Flowers by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online Page B

hugging her knees to her chest.
    "She looks really mad," Margaret whispered.
    "No, she's probably just worried."
    A thin rope of smoke drifted from the trailer door. "She burned supper," Margaret said.
    "It's my fault. She's really going to whip me this time."
    Mom called once more, then slammed the door closed. Margaret rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at the mobile home. Ellen laughed, though her stomach felt full of bugs.
    "Let's go to my place," Margaret said.
    "What if Mom sees me? She can see me, even if she can't see you."
    Margaret started crawling behind the row of dying shrubbery. "Your mom won't find you there."
    "She always finds me anywhere." Ellen hung her head, near tears.
    Margaret crawled back and poked her in the side. "Don't be a gloomy Gus."
    Ellen slapped Margaret's hand away. "I'm not no gloomy Gus."
    "Why don't you let me get her? I can make her hurt like she makes you hurt."
    Ellen folded her arms and studied Margaret's brown eyes. Margaret would do it. She was a good friend. And in her eyes, behind the sparkle, was a darkness buried deep. Maybe you looked at things that way when you were dead.
    "No. It's better if we keep you secret," Ellen said. "I already got in trouble at school, telling the special teachers about you."
    Margaret poked her in the ribs again. Ellen smiled this time.
    "Follow me. Hurry," Margaret said.
    Margaret scrambled ahead, staying low beneath the hedge. Ellen looked at the trailer door, checked for any sign of movement in the windows. Then she crawled after Margaret, the dead twigs sharp against the skin of her palms and knees.
    From the end of the hedge, they dashed for the concealment of the forest. Ellen half expected to hear Mom's angry shout, telling her to get inside right this minute. But then they were under the trees and lost among the long shadows.
    Margaret laughed with the exhilaration of escape. She ran between the oaks with their orange leaves, the silver birch, the sweet green pine, ignoring the branches and briars that tugged the fabric of her sweater. Ellen followed just as recklessly, her footsteps soft on the rotting loam of the forest floor.
    The girls passed a clearing covered by crisp leaves. Margaret veered away to a path that followed the river. The air smelled of fish and wet stones. Ellen stumbled over a grapevine, and by the time she looked up, Margaret had disappeared.
    Ellen looked around. A bird chittered in a high treetop. The sun had slipped lower in the sky. Purple and pink clouds hung in the west like rags on a clothesline. She was alone.
    Alone.
    The special teachers at school told Ellen it was worse to be alone than have invisible friends. "You can't keep playing all by yourself," they told her. "You have to learn to get along with others. You have to let go of the past."
    When Ellen told the special teachers about what happened at home, the teachers' eyes got wide. They must have talked to Mom, because when Ellen got home that day, she got her hide tanned harder than ever. Someday Mom was going to lose her temper and do something really bad.
    Ellen thought of Mom, with fists clenched and supper burnt, waiting back at the trailer. Ellen shivered. She didn't want to be alone.
    She put her hands to her mouth. "Margaret!"
    She heard a giggle from behind a stand of trees. The red sweater flashed and vanished. Margaret was playing another game, trying to make Ellen get lost by leading her deeper into the woods. Well, Ellen wasn't going to be scared.
    And she wasn't going to cry. Sometimes the girls at school made her cry. They would stand around her in a circle and say she was in love with Joey Hogwood. Well, she hated Joey Hogwood, and she hated the girls. Ellen wished that Margaret still went to school so that she would have a friend to sit beside.
    Margaret wouldn't want her to cry. Margaret would just pretend to be bad for a little while, then pop out from behind a tree and tag her and make her "It."
    Laughter came down from the hill