Ghost Girl (18 page)

I shrugged. “I've gotten so used to doing things one-handed I don't even think about it anymore.”

“I'm not just talking about your cast,” Miss Vest went on. “You've got circles under your eyes. I'm sure you're not getting much rest, sleeping on the floor here.” She frowned down at the messy little pallet of old quilts and blankets I had made by the fireplace. I'd never admit it, but Miss Vest was right. I woke up at least five or six times a night, whenever I heard Aunt Birdy's deep, rattling cough or when she tossed and turned, making the springs in her bed creak.

“Dr. Hunt says her lungs are clearing up more every day,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“That's true. But she's a long way from taking care of herself, and what about all the school you'll be missing? And what about money, April? I know Aunt Birdy has some savings up in that jar in the cupboard, but that money can't last forever.” She touched my arm. “I've been thinking. Maybe I should go see your parents again. I'm sure they're not really aware of how sick Aunt Birdy is.”

“They know,” I said. “The whole mountain knows.”

“But maybe Dewey didn't explain the situation to your mother very—”

I plunked a spoon in the bowl so hard that broth went splashing over the sides. “She knows! She just doesn't care!”

I could feel my face turning hot. It was going on three years that I had known Miss Vest, and I couldn't remember ever raising my voice to her before.

“All right, April,” she said quietly. “We'll wait and see.”

I nodded. There was nothing left to say. There was no one to take care of my grandmother but me.

I picked up the bowl and Miss Vest followed me through the house to the back bedroom. Aunt Birdy woke up when we came through the door. “Time to eat again already?” she asked in a scratchy whisper.

“That's right,” I said. “Let's see if you can eat more than five bites this time.” I set the soup on the dresser while Miss Vest fluffed her pillow and helped her to sit up.

Aunt Birdy drew in a ragged breath. “I'll try to eat, honey. I need to get up on my feet soon. Otherwise, I'll turn silly staring at these four walls, trying to figure out what all those old newspapers say.”

Miss Vest and I looked around the room at the yellowed papers plastered over the cracks, and laughed. It was the first time Aunt Birdy had sounded like her old self since we had come back from Washington. Plus she had given me a wonderful idea.

I rushed over to the bed and squeezed her hand. “Aunt Birdy, I can help you pass the time by reading to you. And I promise I'll find a lot more exciting things to read than these old newspapers.”

Miss Vest's eyes brightened. “That's right, Birdy. April could come to the classroom and pick out books you might like. Then she'd be doing you both a favor. She'll keep you entertained and keep up with her reading at the same time.”

A smile flickered across Aunt Birdy's face, and the next day I was rushing off to the schoolhouse to bring back as many books and magazines as I could carry.

Reading saved Aunt Birdy and me that spring. We worked our way along every shelf at the schoolhouse—through a year's worth of
Child Life
magazines, three or four encyclopedias, a stack of McGuffey's Readers, the Holy Bible,
Little Women
,
Grimms' Book of Fairy Tales
, and my favorite,
Black Beauty
.

Aunt Birdy didn't mind when I stuttered over hard words or skipped to something new if a certain fairy tale or magazine article didn't catch my fancy. She closed her eyes and listened and seemed to breathe easier whenever I was reading, stretched out beside her on the big cherry bed. Sometimes I thought she had fallen asleep, but if we got interrupted by Dr. Hunt's visits or one of the neighbors stopping by, she always knew exactly where we had left off.

“No, no, Apry,” she'd tell me. “We're on Chapter Seven,” or she'd say, “You did that part already, honey. Get to the part where Aurora pricks her finger on the spinning wheel.”

Pretty soon I started to believe that it wasn't rest or Dr. Hunt's medicines that were curing Aunt Birdy. It was my reading. When the weather was fine, I coaxed her out to the front porch with promises to read poems from
A Child's Garden of Verses
. And sometimes I read straight through mealtimes because Aunt Birdy would be listening so hard, she would keep taking bites of food without even knowing it.

Living in our little world of books, it was easy to forget about life beyond the front porch. My trips to Taggart's for groceries or up to the schoolhouse to fetch more books were my only reminders that life was still carrying on around me.

One afternoon when I was in the classroom, looking through a stack of
National Geographic
magazines, Dewey wandered over to talk to me. I had barely seen him since my trip to Washington.

“How's Aunt Birdy?” he asked.

“She's better. She's taking a nap right now.”

“So I never got to ask you, April. How'd you like the White House?”

“I liked it just fine.” I was starting to feel suspicious, especially when I saw Dewey check over his shoulder to make sure Miss Vest was still busy across the room.

“So I bet you never did it, did you?” he whispered.

I pretended I didn't know what he meant. “Did what?”

“Ask the Hoovers about the park.”

“'Course I asked them,” I said.

“Well . . . what'd they say?”

With all his questions and my struggling to manage the magazines one-handed, I could feel the sweat beading up over my top lip. “Mrs. Hoover said she didn't know what the devil you were talking about,” I lied.

Dewey cut his eyes at me, but before he could get any further, I shoved the three best magazines into my bag and headed out the door. I was surprised at myself. After talking to Mrs. Hoover at the White House, I knew there was truth to what Dewey was saying about the park. But the lie had fallen out of my mouth as smooth as syrup. Still, I couldn't worry about that now. I had to get Aunt Birdy well first.

Daddy was in the front room waiting for me when I got back to Aunt Birdy's. I stood in the doorway holding my bag of magazines, gawping at him.

“Hey, April,” he said, taking a step closer like he wanted to hug me. But then he stopped short. “How you getting along?”

I didn't answer. A sharp metal taste filled my mouth, and I felt a wave of something black and powerful pushing up inside my chest.

Daddy looked down at his shoes, shaking his head. “I know, April,” he said. “I know. It's been so long. . . . But I think I've done right all this time, letting you stay with Miss Vest. I think you been better off with her, going to school and learning so much. I know what a fine student you are. Miss Vest, every so often she sends us your drawings and stories and those test papers of yours with gold stars on them.”

I tried to keep my face blank, but I could feel the surprise widening my eyes. Miss Vest never told me she had been sending them my work all this time.

Daddy went on. “I know your Aunt Birdy's been real sick.”

I bit down on my lip. Easy, April, I told myself. Keep still.

“Where's Mama?” I asked.

Daddy took another step toward me. “I told your mother we should be here helping you and seeing to Aunt Birdy. And she wants to come, April. She knows school's gonna be out soon for the summer and you won't have Miss Vest here helping you once she goes back to Kentucky for her vacation. Your ma wants to—”

I cut Daddy off, letting my words fly out like bullets. “Miss Vest's not going anywhere. She says she's staying right here with me this summer. Tell Mama I don't need her help. Aunt Birdy's getting better every day.”

Daddy looked shocked. He had never seen me so angry before. We stared at each other. He needed a haircut. His hair was so long and shaggy in the back it touched his collar. And his eyes had new wrinkles at the corners. For a minute, I felt myself sinking—sinking back into the memory of sitting on his lap, with his big hands on mine, showing me how to hold the reins and guide Old Dean down the trail.

Then all of a sudden Aunt Birdy was calling from the bedroom. “Apry? You there?”

“You better be going,” I said, and even though I knew it wasn't true, I added, “Aunt Birdy doesn't want you coming round here.”

Daddy reached in his pocket and brought out a crumpled lump of dollar bills. “Here,” he said, dropping the money on the table next to a stack of dirty plates. “You might be needing this. If you get in a fix and need more, just let me know.”

Then I stepped out of the doorway for him to pass. I was proud of myself. Daddy had come and gone again, and I hadn't cried a single tear.

I didn't tell Aunt Birdy
about Daddy's visit—even after two weeks in a row of finding an envelope full of dollar bills poking out from under the straw mat on the front porch. Then one morning I looked up from
Aesop's Fables
to find Aunt Birdy staring toward Doubletop with a confounded look on her face.

“I thought she would have come by now,” she said softly. “Do you think she knows? I mean, how poorly I been?”

I laid the book on my lap. “I think she does, Aunt Birdy. But she's so stubborn. She'll never change.”

Aunt Birdy fixed me with a pleading look. “But
you've
changed, Apry. Maybe you should go try to talk to her again. You've changed enough in the last two years for the both of you.”

I shook my head. “She wouldn't listen. It's too late.”

The words burned in my throat. I could see Aunt Birdy's blue eyes welling up with tears, but I still couldn't make myself tell her about Daddy's coming and Mama's offer of help. I couldn't let them back in our lives so easy. For almost two years they had given up on me. Two years!

Besides, it was like I told Daddy. I didn't need their help. Just as she promised, Miss Vest called off her trip home to Kentucky that summer. Every morning she came down the hill to check on us, bringing some sort of treat—a couple of Florida tangerines, a new ladies' magazine, or a packet of Mile High sunflower seeds to lighten up our long days. With Aunt Birdy watching and giving directions from her chair in the shade, Miss Vest and I tended her vegetable garden and pulled weeds around the porch where the snowball bushes and hollyhocks grew.

Wit helped, too. He had a lot more time on his hands now with Camp Rapidan being so quiet for the summer. Miss Vest said the president was too busy fighting the Depression to spend many weekends in the Blue Ridge. And when the Hoovers did come, Wit told us, they weren't bringing as many guests as usual. The president needed a chance to rest and think about something besides banks and businesses and farms going bust.

At first I was unhappy about Wit spending so much time with us. I saw the way Miss Vest's face turned pink whenever she heard his shoes clumping up the porch steps or how Wit held her hand under the table when he thought no one was looking. But I couldn't stay mad at him for long. Wit teased Aunt Birdy and made her smile, and on top of that, we needed him. He put new shingles on the roof of the springhouse that summer, shoveled thirty years of old manure out of the storage shed, and built a sturdy chicken-wire fence around the garden to keep out the rabbits and the deer.

Near the end of the summer, Wit showed up with a pair of clippers and said it was time to take my cast off. In five minutes, he had cut the plaster down the middle and cracked it back to bare my arm underneath.

“Yuk,” I said. My arm looked as brown and shriveled as one of the old wisteria vines growing up the porch railing. Miss Vest ran to get a washrag and a basin of soap and water.

“See?” she said when she had finished. “Looks better already.” I tested my arm, bending and flexing it back and forth. It felt light as a reed without the clumsy cast wrapped around it.

“Now, Miss Vest,” Aunt Birdy said from her rocker. “You and Wit need to help me talk this girl into going back to school. She's got no business sitting in this dark place with an old lady all fall.”

Aunt Birdy didn't talk me into leaving her side until October, when Miss Vest and Wit took the whole class down to the Madison County Fair for the day. The Hoovers had sent money for admission and tickets, and as soon as Aunt Birdy heard about the trip she started pestering me to go along. So the morning of the fair, I found myself climbing into the back of a marine truck piled high with kids and sweet-smelling hay.

It was a perfect fall day, with the maples so red they looked like they had caught fire against the bright blue sky. Wit and Miss Vest drove our truck with one load of kids, and Mr. Jessup and Sergeant Jordan took another load. As we rocked and swayed down the mountainside, all the kids laughed and whooped at every pothole and horseshoe turn.