Always (13 page)

Perhaps none of this would have bothered Emily if it weren’t for Ross. He was strapping and strong and growing handsomer every day. It was a sorry fact that when Miss Breckenridge presented her back to the class, most female heads turned to gaze in Ross’s direction. As for Ross, he never seemed to take notice. Like every other boy in their class, he was watching Johanna Davenport.

Johanna, with her expensive silk dresses, her burgeoning figure, and her soft blond hair was everything Emily was not, and Emily had felt those first painful stabs of jealousy. Could it be that she had already begun to fall in love with Ross even then?

*

April, 1856

Spring had sprung. Wildflowers had popped their buds and the air was pungent with fertilized fields. Trees wearing coats of new leaves lined the side of the road outside town.

Emily wasn’t in a spring sort of mood.

She grumbled as she marched toward home, kicking up a storm of dust clouds in her wake. In one hand, she carried a copy of
Emerson’s Arithmetic
, in the other her empty lunch pail. She’d done so poorly on her test that Miss Breckenridge had sent her home with a note. Emily knew she would catch high holy heck for the note, but her failing grade wasn’t what had her in a stew.

Her father had given strict orders for her to go directly home after school. No stopping at the drug store for a peppermint stick, no stopping at the newspaper to wheedle odd jobs. Mama had started spring cleaning and there would be an interminable list of chores. Washing knick-knacks, rug-beating, dusting
houseplants
for crying out loud. Emily thought she’d rather be dead a hundred years than spend an hour dusting leaves.

“I
hate
houseplants!” she shouted.

“Hey, Em! Wait!”

Emily didn’t slow her pace at hearing Ross’s call. Never mind that she’d already waited for him for sixteen minutes after school let out. Finally, she’d left without him in a huff. Now, ten minutes later, here he was. Johnny-come-lately.
Ha!

“I don’t have time to wait!” she yelled.

“Come on now, buck up! You’re not the first person to flunk a test!”

Emily scowled when she heard him start to whistle “Yankee Doodle.”

He had no reason to be in such a good mood. It was spring planting, a time of year when the Brenners’ called upon him to cut his hours at the newspaper and work on the family farm. In fact, Ross was lucky to be attending school at all. Most of the farm boys had to drop out at this time year, yet here he was, whistling like a fool, and Emily knew exactly why.

Johanna Davenport had motioned to him after school had let out, giggling as he approached, then pulling him around the corner of the building so no one could hear what she said to him.

Had they kissed…?

Emily kicked up a new swirl of dirt. Ross was smart as a whip when it came to book-learning, but when it came to Johanna, he didn’t have enough sense to fill a thimble.

“Are you mad at me for something?”

Mad?
Why would she be mad? Emily ramped up her pace.

“Hey! Slow down!”

She concentrated fiercely on the narrow ribbon of dirt road ahead, her legs clocking along as fast as they could without breaking into an all-out run.

“Em! What’s wrong?” Ross pulled up alongside of her, matching her heated gait with long strides of his own.“Is it the arithmetic test? I’m sorry if I made fun.”

At the next bend, the Kissing Bridge would finally come into view. If only she could get that far, she could lose him.

“You got chores today or something?”

Chores?
All boys were idiots. Ross was simply outshining the crowd today.

He grabbed her arm, snapping her to a stop and swinging her back around to face him. “Come on Em. What are you mad about?”

Emily glared at him. Today, her hair was pulled back and tied with a pretty blue ribbon at the crown of her head. Only three months before, she’d finally convinced her mother that she was too old to wear braids. Now, she batted a stray wisp from her face, remembering the first day she’d come to school with her tresses brushed to a shine and tied in a pink ribbon of silk. Ross’s reaction had been brief
. “Hey, Em, you forgot your horsetails!”
Then he’d given her hair a playful tug before proceeding to ignore her for the rest of the day.

Dad blast him.

“I suppose that’s what boys like!” she blurted.

 “What?”

She jabbed at his chest with her lunch pail hand. “Figgers!”

“What?”

“Figgers!”

“Figures? Like in…arithmetic?”

“No! I mean bosoms, that’s what! Johanna Davenport’s big fat bosoms!”

Ross’s jaw dropped. For the first time ever, Emily saw his cheeks flush red. “Did you say…?”

“
Bosoms! Bosoms! Bosoms!
Darn tootin’ I said it! All you boys are staring at them every cotton pickin’ minute! Might as well just call them what they are!”

Ross still hadn’t closed his mouth.

“Don’t you ever think about what’s inside a girl’s head?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you care what’s in a girl’s heart?”

“Uh... sure. Sometimes.”

“
Sometimes?
” Emily whaled him on the shoulder with her lunch pail, then spun around and resumed her path toward home.

“Hey! What’d you do that for? You have a crush on some boy or something?”

“NO!”
Emily broke into a run, her heart pounding, her cheeks aflame. The truth was, she didn’t know the answer to his question. She didn’t know why frustration knotted as tight as a fist inside her belly or why she lately felt trapped in a little girl’s body that refused to grow up fast enough.

“Emily!”

“Leave me alone! I haven’t got time for your stupid—!”

Her angry words clipped off as she rounded the bend and came to a sudden, skidding halt to stare at the three big boys who loitered by the side of the road. John Butler, Marcus Eby, and Arnie Gibson.

Her Papa always said trouble came in threes. 

“Afternoon, Emily,” John said. He leaned casually against the trunk of a sycamore, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his arms folded. A hank of brown hair hung over one eye as he chewed on a long blade of grass. His expensive frock coat hung off a nearby bramble bush.

Marcus Eby didn’t appear relaxed, but then, he was never relaxed. The son of a banker, he was sharp-featured as a rodent, with alert brown eyes and nervous hands. Now, he bounced on his heels as if he couldn’t wait for what would happen next.

“What’s the matter, Emily?” John asked. “Cat got your tongue today?”

Emily was still short-winded from her sprint. She threw a glance back over her shoulder. Ross would appear any second. If she ran back to warn him, maybe—

A meaty hand closed around her arm, and she looked up to see Arnie Gibson’s square, dull-eyed face. Arnie’s papa owned the saddlery on King Street, which made him a town boy, but Arnie didn’t look like a town boy and he didn’t act like one either. To Emily, he looked like a towheaded giant, as tall as a man, with long, thick arms and big-knuckled hands.

John spoke. “Don’t even think about trying to rat on us, Emily.”

Before she could open her mouth, she heard Ross come from around the bend behind her, and it was too late. 

“Well and a day!” John said, pushing off from the tree. “If it ain’t the Pope-loving farm boy himself.”

Emily had not had time to warn him, but Ross sized up the situation quickly enough. His expression darkened at spotting Arnie holding Emily. “Let her go.”

Arnie grinned in response and yanked Emily farther out of Ross’s reach off to the side of the road.

“She’s fine, Gallagher,” John said, barring his way. “It’s you we want to talk to. We heard some things about you and we’re just wondering if they’re true.”

Ross’s hands closed into fists at his sides. “Get out of my way.”

Emily tried to wrest free of Arnie’s hold. “Let go!”

Arnie paid her no attention. He was too interested in the proceedings. Marcus was bouncing on his heels by now—up and down, up and down—simpering. “Hey, Gallagher! We heard your mama was a whore! Is that right?”

Emily didn’t’ know what a “hoor” was, but it wasn’t good. Ross’s expression told her that much. “Shut up, Marcus.”

The other boy laughed as John continued. “We wouldn’t want to pass false rumors, but we heard your mama got herself in trouble with some no good mick and then ended up whoring for her supper after he left. That true?”

“Let Emily go.”

John grinned and flicked a hand toward Arnie. “Sure. Emily shouldn’t be hearing such things anyhow.”

And just like that, Arnie dropped Emily’s arm. She glared up at him. “Big oaf.”

Arnie glowered back. “Skedaddle.”

“Skedaddle yourself!” Emily wasn’t above taking advantage of what she hoped was her feminine immunity to physical retaliation. Even big, dumb Arnie Gibson didn’t go around beating up girls. At least, she didn’t think so. She took a few steps back just in case.

Ross raised his voice. “Go home, Emily.”

Surprised and a little hurt, Emily turned toward him, but Ross wasn’t even looking at her. He and John were toe to toe. “I’m not leaving without you,” she said.

“Just go.”

“No! There’s three of them and one of you. It’s not fair.”

Ross didn’t take his eyes from John. “She makes a good point, Butler. You’re real tough when you got those two jackasses to back you up. For once, I’d like to see what would happen if it was just you and me.”

“I can take you any day, Gallagher.”

“How about today?”

Emily wished Ross would just walk away, but she knew he wouldn’t. Not this time, and maybe never again. He meant to fight John and would probably end up getting beat silly by Arnie and Marcus to boot. Emily normally couldn’t abide Ross’s obnoxious friend, Karl Becker, but at least Karl wouldn’t run from a fight. She wished he was here now.

“I’m telling!” she blurted hoping to break the tension.

But no one moved.

Ross spoke through his teeth. “Get out of here, Em.”

For the second time in one afternoon, Emily cursed the fact that she was trapped in a girl’s body. She waved her arithmetic book at all of them. “I mean it! I’m going to tell and you’ll all be in trouble!” It was a pathetic, sissy threat, but she wasn’t concerned with her dignity. Things were turning bad fast, and she was desperate.

John smirked and leaned forward to say something, something so soft only Ross could hear. Whatever it was, it spent Ross’s fuse.

In a heartbeat, John was flat on his back in the dirt, a trickle of blood oozing from a cut on his lower lip. Touching it with two fingers, he gaped up at Ross in surprise, then his eyes narrowed. “You son of bitch.”

“Yeah? Do something about it.”

No sooner was the gauntlet thrown than John scrambled back to his feet, and Ross tore into him. John careened back into the sycamore tree, smacking his skull so hard against its trunk Emily thought for sure he’d had his lights knocked out, but no.

John recovered and his fist shot out to connect with Ross’s jaw. Then John shouted something about Ross’s “hoor” mother and the two boys blurred into a blaspheming tangle of arms and legs.

Emily stared in horror as what should have been a minor fracas unfolded into a full-fledged, flesh-bruising, bone-cracking fight. These were not two little boys scuffling in the school yard, they were two almost-grown young men who didn’t yet know their own strength.

She smacked Arnie in the shoulder with her lunch pail. “Stop them!”

Arnie stared at her blankly. “Huh?”

“Stop them! They’re going to kill each other!”

Arnie looked at Marcus. Marcus looked at Arnie. It was clear Ross was getting the best of their foul-mouthed friend. No doubt,
that
and not her directive, was what propelled them to act.

Seconds later, the two bleeding, battered combatants were yanked apart. Unfortunately for Ross, it was Arnie who held his arms pinned behind him. As for Marcus, he tried to restrain John, but he didn’t have Arnie’s bull strength. As soon as John gained his footing, he tore free from Marcus’s hold.

“Keep your dirty mick hands off of Johanna!” Then he drove a fist straight into Ross’s midsection.

If Arnie hadn’t been holding him up, Ross would have collapsed. As it was, he could only let out a gut-wrenching gasp of pain.

Oh, no, no, no!
Emily was mortified.
Stop them
, she’d said, not hold Ross down so John could beat the living daylights out of him. As John set up to deliver yet another blow, Emily saw red.

Her lunch pail flew and Emerson’s Arithmetic hit the dirt. Emily let out a high-pitched holler as she charged and leapt. She landed on Arnie’s back, locking her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. “Let him go! Let him go!”

Arnie roared. “Hey! What the--
acckk!”

Emily squeezed tight. Arnie was big, but he needed air, same as anyone else. She screamed in his ear so loud, it rattled even her own brains.
“Let him go!”

Arnie released Ross, but then Emily was in trouble. She held on for dear life as Arnie stumbled backward in his struggle to breathe. He lurched and stumbled and then began to turn in circles in an effort to dislodge her. Emily squeezed her eyes shut as the world spun into a sickening blur of spring greens and winter browns. She heard Marcus shouting.

“Jumpin’ jay crimony! Get off him, Emily!”

She would have gladly gotten off him, except she couldn’t. In a misguided attempt to break her stranglehold, Arnie’s thick fingers had clamped like metal bands on her wrists.

Marcus shouted again. “Let her go, Arnie!”

But it felt like Arnie might crush her wrist bones to dust. Emily screamed into what she hoped was his good ear, “Let go and drop me!
Drop me
!”

And the very next instant he did.

The ground rose up to meet her with stunning force. Pain shot a hot flare from her tailbone straight up her spine, and the back of her head hit the ground hard enough to explode the world white.