The Girl Who Owned a City (16 page)

“Oh, no!” she cried. “I didn't know, Todd. Is she hurt bad?”

“I think so. There's blood all over her, but she's still breathing.” He still didn't know how bad Lisa was. “I can't come inside, Erika, so you have to help me. Can you pretend that you're sick . . . uh . . . with a stomachache?”

She didn't understand. He continued: “Try to look real sick, and go find Jill. Get her to take you to the hospital room. Tell her your stomach hurts. And find Craig. Have him come with you and Jill. If Tom Logan thinks you're sick, he'll leave you alone in the hospital room. I'll be waiting outside the window with a ladder. We have to take Lisa away, and I need help.

“Pretend like you want to throw up. Try it now so I can see.” She looked awful. “That should work,” he said. “Be careful, Erika, and hurry. Please hurry.”

Todd climbed back to the roof and walked along the rim to a point above the nurse's room. But he wasn't sure which window it was. Was it two windows over from the chamber tower or was it three? He couldn't remember. I'll have to take a chance, he thought, and climbed down.

Where are they? he wondered, looking into the spotless room. He thought about his sister. What could have gone wrong? Suddenly the door opened, and four people entered the room. Todd pulled away from the glass. He had the right room, it seemed. Logan was with them and stayed for a long time, arguing with Craig.

Todd peeked in now and then at the edge of the window. Erika looked awful, like she would actually throw up. Logan told a guard to watch the hall and then closed the door behind him.

They opened the window, and Jill whispered, “Where is she hurt? What should I bring? The stretcher? Throw it down to the ground, Craig. Can she talk? Here, take these bandages and get some alcohol . . . and . . . oh, what else will we need?”

They rounded up more supplies, just in case. “That should be enough,” Jill said. “Let's go quickly. Erika, you'd better come with us.”

Todd was the last one down. When he shut the window, the latch fell into place, locking the window from the inside. Figure that one out, Logan, Todd said to himself. When the three of them reached the ground, they ran. Craig carried the stretcher.

“All the dogs are sleeping, Toddy!” Erika hollered.

“Shut up,” Todd said, not caring that the dogs were dead. They were quiet and maybe, because of it, Lisa could be saved. “Follow me.” He led them to her body. “You help her, Jill. I'll get the car. Craig, you stand guard. Here's my gun. And, Erika,” he added, “keep your mouth shut.” Erika thought he was beginning to sound like his sister.

They slid the stretcher into the back seat. Lisa didn't move or even open her eyes, but she was still alive. Cold and silent, but alive. “How is she, Jill? Can you fix her up?” Todd started the car.

“Where are we taking her?” Craig asked.

When he heard the words “to the old farm on Swift Road,” Craig was startled. After all this time, he thought, she's bringing me to the farm.

The beat-up old Cadillac carried the leaders away from Glenbard. The girl who owned a city was now without a home.

The old farm was quiet and undisturbed. “Look, Jill,” said Craig. “There's an oil heater with its own fuel tank. All we need is a match.”

The warmth—something they had learned to do without at Glenbard—would help make the operating room comfortable. Jill ran around, preparing the room and giving orders to Erika, Craig, and Todd.

Lisa was unconscious. They covered her with blankets and put her on a sofa. She stirred once and began to mumble. “What did she say?” asked Todd. Then she spoke again. “No chances, can't take any chan—”

“I wish she hadn't been on the ground for so long. She's lost a lot of blood,” said Jill. They covered Lisa with more blankets while Jill studied a first-aid book.

She was very nervous about the task that lay ahead of her. At Glenbard, she had treated cuts and injuries of all kinds, but she didn't have the faintest idea how to remove a bullet. There was nothing about it in the book. She threw it aside.

“Craig, tear this sheet into strips.”

“How wide?” he asked.

“About six inches. Todd, try to find some whiskey in the kitchen. Erika, bring me some clean sheets, all you can find. No! No! Look in the linen closet—over there.”

She would have to use the big dining-room table. “Todd and Craig, bring a mattress in here. There must be one in the bedroom . . . good . . . now go wash your hands.”

“Jill, there's no water in the house,” said Todd.

“Well, we've got to have water. Go find some quick. Get at least six full pails. Hurry! Go to the lake if you have to.” Jill was getting panicky. Todd went out immediately. “Build a fire, Craig!”

Jill felt Lisa's forehead. “She's much cooler now than before. Where is that water? Did Todd actually drive to the lake? Maybe we could have collected rainwater.”

Todd finally came back and put two pails of water on the fire to boil. “Okay,” said Jill. “Who wants to be my assistant?” The Bergman children said they couldn't stand the sight of blood. “Todd, will you help?” He said he would.

“All right, scrub up. Wash like you've never washed before. We can't risk an infection. We can't take any chances.” Then Jill was ready to begin. “Help me lift her up on the table.”

Lisa looked very pale, and so did Jill and Todd. Jill undid the temporary bandage they had applied in the bushes. Lisa was still bleeding. Craig and Erika had to leave the room.

The sight of the wound would not have shocked nurses in a regular hospital. They might even have said that it was minor. But to Jill and Todd, it looked bad. Jill faced an awesome responsibility. Her life is in my hands, she thought. What if she dies? What do I do first?

“Todd, we've got to get that bullet out,” Jill said. “Let's get started!” Her courage was returning.

“First, we have to wash away the dried blood. Bring warm water and strips of cloth.” He went out of the room and quickly returned. “Now tear the strips into small pieces, about the size of washcloths. Are you sure your hands are clean? Here, pour some of this alcohol in a pan. We can dip our hands in it.”

With warm water and soap, Jill dabbed away the dried blood. When it was clean, the wound didn't look bad at all. There was only a small hole in the arm where the bullet was lodged. “She must have fallen on her head,” said Jill. “See the big bruise and cut by her eye? That's why there was so much blood on her face.”

Now Todd understood why the Chidester soldier had pronounced Lisa dead. When he had seen all the blood on her face, he must have thought that it came from a bullet!

When Jill soaked the area around the wound with alcohol, she began to feel nervous again. So far it was fairly easy, but how was she going to get the bullet out? Should she cut a wider opening? Suppose she hit an artery?

She picked up the first-aid book and looked for the diagram of the circulatory system. She studied it over and over, looking from the page to Lisa's arm and then back to the page again.

“Oh, I get it now!” she shouted happily. “A small cut
this
way won't hurt anything. Todd, hold the blade of the razor in the flame for 30 seconds. That will sterilize it.” Lisa stirred but said nothing. “It's a good thing she's still unconscious. I don't think she'd want to be awake for my first operation.”

“Is she going to be all right?” Todd asked.

“Yes,” Jill replied.

“Here goes.” She was trembling, and she wanted to close her eyes. She made a shallow, two-inch cut. The bullet was lodged by the side of Lisa's arm bone, not far from the surface of the skin. Jill could feel it.

“Give me more pieces of cloth. No, better yet, keep dabbing the blood away, and I'll try to get the bullet out. Dab two or three times with each piece, then soak one in alcohol and dab just once. Keep that up. Always use a fresh piece of cloth.”

Jill sterilized a pair of tweezers, then used them to reach into the opening and feel for the metal. “There it is,” she said aloud. She slowly, carefully pulled out the bullet. Tears were filling her eyes.

“Todd, I'm closing the wound. Get more alcohol, then we'll stitch it up. It won't be easy, but I think I know how.”

“That wasn't too bad, was it?” she said, when they'd finished. “I think I'd make a good doctor.”

In the middle of the night, Lisa woke up. Todd was sitting by her side. “Hi, Lisa,” was all he said. She nodded to him. He could tell, as the drowsiness left her, that her arm hurt a lot. She groaned and turned away.

“Jill, come here!” Todd called. When she came into the room, he whispered, “I think something's wrong.”

“Arm hurt?” asked Jill, not seeming very concerned. Lisa nodded again. “Well, it's supposed to hurt. We fixed you up just fine, but we had to do a little . . .” She started to tell the story of the surgery, but, fearing that she would alarm Lisa, she said instead, “We had to do a little work on your arm. It will feel better soon.” As she left the room, she said, “I know just what you need.”

She went to the kitchen and quickly returned. She handed Lisa a glass of golden-colored liquid. “Now drink it all, even if you don't like the taste,” Jill said.

The drink looked much better than it tasted. Lisa took a big swallow and spit it out all over the blanket. “Now, Lisa,” Jill teased. “Have you forgotten your manners?”

“Ick!” Lisa made a horrible face. “What was that stuff?” “Whiskey,” Jill answered, as if it were Kool-Aid.

“Are you trying to get me drunk? What kind of friend are you?” In spite of her pain, Lisa was teasing her.

“I'm serious, Lisa. Drink it all up. You'll need it for the pain, and you have to get some more rest.” Jill handed her a full glass.

It took a long time for Lisa to finish but, for some reason, it got easier as the glass emptied. The last swallow was a big one. Lisa giggled. “Boy, do I feel funny.”

Then Jill told Lisa what had happened. “Well,” Lisa said, “sometimes one mistake is all it takes. I suppose if I could do a stupid thing like that, I deserved to lose the city. You've got to be smart to earn good things.

“And even that's not enough. You've got to be smart to keep them, too.” After a long pause, she said, “I guess I'll just have to earn it all back. I'll figure something out.”

The whiskey was making her dizzy. She started to giggle.

“I give up,” Jill said. “You're drunk. Get some sleep. Call me if you need anything.”

“That's okay,” said Todd. “I'll be here to help her.”

That night it was Todd who told a story. He started with a serious tale about a little prince in a faraway kingdom. But Lisa giggled in all the serious places. So he tried to change it into a funny, silly story. But he couldn't finish this one either. Soon, Lisa fell asleep.

Todd wasn't bothered. He knew his audience was at fault. He turned out the light and sank into the big chair. It was uncomfortable, so he decided to sleep on the operating table.

As he fell asleep, Todd thought about his sister. He was glad that she was better, because he was learning so much from her. Does she know that? he wondered.

The light in the Glenbard tower chamber burned through the night. A scarred face stared into the candle. Who shot her? Tom Logan wondered. I'll beat his little head in if I ever catch him.

He was angry, but not because he thought Lisa's death would make the citizens of Glenbard hate him or because it would make his job harder. He was mad because he hadn't wanted Lisa to get hurt. At least not that way. He was frustrated, too, for his luck, because that's all that this victory really was—a matter of luck. Most of all, he was mad at his own nameless fears.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

B

efore dawn, the new leader of 700 sat thinking and planning how to manage his first day as leader of the city. He stared into the black void of the chamber, past the candle that had burned away. The candle, he thought. It was her candle and now the light is gone, and so is she.