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Jason sounded like he was bragging, but she looked anyway. E-mail looked boring, not like the games they played on the computer at school, but when Jason said you could write things and send them and they got there in seconds, she changed her mind. It was neat how you could send stuff to your friends.
“See, this is the address line. It looks weird but it works. Want to try it?”
So Crystal tapped out the address and pushed the buttons that Jason told her to and then she pushed Send and Jason said in a second his message would be in New York.
“Hey, hey, hey! We’re playing football. Come on, Squirt.” Ryan was standing in the doorway with Tommy, and Tommy pushed him into the side of the door, but Ryan only laughed and punched him in the stomach. Squirt was what they called Jason.
Jason jumped up and bumped Crystal’s chin real hard and didn’t even say he was sorry. Crystal said, “You hurt me.”
“Oh. Sorry.” For a second, he looked as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Come on. We need another body to crush.” That was Ryan, who was bigger and had blonder hair than Tommy, and a bigger nose, and that was how you could tell them apart. Because other than that, they acted the same. Two big boys who were always pushing each other.
“I’ll whip your butts,” Jason said, bragging again.
“Oh, did we say we were going to let you on a team?” Ryan laughed. “We’re going to let you be the football, Squirt.”
Jason said, “Cut the crap.” Crap was a bad word, but nobody paid attention.
Jason grabbed his sweatshirt. When he pulled it over his head, it was like he noticed Crystal again. “Hey, guys. Remember what Dad said. We gotta be nice to our cousin.” Then Jason looked at her and said, “Do you want to play? We’ll go easy on you.”
Crystal couldn’t believe that. Nobody wanted to play with her here, not even Jason. Her chest kind of pounded. They wanted her to play. But they were all so big and football was rough. She said, “I don’t know how to.”
“We’ll do touch. No tackling. We’ll go easy and then when you get tired and quit we’ll do tackle.”
“But I’ll get knocked down.”
“She’ll get knocked do…wn,” Ryan said in this voice that made fun of the way she talked, and then he and Tommy laughed.
All of a sudden, Crystal couldn’t stand it. She said, “Cut the crap.” Her face went hot but it felt good because Ryan and Tommy stopped wiggling and they all stared at her. She knew her momma would be mad that she’d said a bad word, and Miss Jenny wouldn’t like it, either. But her momma was in heaven, and Miss Jenny was in Hilton Head, and Crystal was in Ohio, and even the judge said she had to live here.
It seemed like a long time that they stared at her, and Crystal felt so funny with them looking at her that she almost took it back. But she didn’t.
Tommy finally said, “Well, okay, you can be on Squirt’s team.”
They went downstairs, and Jason said stuff like it’s not fair to have the big kids against the little kids, but it didn’t seem to really bother him a lot. When they got out in the yard, Jason said, “Tommy, you’re on Crystal’s team.” Tommy came right over to Crystal. She couldn’t believe it.
Tommy stood behind her and held her arms and showed her how to hold the football. The football was big and hard. Then Tommy showed her how to pass the football. He stepped away and Crystal tried it. The football went up sorta high and then it squiggled and fell down not very far from her. The boys laughed. Crystal thought about saying cut the crap again, but decided once a day was enough.
They told her the rules, which didn’t make sense. But that almost didn’t matter—now they weren’t laughing at her any more and they were playing with her. She felt better than she had since she came here. The sun was shining even though it was cold, and the sunshine felt good, making the top of her head warm.
Ryan and Jason went into what they called a huddle, and then Ryan came running. Before Crystal could blink her eyes, Tommy had touched him, which was a tackle when you played touch football. Well, Tommy did more than touch—he grabbed Ryan on the arm and twirled him around.
Football was rough.
They played some more. Once Crystal got the football and she held it to her stomach even though it was covered in mud, and ran as fast as she could. It took a long time until Jason touched her and she had to stop. That felt good, especially when Tommy said, “All right, kid. You gained us some yards.”
Then the football was up in the air, and it was spinning, spinning down toward her. Tommy yelled, “Catch it,” and Crystal held up her arms.
Wham!
Something hit her hard in the shoulder. She fell and went skidding along the stiff, frozen grass. She finally stopped and was lying on her side, her cheek in the grass, staring across the yard.
All these feet were coming toward her. Big feet, running.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you all right?”
“Hey, kid, are you hurt?”
She sat up, though she felt weird, like shaky inside.
Tommy was looking down at her. “Ryan hit you.”
“Well, I was trying to get the ball, you dork. Not hit the kid.”
Jason got down by her. “Are you hurt?”
She looked where he was looking, and saw that the sleeve of her sweatshirt had come up and her arm was all full of cuts. When she touched them, they hurt.
“Oh, man, Dad’s gonna be pissed this time.” Ryan stood there, and he was shaking his head at Tommy. “You knew she was too little to play football. How could you have been such an idiot?”
“Well, you wanted to play, too.” They went on arguing, and Jason said what Ryan said, that his dad would maybe get mad. Crystal just sat there on that horrible rough grass in the cold. All she wanted in the world was to be back home.
“She’s not hurt that bad,” Jason said, pushing at her arm and making it hurt more. “See? She can bend her elbow.” He bent it back and forth.
They all looked at her, all those big boys, and she thought of saying cut the crap again, but she didn’t feel as though she could right now because it was so hard not to cry.
“I want my momma,” she said instead, and her voice didn’t sound like it had when she’d said cut the crap. Now it sounded tiny.
“Listen.” Jason got down beside her. “You aren’t hurt that bad. We were only playing. The thing is, we might get in trouble if you tell Dad.” He stopped for a second. “You don’t want us to get in trouble, do you?”
She didn’t care. She wanted her momma. She wanted Miss Jenny!
Tommy got down by Jason, and he had this kind of frown on his face. “Jason’s right, kid. There are things Dad doesn’t have to know, and we don’t rat on each other. We just get even when we can. If you live here, you’ve got to learn the rules.”
That was a bad rule. “He’ll find out. My sweatshirt is all torn.” She was not going to let them see her cry!
“Nah,” Ryan said. “Just throw it out. Dad’ll never notice.”
That was maybe true; some lady came in and washed the clothes and put them away. But Crystal didn’t know what to do. If she told Uncle Mitch, he would maybe get mad, and she didn’t know what he’d do if he got mad. He was big; she didn’t want to find out. Would he maybe blame her for playing with the boys? Or would he be mad at the boys, and then they’d get even with her?
She looked down at her arm, and now the most terrible thing was happening. The red scratches were starting to bleed. Did that mean she was really hurt?
She started crying, and she jumped up and ran to the house. They followed her, so she ran up to her room and shut the door. Her door shut fine. The boys stayed outside the door, calling to her, but she sat on the bed and watched her arm bleed. Finally she said, “Go away! I won’t tell!” and after a while they went away. In a few minutes, she looked out the window and saw them out in the pasture by the ponies. Face-off was out there, and she saw her kitten sneaking around the bushes.
She felt so alone. Everything was quiet, and she didn’t think it had been quiet since she got here. She almost wished the boys were still outside her door. She touched her arm and blood came off on her finger.
That scared her, and she went down the hall to the phone and tried to call Miss Jenny even though she always called Miss Jenny at night before she went to bed. Nobody answered, and her arm kept bleeding. Wasn’t it supposed to stop?
Her momma had been in a car wreck and been so hurt she died.
Something squeezed her in the chest then, and she started crying harder and tried to think what to do.
Miss Jenny would come and get her. She just knew it, and if Uncle Mitch and the judge knew that she was almost dying they would let her go home, wouldn’t they? If she could just talk to Miss Jenny!
Then she had an idea. She went down to the kitchen and got this piece of paper off of Uncle Mitch’s desk. The paper was Miss Jenny’s paper from work. It had her address on it, and then some stuff at the bottom that had never made sense until today. Now she looked at it again. Just what she thought. It was an address like Jason’s friend had.
She took the paper and went to Jason’s room. His computer was still on. She did everything he’d told her to do. She thought about how e-mail was kind of like magic, and she wished you could send e-mails to heaven. But instead, when the square came up, she carefully typed in Miss Jenny’s address. Then it got to the part where you could write the message.
Mis Jenny they hurt me. im bleeeding From Crystal.
Then she found the Send button and pushed.
CHAPTER THREE
MITCH WAS running late again. He had an eight-thirty appointment this morning with one of the high-school coaches to discuss the possibility of Serious Gear supplying all the sporting equipment for next year’s football program. Setting the meeting so early this morning had seemed like a good idea when the guy had called yesterday. Mitch had figured to get a jump start on the day, make a good sale before he’d even opened for business.
But last night, he’d been out until after 2:00 a.m., working on Luke’s slap shot and helping Luke’s minor league team, the Northern Lights, with practice.
Now he stood in his kitchen and raked a hand through his hair and tried to shut out the sounds of his kids. They were arguing again—or goofing around—who could tell the difference?
“Gotcha, Squirt.” Ryan put another Froot Loop on his spoon and flicked it at Jason. The bit of cereal hit Jason on the nose.
“I’m gonna get you for that.” Jason jumped off the counter stool and grabbed the open box of cereal. Dancing away, he held the box out temptingly, then snatched it to his chest when Ryan made a grab. “I’ve got the ammo.”
Ryan dodged Tommy, who was going to the refrigerator for another gallon of milk. Ryan grabbed Jason by the shoulder and swung the younger boy around. Jason kept up the taunts.
Mitch had finally had enough. “Cut it out,” he said at the same time Luke said, “Quit that.” Mitch looked up from where he was loading the dishwasher and shrugged at his eldest son as Jason and Ryan kept at it. Neither Mitch nor Luke were big on mornings; too many late-night practices at the rink had done in mornings long ago.
The kitchen floor was sticky; Mitch had felt it on his bare feet. The kids must have spilled milk again. Someone must have turned down the furnace; the air in the house felt chilly on his bare chest.
Weren’t millionaires supposed to live better than this?
Jason was still teasing Ryan. When Jason’s elbow hit Tommy’s cereal bowl and sent the empty bowl skidding across the counter, Mitch finally said, “That’s enough!” He marched over and held out his hand for the cereal box.
“Aw, Dad, I was finally getting to him,” Jason pleaded. Face-off was begging at his feet. Face-off loved Froot Loops.
Mitch ruffled the hair on his youngest. “You’ll get him next time.”
Ryan did a sneak attack and grabbed the box. Cereal flew. Face-off gleefully chased the windfall. Crystal’s kitten—which had been observing the shenanigans from the safety of a chair back—puffed out her tail and took off.
Mitch turned to Ryan. “Give me the box. Now.” After a couple of moments to see if Mitch really meant it—why did they always do that?—Ryan finally handed it over.
He peered inside. “You guys are done here. You’ve eaten your way clean through two boxes, and you’re going to be late for the bus. Luke doesn’t have time to drive you, and neither do I.” Absently, he scooped up the crumbs of cereal from the bottom of the box and fed them to Face-off, who’d finished his vacuum routine and sat before Mitch with his big wet tongue hanging out. Then Mitch crumpled the box and tossed it toward the trash.
As he started for the stairs, it dawned on him that Crystal was missing. “Hey, where’s Crystal?”
For a second, the boys, arguing about something, didn’t seem to hear him. Then the room got very quiet.
Not a good sign. He looked at the boys, who were looking at each other.
Luke said quietly, “Okay, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“No clue.”
“How would I know?”
They were looking everywhere but at Mitch or Luke. From the bottom of the steps, Mitch bellowed, “Crystal!” She didn’t answer, and alarm ran through him. Before he even realized where he was going, he was halfway up the stairs.
She appeared at the top of the stairs. Slacks and a flowered sweater, a toothbrush in her hand.
He stopped dead. She looked so normal. “Are you all right?” he asked foolishly.
She nodded, but she had this fearful, pinched look on her face, the one she often got around him.
“Oh. I just wondered—” She was still looking at him. He said, “You’re running late.”
Her face crumpled. “I slept too long,” she said in a small voice, and Mitch had the horrible thought that she was going to cry.
“That’s—uh, okay.” Don’t cry. “Listen, I can drive you if you miss the bus.”
“You’re not mad? You yelled.”
“I didn’t yell at you.”
“Yes, you did. I heard it from the bathroom. You yelled real loud. Crys-tal. I dropped the toothpaste.” Her lower lip wobbled.
“That was to see if you were okay,” he tried to explain. She didn’t look convinced, and he didn’t know what else to say—they seemed to have no conversation, no common ground at all, and she was so sensitive.
The doorbell rang.
Barking from Face-off, a call to the dog, the closing of the laundry-room door. Heavy, clumping feet heading for the hall. Then one of the boys called, “D—aaa—d.”
He was so relieved to have a reason to escape his niece’s scrutiny, he didn’t even consider the oddity of someone at the door at eight in the morning. He turned and headed back down the stairs.
“It’s some lady,” Tommy called as Mitch passed the kitchen doorway on his way to the front hall.
He had an appointment with a woman who was applying for the job of full-time housekeeper, but that interview was supposed to be at the store later. The door was agape a fraction. He pulled it open.
Jenny Litton stood on his doorstep, a small carry-on bag in her hand.
He froze, his hand on the doorknob.
“Is she all right?”
