Little Red Gem (20 page)

On a slip of paper I
scribbled the words PLEASE GO AWAY WILLIAM but he either couldn’t
read or he was having too much fun picking on me. By the end of
class, however, I was positive my tormentor wasn’t William and that
I was being attacked by one of the poltergeists Audrey had warned
me about. So now I was slightly terrified. I sent a silent plea to
William to show up and protect me.

The next class wasn’t any
better. The ghost lifted my hand so I had to attempt to answer a
question I didn’t know the answer to. It pulled at my hair. It
threw my text book at the window which got me banished from class.
Honestly, I was glad to leave the room. I needed to find somewhere
to wait out this malicious and unseen attacker. But where? The
library offered no escape, too many books my invisible bully could
throw at me. The cafeteria served hot food which was guilty of
scolding a few students a year and I had no intention of gathering
a burn scar. No way would I go near the music rooms – I couldn’t
get the image out of my head of a piano falling on me.

I ended up sitting in the
middle of the sports field because the worst my tormentor can do
was throw grass at me. Which it did. I was covered in slivers of
green when the next class arrived. P.E. I didn’t have to feign
illness when the students set up the hurdles around me.

“
You joining us today,
Miss Adams?” Miss Mathers the P.E. teacher asked.

When I was alive and known
as Ruby I’d had Miss Mathers for P.E. She’d barely said two words
to me. Yet she spoke to Audrey. I wasn’t dense. I’d never met a
P.E. teacher who wasted a breath on any kid who stank. The P.E.
teacher talking to Audrey meant one thing – Audrey excelled at
sports.

Another wave of terror
gripped me. Excluding today’s poltergeist possession session, I was
sure I controlled this body’s limbs. And I had the motor neuron
equivalence of a marionette. I really didn’t have to lie about my
illness anymore. I dreaded jumping over those hurdles.

“
Do I have to?” I
cried.

Miss Mathers bent down to
clap me on the back. “You’ve done this plenty of times. Go and get
changed while we set up. We can’t start without our star
athlete.”

On my way to the change
rooms I ran into Hannah. I grabbed her hand and wouldn’t let go.
“Please tell Miss Mathers I’ve got a contagious
disease.”

Hannah laughed but she let
me drag her with me to the change rooms. At least she’d forgiven me
for embarrassing her in class.

“
Explains the weird
behavior,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“
What weird
behavior?”

“
Hello. You practically
threw your text books on the floor.”

I bit my lip. “I have been
a klutz today.”

“
Not only today. The whole
week. You haven’t been yourself. You’ve been secretive. Happy,
even. I can only guess this is another symptom of your obsession
with Leo.”

I laughed to lighten the
mood. “What do you mean I haven’t been myself?”

We’d reached the change
rooms and together we hunted down a clean spot on the benches. I
slung my bag onto the bench and took out plain colored T-shirts and
leggings. What would look better to break a leg in, I wondered?
Blue or green?

Hannah stood in front of
the mirror, carefully studying her face. “You’ve avoided me every
day this week. I get you’re in love, but you know we share
everything, and you haven’t told me a single thing about you and
Leo. You didn’t come around to my house after school to study
yesterday or the day before, and you know we do that every
afternoon.”

I pulled a blue T-shirt
over my head. “Are you mad at me?”

“
I’m not mad. I’m jealous.
You’re keeping secrets. I don’t like you keeping things from me.
We’re best friends, aren’t we?”

“
If you say so,” I
muttered.

I tied the laces on my
runners and walked over to where Hannah stood in front of the
mirror. We stood side by side and I noted how weird it was to be
searching for
my
face, yet the only trace visible to me was my eyes. Did
Hannah see my dark-brown eyes or Audrey’s paler brown
eyes?

Hannah’s gaze searched the
mirror until it locked onto me. When she turned away, my heart
dropped to my toes. If neither of us could spot Ruby Parker lurking
beneath, what hope had Leo?

Hannah grabbed my hands.
“Jeez, Audrey, you’re shaking.”

“
Told you I had a
contagious disease.”

We left the change rooms
and I detected a worried gleam in her eye.

“
Could be anthrax,
malaria, measles, the Plague,” I joked.

“
You don’t have any of
those diseases. Do you?”

“
A tick, maybe. I have
been walking in the woods.”

“
When were you in the
woods?”

Hannah glowered at me and
I stayed silent while we regrouped with the rest of the class. My
hands continued to shake and I knew my nervousness stemmed from
being on a field where I had no right to be. I hated athletics. The
music room, full of guitars, pianos, trombones, and violins was
where I preferred to shine.

We returned to the group
and everyone watched me with a suspenseful look on their faces. I’d
never considered Audrey the athletic type. Could she do back flips?
My stomach did a few yet I knew the two types of flips weren’t
remotely like each other. One was a display of guts. The other was
a gutsy display.

Not even my odd sense of
humor could appease the butterflies when Miss Mathers sang out,
“Show us how it’s done, Audrey.”

Most of the class – there
were always one or two girls who couldn’t summon cheer for anyone
except themselves – cheered me on. Instead of being encouraged,
bile rushed up into my mouth. I swore I was going to throw up.
Sweat broke out on my brow. I shook harder now. But I also couldn’t
back out. There were things you did to make your insides stronger,
such as jumping over hurdles you had no business jumping over. And
then there were certain things you did to make your insides
squishy, such as chickening out.

I rolled my neck and
shoulders and strode purposefully up to where the hurdles were laid
out on the track. I did a quick count. Ten little barriers stood
between me and the finish line. One or fifty, there wasn’t really
any difference. I stank at sports.

Just get on with it, I
told myself.

My feet listened to this
internal command and took off. At the first hurdle I lifted my leg
out in front of me. I was surprised when I flew inches above the
hurdle. A few steps and I lifted the other leg. More surprise. I
was actually getting lift-off. This wasn’t so bad.

At the third hurdle, an
invisible wrecking ball slammed into me and I was tossed through
the air like a rag doll. The ground rushed up to meet me.
Hello ground. Please be soft like a
pillow.

It wasn’t. It was like
cement. Landing on my wrists, a loud
crack
rang out and I screamed.
Intense pain tore along my left arm like fire, which caused the
earlier concern I’d had over appearing weak disappear. I screamed
like an injured animal, cradling my wrist protectively. In an
instant the entire class surrounded me.

Miss Mathers pushed her
way through the crowd. “Show me.”

Nothing could persuade me
to move my arm. Even
imagining
moving my arm hurt like crazy. I’d rather have
sat there, nursing my wounds, scolding myself for knowing something
like this would happen, and mentally engraving into the insides of
my skull the words NEVER DO THIS AGAIN than move my arm.

Miss Mathers finally
coaxed the hand covering my wrist aside, yet when she touched me,
the blood drained from my body.

“
I think it’s broken,” she
said. She told Hannah to get the first aid kit from her office. To
me she said, “Breathe deeply. Remain calm. I’ll apply first aid and
we’ll get you to hospital. Okay.”

I’d given up listening.
Death hadn’t been this painful and I’d broken a lot more than a
wrist.

Hannah appeared and Miss
Mathers wasted no time in lifting my arm and supporting it with one
hand while she gently pushed a splint under my wrist with the
other. Next, amidst howls of agony from me, and whispers of “cry
baby” from a few of the snootier girls, she expertly twisted a
sheet of cotton into a sling.

“
Support your arm while I
wrap this around you,” she instructed. “I’m going to place my arms
around your waist and lift you up. You ready?”

“
Please don’t move me,” I
whispered.

She smiled sympathetically
while I clenched my jaw tight so she could lift me up. Together we
hobbled to the school building. When we walked into the
administration building Mrs. Runo, the school administrator, rushed
out from behind her desk.

“
Call an ambulance,
Madison,” Miss Mathers ordered.

“
I don’t need an ambulance
for a broken wrist.” I sniffed back tears.

“
School policy.” Mrs. Runo
reached for the phone. “If a student can’t walk him or herself off
school grounds, we call an ambulance.”

“
Duh. It’s my wrist. Last
I checked I don’t walk on my hands.”

I lifted my hand up to
prove the pain was no longer noticeable, but mostly to silence the
persistent whispers of “cry baby”. Instead, an acid-like burning
sensation threatened to peel my flesh off, a million times worse
than when I’d nicked my legs shaving with a blunt razor.

The blood speedily dropped
away from my brain and I started hyperventilating.

“
Shit
. Sorry. Ow, shit, it hurts.”

Mrs. Runo glowered at me
over the rim of her glasses. “I’ll ignore that remark. At least now
you know why we call the ambulance.”

Everyone stared at me and
the scrutiny sent a horrible message to my brain. I couldn’t go to
hospital. What if the x-ray scanners revealed two life forms inside
one body?

Hannah pushed through the
crowd. “Audrey. I’ve called your mom. She’s on her way to the
hospital to meet you.”

“
Thanks,” I sighed. I
really want
my
mom, but Teri would do.

“
What happened?” the
paramedic asked when he arrived.

“
She tripped on the
hurdle,” explained Miss Mathers.

“
She’d been a klutz all
day,” added Hannah, a worried look on her face that perhaps my
claims of an infectious disease weren’t so farfetched.

***

Teri must have flown on a
witch’s broomsticks to beat the ambulance to the hospital. Her eyes
were wide in fright and shiny with tears, and the second she saw me
she rushed toward me, almost knocking aside the two paramedics
who’d escorted me on the ride.

“
What
happened?”

“
Malevolent spirit,” I
joked.

Teri didn’t laugh. If
anything, she was so stiff and pale I was worried she’d faint. She
may have needed the attention of the paramedics more than
me.

“
She tripped on the
hurdle,” the paramedic explained. “The teacher said your daughter
landed on her wrists. The doctor will x-ray both wrists to see the
extent of the damage.”

At least I was whisked
straight in and not made to wait for hours and hours in agonizing
pain. Nothing in my life had prepared me for enduring hours and
hours of pain; not even Biology class.

Moments later the x-ray
confirmed my left wrist was broken.

“
A clean break,” the
doctor said, as if a clean snap somehow lessened the severity. “She
can take Advil,” he told Teri. With a kind smile he popped two
tablets into my good wrist and offered me a paper cup filled with
cold water. “This type of injury doesn’t require anything stronger.
She won’t be able to use her wrist for six weeks. Too bad it’s not
her right one.” He turned to wink at me. “You may have gotten out
of homework.”

Left hand. Right hand.
Whatever. Made no difference because it took two hands to play the
piano.

It was official. Even in
death my life sucked. Last night, when I hadn’t been able to put
the image of the key chain out of my mind, I’d spent a few hours
scribbling lyrics to a song I’d decided would be the one I’d sing
at the Reach For The Stars audition. Now I wouldn’t be able to
enter, not unless I could convince Natalie and Shanessa to
accompany me, which was going to be difficult since they often
wrangled for the limelight and I barely got a word in sometimes. If
I had trouble convincing them to take turns, Audrey didn’t stand a
chance, but I had no choice except to try because the auditions
were part of my plan to get Leo to notice the real me.

The doctor left and I
spied William hovering in the background. He noticed me noticing
him and strode over wearing a big smile. Thankfully Teri and the
doctor were facing the reception desk, although the doctor didn’t
concern me.

“
Hide,” I hissed. “The
woman at the counter is a spirit detector.”