Ghost Girl (15 page)

She looked over her shoulder for Ida and Luella. I had told her how much they despised me for living in the schoolhouse with Miss Vest. Then, as if that wasn't enough to make them jealous, Miss Vest had cut my hair in a bob like hers and started making me dresses on her sewing machine.

“Shh,” I said. “I know
they
didn't vote for me. It was the little kids, mainly.” Now that I could read and write without stumbling over words, Miss Vest sometimes asked me to work with the younger ones on their lessons. Whenever they were having trouble, I pulled out the Sears, Roebuck and helped them start on their own wish lists, until pretty soon they were begging for more time with me and the catalog.

“What about Dewey? Who'd he vote for?”

I laughed. “Himself, probably.” The truth was Dewey and I had been getting along fine ever since I had wandered into the schoolroom one night and found Miss Vest giving Preacher Jessup reading lessons. I couldn't believe it.
Preacher Jessup
sitting at a desk three sizes too small and struggling over a story about Henny Penny and Clucky Lucky. When Dewey came to fetch his pa and found me listening at the doorway to the classroom, I could tell we had a bargain just from the look in his eyes. If I didn't tell anybody about his daddy, Dewey would leave me alone.

Aunt Birdy broke into a sad little smile. I had grown a couple inches over the last year, and she had to tilt her head back to look at me. “You're getting so big, Apry. Your mama wouldn't even recognize you now if she passed you on the road.”

I didn't answer. Aunt Birdy knew I didn't like her reminding me, but sometimes she couldn't help herself.

“She'd be so proud of you today,” she went on, gazing down on the valley. “You know she named you for the month of April not just 'cause that's when you were born. April was always your mother's favorite time—”

“
Please
, Aunt Birdy,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. I didn't want to hear it. Wit was hurrying toward me with the new flag folded in its neat triangle, and all the kids were lining up around Miss Vest.

Aunt Birdy perked up when she saw Wit. He kissed her on the cheek, then handed me the flag. “You about ready?” he asked.

I nodded and followed him to the front of the crowd. Soon Miss Vest was calling for quiet, and we all bowed our heads while she led us in a prayer.

“We've come today,” Miss Vest said, “to ask for God's help in guiding our country through these times of hardship. We ask you, Lord, to give our president strength in the face of this Depression, with its many challenges. . . .”

I still didn't really understand what Miss Vest meant by the word “Depression.” Most families I knew seemed to be doing better than ever. The drought had ended the spring before, and a lot of men had found good-paying jobs building the new highway that was supposed to run along the crest of the mountains all the way from Thornton to Swift Run Gap. Aunt Birdy had heard that Daddy got a job on the road crew. And even though I pretended not to listen when she told me, I couldn't help thinking of him whenever I heard the rumble of trucks and bulldozers off in the distance. Daddy. He never came like he promised, and there was only one explanation: he couldn't forgive me, either.

“April?” Miss Vest called.

I jumped. Everybody was watching me. I hurried to my spot, and Miss Vest helped me unfold the flag the way we had practiced. Then I hooked it on the metal clips and reached for the rope. I felt the old pain in my arm as soon as I started to pull the flag up toward the bright blue sky. It didn't surprise me anymore. I had gotten used to feeling an ache whenever I swept the kitchen floor or carried a bucket of water. The last thing I wanted to do was complain to Miss Vest, especially after all that she was doing—feeding and clothing me, letting me stay in the beautiful spare bedroom so long that she didn't call it the guest quarters anymore. It was “April's room” now.

Still, I wished Mr. Jessup had oiled the pulleys a little better. It seemed to take forever to yank the flag to the top. But finally I was done, and everyone clapped as the flag caught the breeze. Then we put our hands on our hearts and sang the first three verses of “America the Beautiful.”

After the ceremony, when everybody was heading back to the schoolhouse for cupcakes and punch, Wit came up to me with a sly look on his face. “So, Miss April,” he said, “I thought you'd be happy about being elected the Queen of Flag Raising.”

“'Course I'm happy,” I said.

Wit leaned toward me as he walked. “Then why'd you look like you were chewing tacks the whole time you were pulling on that rope?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to turn my face away.

“You know what I mean, April,” Wit said, putting his hand on my shoulder to stop me as I tried to scoot up the schoolhouse steps behind the other kids. “How long has your arm been hurting?”

I glared at him. I loved Wit, with his long arms and legs and his funny stories and lively songs. Whenever he showed up at the schoolhouse to give us a music lesson, all the kids cheered. But he had been dropping by too much lately, showing up after school hours and calling Miss Vest by her first name—Christine. Most of the time Wit invited me to come along on their strolls through the woods or their picnics at Big Meadows. But once in a while he didn't, and I couldn't help feeling pangs of meanness cut through me, like hot knives in butter.

Miss Vest breezed up beside us. “You did a wonderful job, April.” Then she looked at me closer. “What's wrong?”

“I think the Flag Queen isn't telling us something,” Wit said. He held up one hand with his big palm facing out. “Here, April, push against me with your left hand, as hard as you can.”

“Why?” I asked, starting to turn red. Aunt Birdy had come hurrying over, too, to see what all the fuss was about.

“Just push,” Wit said again.

I put my palm up to his and gave a little shove.

“You can do better than that.”

I let out a long sigh and pushed at him harder, feeling my blood start to boil. Why did he always have to be butting in, nosing around in my business?

Wit pushed back, making me even madder, so mad that I winced before I could stop myself.

“Ow!” I yelped, rubbing at the sore spot on my arm.

Miss Vest stepped toward me. “April, isn't that the arm you broke? You mean to tell me it's been hurting you all this time?”

“Maybe just a little,” I murmured, looking at the ground.

“I knew it. I knew it,” Aunt Birdy huffed, shaking her head back and forth.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Miss Vest asked.

“She didn't want to worry you, I imagine,” Wit cut in. He patted my shoulder and I held myself back from shrugging his hand away.

“Well, tell you what,” he went on. “The Hoovers will be at camp next weekend, and Dr. Boone, the president's physician, always comes with them. I'll tell him about April. Maybe he can take a look at her arm on Saturday and help us decide what to do.”

Miss Vest nodded. “All right,” she said. “If you can set it up, we'll come over on Saturday.” I lifted my head up and stared. I couldn't believe the two of them, talking about going to Camp Rapidan like it was nothing special, like we were just going on another one of their silly picnics.

I was so restless the next week
waiting for my trip to Camp Rapidan, even Aunt Birdy got tired of me. “You're making me nervous with all that moving around. You're like a fried egg in a greased pan,” she said, shooing me out the front door. “Now get.”

For three years I had been dreaming of Camp Rapidan and imagining a grand country estate rising up from a clearing in the woods. The newspapers even called it “the Summer White House.” So I couldn't help being disappointed when Saturday finally came and I walked through the front gates and saw nothing but plain pine-board cabins hidden among the trees.

“Is this it?” I wanted to ask Miss Vest. But I kept my mouth shut, and it turned out that the farther we walked, the more I liked what I saw. Every time we turned a corner on one of the twisty dirt pathways, there was something special waiting—a little bridge over a winding stream, a fern garden, a circle of logs for sitting around an outdoor fireplace, or a pit for throwing horseshoes.

The paths were lined with stones and mountain laurel bushes drooping with pink and white blossoms. It was hard to believe these were the same ordinary woods Riley and I used to run through a few years ago. Now they seemed magic and full of surprises—especially with the strange man leading Miss Vest and me along.

I leaned toward Miss Vest. “Who's he?” I whispered. I had never seen him before. He wore a heavy blue suit that made him look stiff and out of place in the middle of the woods.

Miss Vest gave me a mysterious look. “He's Secret Service.”

“What's that?” I asked, feeling my eyes get round.
Secret Service.
Whatever it was sounded dark and dangerous.

Miss Vest smiled. “Don't worry,” she said in a low voice. “That just means he's here to protect the president. Anywhere the Hoovers go, they have to have an agent following, just in case there's ever any trouble. When I went riding with Mrs. Hoover last fall, one of them had to ride along behind us. I felt sorry for him. I don't think he had ever been on a horse before in his life.”

The Secret Service man turned around. For a minute I thought he was going to fuss at us for whispering, then he pointed toward a cabin through the trees. It was one of the larger ones, with a giant stone chimney built up the side.

“Here's the president's cabin,” he said. “Mrs. Hoover is waiting for you out on the terrace. She wanted you to stop by and see her before you meet with Dr. Boone.”

Miss Vest knew the way. She thanked the Secret Service man, then led me up on the wide sitting porch that wrapped around the cabin. I had never seen another porch like it. There was no roof, and huge hemlock trees were growing through holes cut into the floor. We walked around the corner and saw Mrs. Hoover, sitting on a cushioned chair, knitting and looking out on the fork of two creeks tumbling down the rocky mountainside.

“There you are,” she said, looking up from her knitting. She patted the chair beside her. “Sit right here by me, April.”

Over the past year, Mrs. Hoover had visited the schoolhouse enough times to make us all forget to be nervous around her. Sometimes she brought lunch for the class in big wicker hampers and ate sandwiches and cookies with us outside under the trees. After a while, I started noticing little things that made her seem more like a friendly neighbor than the first lady—like the little space that showed between her front teeth when she smiled or the way her hairpins came loose from the silver braid wrapped around her head.

I knew Miss Vest had probably told Mrs. Hoover about me a long time ago, all about Riley and about Mama sending me away. At first I was ashamed. But the more I got to know Mrs. Hoover, the less I minded what she knew.

A little man in a short white jacket came out from the cabin with a pitcher of lemonade and three tall glasses full of ice cubes on a tray. Mrs. Hoover poured me a drink, and I took a sip, trying to stop myself from gulping the whole thing down at once. While Miss Vest and Mrs. Hoover talked, I held my glass in my lap and looked around, trying to soak everything in—the smell of petunias in the big flowerpots around the porch and the roar of the water rushing over the rocks.

Mrs. Hoover was leaning toward Miss Vest. “Now, Christine,” I heard her say, “when Mr. Hoover joins us, make sure to tell him some of your wonderful stories about the children. They always make him laugh, and he certainly could use a little diversion with this election coming up.”

The election.
I knew Miss Vest had been worried about that, too. There were only six more months till the country had to vote whether to keep Mr. Hoover for another term or throw him out and pick a new president. Every morning around breakfast time, someone from the marine camp delivered a copy of the
Washington Post
. Miss Vest read the front page each day and sighed, barely even glancing up at me as she chewed her toast.

Sometimes, after she had headed into the schoolroom, I tried to make sense of the headlines. “Hoover Policies Face Mounting Criticism” . . . “Protest Marchers Gather at Steps of White House” . . . It wasn't hard to see things weren't going the best for the president. One cartoon drawing I saw showed him standing over a crowd of people who were reaching out their arms and crying for help. But President Hoover had his hands over his ears in the cartoon and was saying, “Sorry, I can't hear you.”

I couldn't understand it. Herbert Hoover was the one who had built our school and sent us books and presents and truckloads of flour and sugar when the drought was so bad. How could people think he was mean and no good?