The dog was tearing apart the Hardee’s take-out bag Jenny’s dad had brought home.  There wasn’t anything in it but empty ketchup packets and greasy napkins.

The dog wouldn’t find much to eat in their garbage.  With her dad’s uncertain, off-and-on income, they couldn’t afford to waste food.

Jenny went back inside.  Her pantry didn’t contain much that was good for a dog, mostly grits, cereal and soup, but she did find a can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli.  She popped it open, dumped the ravioli into one of her early, misshapen clay bowls, and warmed it in the microwave.

Back outside, the dog was still at his hopeless rooting.  Jenny stood by the corner of the house, well away from him, holding the warm bowl.

“
Hey, doggie,” she said.

The dog jumped, took one quick look at her, and ran into the woods.  His head bobbed up and down like a galloping horse.  By the sound of it, he didn’t go too far into the woods before he stopped.  Jenny hoped he was watching her.

She placed the bowl on the ground where the dog had been, near the scattered spill of garbage.  She walked back to the corner of the house, squatted to the ground, and made herself as small and nonthreatening as she could.

“
Come on, doggie,” Jenny said, in a high baby-talk voice. “It’s gonna be okay!”

She heard a little pawing in the woods, and then the dog whined.  He could probably smell the heated ravioli floating in meaty red sauce. 

“Gonna be okay,” Jenny tried to assure the dog.

After another minute, the dog finally crept out of the woods into the moonlit yard.  He kept his head low and looked at her warily, his big black nose snuffling the air.  He step-hopped over to the bowl, and now Jenny saw why he walked so awkwardly, head bobbing up and down, body rocking from side to side.  He only had one front leg.  The other one was just a three-inch stump.