The Ghost of Lizard's Rock

C
OW
P
IE
G
ANG

THE GHOST OF LIZARD’S
ROCK

COW PIE GANG

THE GHOST OF LIZARD’S
ROCK

J Richard Knapp

&

Shona Anderson

Book Design by Franklin O.
Pratt

FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO
HAVE ENDURED BULLYING…

Text
copyright © 2012 by J. Richard Knapp and Shona Anderson, Book
design by Franklin O. Pratt copyright © 2012

No part of this
publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permission from J.
Richard Knapp and Shona Anderson publications. For further
information regarding permission, write to J. Richard Knapp
Publications, P.O. Box 456, Roseburg, Oregon, 97470

The Cow Pie Gang and the
Ghost of Lizard’s Rock
by J. Richard Knapp
and Shona Anderson.

Printed in U.S.A.

First Edition, April
2012

More
J Richard Knapp Publications:

Truth’s Lair by J Richard
Knapp

Nowhere to Hide by J
Richard Knapp

Bobby’s Story by J Richard
Knapp

Clearwater Falls by J
Richard Knapp

Arch of the Pixies by J
Richard Knapp

More Shona Anderson
Publications:

No More Bystanders = No More Bullies:
Activating Action in Educational professionals by Shona
Anderson

C
ONTENTS

ONE

Kati’s Change -
1

TWO

Spiders n’ Snakes -
9

THREE

Princess Maddy -
16

FOUR

Separating Classes -
28

FIVE

Slippery Ice -
36

SIX

Summer Memories -
44

SEVEN

A Sneeze to Remember-
57

EIGHT

The Picture - 62

NINE

Secrets of the Cave -
69

TEN

Michele’s Anger -
80

Kati’s Change

It all began on the first
day of 7
^th
grade.  I woke up way before my alarm went off. 
I’m not sure why I even bothered to set it.  I don’t think I
slept a wink.  How could I sleep?  I was about to start
the 7
^th
grade! 

I looked out my window for
a moment to check the weather. It looked like it was going to be a
warm September day.

The smell of our
traditional first day of school breakfast began to waft up the
stairs. 

I could hear my brother
banging around in our shared bathroom.  He was going into the
9
^th
grade and not really looking forward to being a ‘minor-niner’
but Eric had been popular since the day he was born and had already
been recruited out of middle school for the football team.  He
was about to become the coolest ‘minor-niner’ ever.

 “
Kati,” Eric’s loud
voice beside my bedroom door broke through my thoughts, “hurry up
and get out of there. You’re missing breakfast!”

 
I took a deep breath
and looked around my room.  It really hadn’t changed much
through the years. The walls were still painted cotton candy pink.
Three large book shelves were lined up together at the far end of
the room full of stuffed toys, Barbie dolls, and a huge collection
of My Little Pony. On the chair next to my bed were a soccer ball
and my summer league uniform. A large telescope that Grandma Grace
gave me for Christmas stood near the window. I guess you could say
I was a girl of many interests.

I slowly moved to the
mirror of my tiny white dresser.  I had grown so much over the
summer that I couldn’t see my head in the mirror when I was
standing up straight.  I stared at my headless outfit and
decided it was now or never.  I quickly bent my knees and
looked myself straight in the eye.  “Here goes
nothing!”

 
I
should probably introduce myself and explain a few things before I
head downstairs to my peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes with
extra syrup and chocolate milk. My full name is Katherine Marie
O’Donnell but everyone calls me Kati, and I mean
everyone
calls me
Kati.

The only person who used
to call me Katherine was my father but since he took off when I was
five he doesn’t count. For the record, I know it wasn’t my
fault or my brother’s fault.  I know all the mumbo jumbo about
how sometimes adults just don’t get along and that they “will
always love us even if they don’t love each other”.  I think
my dad may have tried to see us for the first few months after he
and my mom broke up, but having two kids interfered with his new
life and his new girlfriend, so he stopped coming over to our house
all together. Eventually, he moved into the city and has made very
little effort to see us again. I could say that it’s no big deal,
but down deep within me it really does hurt. 

My mom is totally amazing.
She works very hard but she always makes time for
us. 

Eric is okay too, I mean
as far as brothers go.  He’s always there for me when I need
him.

And then there is Grandma
Grace.  She’s not our real grandma but she sort of adopted
Mom, Eric and me.  I don’t remember a time in my life without
her.

When I was little I used
to struggle with my ‘r’ sound and rather than being known as
‘Gandma Gace’, she opted for G.G. It’s our special thing. I mean,
everyone has a grandma but not everyone has a G.G.

Anyways, Grandma Grace’s
house is just down the street from ours on the corner in one of the
oldest homes around. It reminds me of a castle with its stone walls
and pointed roofs.

G.G. has no family of her
own alive and since we don’t have any grandparents it just seemed
to make sense that we adopted each other. 

This summer I spent a lot
of time with her.  Almost every day, I would walk down the
street to her house and see how she was doing. Often we’d sit on
the porch in her old rocking chairs and visit a little bit before I
continued on my way. I loved to listen to her stories of when she
was a girl my age.

Unfortunately, my mom has
been working extra shifts as an emergency room nurse at our
hospital to help pay for all the extras in our family such as
Eric’s football camp, but Mom doesn’t seem to mind. She knew the
camp would help Eric get ready for the high school football team,
but it also meant she wasn’t around a lot.

G.G. noticed that I
was…um..uh, she noticed that I was, let’s just say, growing
up.  Mom noticed it too but she didn’t say anything.  I
don’t think she was quite ready to think of me as anything but her
little girl even though I was already standing as tall as her and
my t-shirts were getting noticeable tight. 

Grandma Grace didn’t say
anything about my need for new clothes, but one day she decided to
take me into the city for a day of shopping.  G.G. loves to
shop and I always enjoy our days out.  When I say she loves to
shop, I mean she LOVES to shop. Grandma Grace can spends hours just
wandering around and looking at everything; always touching things
and holding them up to imagine how they would look on
someone.

Every now and then she
would grab something with a flourish, hold it up in front of me,
and wait for my response. I tried, but I know it was never what she
hoped for. I just couldn’t gush enough about a sweater, that in her
mind, was the perfect shade of pink, and in mine was the same as
the past 50 sweaters she had just held up.

G.G. would just roll her
eyes and smile at me before moving on to the next sweater or pair
of jean. I followed behind her like I always did, not really paying
attention to the clothes, as I was too busy watching
people. 

 
The city is so much
more exciting than our little town.  When you live in Tiny,
pretty much everything outside of Tiny is exciting.  Tiny is
exactly as it sounds – tiny.  I’ve lived here my entire
life.  It’s okay but there is nothing exciting about it. 
The city is different.  People always look like they are busy
and important as they bustle by.  The pace is quite different
from life in Tiny. 

The clothes, hair and
make-up are different too.  I’m always amazed at how perfect
the ladies look and how good they smell. 

I was busy examining the
fantastically high heels on the lady in front of us when G.G.’s
words caught my attention.  I could hear her clear elegant
voice saying that she was out shopping with her grand-daughter and
that I would require a proper measuring. 

I was still trying to
figure out what needed to be measured when the sales lady quickly
pulled out her measuring tape and pulled up my arms.  The
shock of her pulling the tape around my chest caused my eyes to
focus and I realized two things in the same instant.  One; we
were in the lingerie department and two; I was about to get my
first bra. 

I wanted to die but G.G.
just tut-tutted me in her usual way and several hours later we were
driving home from the city with three of the prettiest bras I had
ever seen and many pairs of underwear that looked nothing like my
old plain grayish-white panties. 

My new underwear was so
pretty. Each pair was a different color – and most import - they
were thongs!  The sales lady wrapped them up in pretty scented
paper and put them all in a fancy bag.  I also had bags of new
clothes:  skinny jeans, t-shirts, sweaters (the perfect shade
of pink one, as well as several others), and even a skirt.  I
had tried to stop Grandma Grace, but she insisted that I could not
continue to run around in sweats, worn out jeans and t-shirts that
were too small. 

We had lunch at a sidewalk
café, and then the afternoon was an insane flurry of manicures,
pedicures, facials and haircuts. 

The end result of that day
and the following weeks of make-up lessons were staring back at me
from the little white mirror.  I had kept everything carefully
hidden away in the pretty wrapping paper and bags all summer. 
My beautifully styled long dark brown hair had been pulled back in
a ponytail and hidden under a baseball cap until today.