Page 13 of The Hidden One

I watched my glove land in a muddy pond a few yards away. In the silence that followed, the chubby boy giggled, but it was a nervous, unpleasant sound. My heart was beating so hard the blood seemed to sizzle in my veins. I knew I should walk away, do the right thing, be a good girl, and let these boys have the field. Instead, I smacked the glove from the boy’s hand.

“Hey!” He reached for me.

I dodged left, scooped up the glove, and hurled it into the water.

One of the boys howled with laughter. “She’s got an arm on her!”

The punch came out of nowhere. One moment, I was standing there, breathing fire. The next my nose was crushed. My head snapped back. Pain zinged up my sinuses. I reeled backward, landed on my rear hard enough to jar my teeth.

“Whoa!”

“Dude!”

“She’s a frickin’ little kid!” This, from Chubby.

Somewhere in the periphery of my consciousness, I heard the jingle of a harness, but the significance of the sound didn’t register. I wiped my nose, saw blood on my sleeve. I was too furious to cry, but the tears came anyway. Part from pain, part from humiliation, but mostly because of the injustice of losing the diamond.

“You had enough, punk?” shouted Backward Cap Boy.

I didn’t look at him as I got to my feet, but I was vaguely aware of Chubby placing himself between us. “Aw, come on, Jeffie,” he said, darting a you-okay? look in my direction. “She’s Amish. Leave her alone.”

Shaking his head in disgust, the boy who’d hit me stuffed his fingers into his mouth and emitted an earsplitting whistle. “Let’s play ball!”

I’d just gotten to my feet when someone shouted, “Skunk! What the—Frickin’ skunks!”

“Shit!”

“Run!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two of the animals in question waddle onto the diamond. Jonas, I thought, and I swung around to see him standing next to his buggy, eating an apple, watching the boys scatter. Despite the pain in my nose, the blood dribbling down my chin, I laughed.

A few weeks ago, he’d rescued half a dozen skunk babies when their mama was hit by a car. He bottle-fed them. Tamed them. Carried them around everywhere. He’d been planning to bring them here and turn them loose in the woods. Today must have been the day.

The boy who slugged me stabbed a finger at me, but his attention was riveted to the skunks doddering in his direction. “You ain’t seen the last of us, you little shit!”

The boys clambered into their ATVs. Baseball bats and gloves tossed in the rear. The engines roared to life. A water bottle flew in my direction.

“This ain’t over!” one of them shouted.

Dirt and dust spewed into the air as the two ATVs sped away.

I needed a minute to hide the evidence that I’d been crying, so I walked to the bank of the muddy pond, toed off my sneakers and socks, hiked up my dress, and waded into the mossy water to retrieve my glove.

“Looks like someone got slugged.”

I turned to see Jonas walking toward me, his head cocked, his eyes taking in the blood on the front of my dress. He was sixteen now. Taller than me by a foot.

“I guess someone did,” I muttered as I pulled my socks and shoes on over my muddy feet.

“You’re still bleeding,” he said. “Tilt your head back. Pinch your nose. I got a kerchief in the buggy. Come on.”

Taking my hand, he led me to the buggy and sat me down on the step-up. I sat there, watching droplets of blood hit the dirt, praying I didn’t start crying again.

“Here you go.” Jonas handed me a crinkled kerchief.

I took it, trying not to wince when I pressed it against my nose and squeezed my nostrils together.

For a couple of minutes, we watched the skunks as they sniffed around, eventually moseying over to us. Jonas handed me a piece of his apple and I offered it to the runt of the litter, who took it and began to chew.