Just about the time she saw the
school, the first rock hit her; his aim was getting better and it smacked her
right in the back of the leg. She knew the next few would not be aimed quite so
low but bit back her panic and kept moving her feet forward at a normal pace. After
all, Emmett had never seriously injured her; just gave her small bruises. Because
of her earlier resolution not to run, she refused to even acknowledge that the
first rock had hurt and bit back her scream and her tears. Her heart pounded in
her chest and her palms began to sweat; she braced herself for the second blow.
Abigale opened her eyes and blinked
sleepily. She was disoriented but could hear the voices around her saying
things like, “She must have tripped and hit her head.” and, “Look! She’s waking
up!” When she tried to sit up, she found she couldn’t because she had been strapped
to some sort of board. A man’s face suddenly appeared in her vision and he
asked her to please lie still and to try not to move. He explained that she had
taken a nasty bump to the head and they needed to make sure she was okay before
they released her.
She croaked out, “Okay. What
happened?”
He smiled at her and said, “We don’t
know yet. Can you remember anything?”
She knitted her eyebrows together,
trying to remember how she had ended up unconscious, and said, “No. I just
remember walking and being scared because Emmett was throwing rocks at me. But
I didn’t run.”
A look of concern clouded the man’s
face and he simply said, “Okay. Just lie still.”
She licked at her lips and tasted
something that was familiar. She tried to place the taste but her brain felt
like it was filled with cottonballs and, though she tried as hard as she could
to stay awake, she passed out.
When she woke again, she was in a
hospital bed with a bunch of cords and tubes connected to her. After momentary
panic, she closed her eyes, counted to ten, and opened them again to take in
the whole scene calmly. She had read somewhere that you are supposed to calm
yourself that way but it didn’t seem to be working because with every new thing
she saw, her urge to scream doubled. There were fresh flowers in a vase with a
“Get Well Soon” balloon attached, dying flowers in a vase on the other side of
the fresh ones, and an enormous stack of books from her favorite author, Tomas
Cleary, on a table that extended over the bed. How long had she been here?
Until next time, WRITE ON!!!
Jo
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