by JL Bryan
Seth released the dog and tumbled backwards into the high weeds, out of Jenny’s reach.
Jenny heard a pathetic little whimper. Rocky’s nose was twitching in the blood-moistened earth. Then his eye rolled, and she could see his pupil again in its proper place.
Rocky lifted his head from the ground and twisted it back to sniff at the big patches of blood on his side. He looked at Jenny. Then he rolled onto his belly, and rose unsteadily from the ground, first planting his front legs, then pushing his body up with his hind legs. He shook himself as if he’d just gone swimming in the creek and wanted to dry off.
The dog sniffed at his own body, his own blood, for a long time, while Jenny just watched. She couldn’t even feel shock anymore. She was a complete blank, unable to think at all.
Rocky swiveled around to look at Seth, who reclined on his elbows, eyes closed. Seth’s perfect, suntanned, acne-free skin had gone as pale as Jenny’s, but with an unhealthy gray tinge. Rivers of sweat poured from his scalp, over his face and ears, and his whole body was trembling.
Rocky, in the ultimate uncharacteristic move, bounded over to Seth, opened his mouth, and lapped at the boy’s face with his tongue. Seth didn’t open his eyes, but slowly raised one hand and patted Rocky around the head.
“Good boy,” Seth murmured. His voice sounded a mile away.
Rocky froze, as if suddenly self-aware and shocked by his own behavior. He jumped and ran away along the foot path, back toward the woods. Then he got distracted by his own tail, which he chased around like a puppy.
“What?” Jenny said. It was all she could say. She looked at Rocky’s enthusiastic prancing, then at Seth, who now lay on his back with his eyes closed, hands behind his head, as if he meant to take a nap right there on the side of Esther Bridge Road.
“Seth!” Jenny finally managed to say. The name was not so hateful in her mouth as it used to be. “Seth, what did you do?”
“What?” Seth didn’t open his eyes.
“You know what. My dog. Look, he’s okay!”
Seth half-opened one eye and turned his head toward the woods. Then he closed it and laid his head back on his hands.
“Yeah,” Seth muttered. “Guess it looked worse than it was.”
Jenny gaped at him. It took her some time to gather up more words and put them in order.
“But…I saw the truck hit him. Everett’s truck. It just happened. He was dying.”
“Nah.” Seth raised one hand, weakly, and attempted a dismissive wave. He still didn’t open his eyes. Apparently he had Jenny’s same trick, just keep your eyes closed and don’t say much, if you want people to leave you alone. “Guess the truck just grazed him a little. He’ll be fine.”
Jenny watched Rocky sniff around the underbrush, then hoist his leg to pee on a white birch. That was when she noticed the other thing.
“Seth,” Jenny forced herself to speak the unbelievable words. “My dog only had three legs. Now he has four.”
“Really?” Now Seth opened his eyes, finally looking interested, and eased up to a sitting position. He linked his arms around his knees and watched the dog.
On Rocky’s new front leg, a wide band of hairless scar tissue marked where the stump had ended and the new part of the leg began. Besides that, Rocky looked fine. Better than Jenny had ever seen him, in fact.
“How long?” Seth asked.
“What?”
“How long since he lost the leg?”
“No idea. As long as I’ve known him. Months, at least. Maybe years.”
“Jeez,” Seth breathed. “No wonder he sucked so much out of me.”
Jenny snapped her head around to look at Seth. “You did it. You fixed him. You can heal with your touch.”
“What?” Seth leaned back on his elbows again, and suddenly seemed very interested in a patch of colorful wildflowers on the ground. “You’re crazy. Nobody can do that.”
“Seth, I’m not stupid.”
Seth sighed and looked up at her again.
“You can’t tell anybody,” he said. “You have to promise. Seriously. Okay?”
“I promise, Seth. I can keep secrets better than anybody.”
“Nobody knows, and I don’t want everyone treating me like some kind of weird freak or…” His voice trailed off as he looked at her.
“I know.” She tucked her hands into her armpits and pinned them there with her arms. She had a dangerous urge to throw her arms around him and kiss him on the mouth. Not that she would follow it—the last thing she wanted was to give him Jenny pox. It helped to know Seth wouldn’t be interested in kisses from someone like Jenny Mittens, anyway, even if she wasn’t fatally poisonous. She remembered how close she’d come to killing him and Rocky both, and she shuddered.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s just really important nobody finds out.”
Jenny glanced towards his car. “What does Ashleigh think about it?”
“She doesn’t know!” Seth said. “That’s what I’m telling you. My parents don’t even know. Nobody. Except you.”
“Ashleigh isn’t in your car?”
“No, I just dropped her off at her house. I’m alone.”
“Then you’re safe,” Jenny said. “I won’t tell.”
Seth pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet, struggling for balance like a tired old man instead of a varsity athlete. Jenny steadied him by laying a hand on his back, which was safely covered by his shirt. His back muscles felt warm and taut to her. Jenny pulled away quickly and stepped back.
“I have to…meet my friends.” Seth staggered a few steps toward his car, then stopped and leaned over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath and his balance.
“You look wrecked,” Jenny said. She was thinking of her dad trying to walk when he was plastered. He would get belligerent and insistent on driving somewhere, and she usually ending up driving him there so he didn’t crash and die. She’d been doing that since she was thirteen. “Should I drive your car for you? I’ll take you wherever you want. I can walk home from anywhere.”
“Oh, no. I don’t need Ashleigh asking why I’ve got Jenny Mittens driving my car.”
Jenny had been immune to that nickname for years, but for some reason it stung when Seth said it now. He noticed the look on her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s what everyone calls you. It just kind of slipped out.” He glanced at her hands. “Hey, where are your gloves?”
Jenny shook her head and smiled at him. She avoided his question. “You save my dog’s life, you can call me anything you want. Call me stupid redneck skank if you want.”
“I wouldn’t call you that!” he said.
“Ashleigh would. I think she has. It’s so hard to keep track of everything she calls me.”
“Ashleigh…” Seth stood up, stretched, and lifted the car keys from his pocket. “I gotta go get weed for the reservoir.”
“The what?”
“For…Barrett Pond. I don’t usually call it that. The whole Barrett thing gets old around here. Barrett Avenue. You know.”
“Everyone calls it Barrett Pond.”
Seth looked at her for minute. He was getting his color back.
“You can come if you want,” he said. “Beer and swimming. Good times.”
“Uh, no…” Jenny tried to imagine Ashleigh’s face if Jenny actually showed up with Seth. It would be an ugly night. “No, I should probably stay with my dog, make sure he’s okay. You know.”
“I understand.” Seth tossed his keys in the air, caught them. “Okay, then. I’ll see you later, Jenny.”
Jenny smiled. He smiled back, holding her gaze for a long moment.
“Keep that dog off the road,” he said. He staggered across the road.
“Thank you, Seth!” she called after him.
“Forget it happened,” he replied. “I’m not kidding.”
Jenny watched him climb into his car, close the door, start the engine. She waved as he pulled onto the road, until he w
as out of sight.
She followed the foot path back into the woods, where Rocky lolled in the shade.
“Hey, Rocky, want to go home?”
Rocky sprang up on all fours with his tail wagging. He turned and ran up the trail, eager to race her home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On the last Thursday in September, Ashleigh called a special girls-only meeting of the Cool Crusaders. About forty girls from the middle and high school showed up in Activity Room B in the church basement. They ate cookies, chips and sodas provided by the Crusader girls on the Hospitality Committee, while a Jars of Clay CD played over the sound system, until Ashleigh announced it was time to start.
Ashleigh stood at the whiteboard at the front of the room, purple marker in hand. She’d already written “Cool Crusader Girls Rock!!!” in her big, flowery handwriting, all across the top of the board. She smiled as the group sat down in the rows of plastic chairs pulled together by the Hospitality Committee.
“Hey, what’s up, y’all?” Ashleigh asked. “Are we having some fun tonight?” The younger girls cheered. Ashleigh encouraged the older girls to carpool the younger ones to meetings, since it made them feel special to be picked up by juniors and seniors at home, rather than dropped off at church by their parents. Parents seemed to like it, too, since it made things easy on them.
“Ladies, we’ve accomplished so much in this town, and I want to thank you all for being part of this group. We’ve worked against witchcraft, we’ve encouraged kids to be more religious, we’ve even showed adults like Principal Harris a thing or two.” The girls who’d been part of the anti-Harry Potter campaign applauded and whistled. “And I think we should be very proud of ourselves. Why don’t you give yourselves some applause, just for being here?”
The girls clapped and cheered for their own wonderful selves.
“This year, the national Cool Crusaders ministry in Sacramento is focusing on a very major subject: teen abstinence. First, who here has signed the Crusaders Abstinence Pledge?” She raised her left hand and tapped the silver band with her thumb.
About half the girls raised their left hands, wearing the same ring.
“Is that all?” Ashleigh put on a look of dismay. “What are the rest of you thinking? Don’t you want to commit yourselves to doing the right thing?”
Some of the other girls nodded.
“Good.” Ashleigh winked at Shannon McNare, a junior who held a stack of Cool Crusader Abstinence Pledge certificates, printed from the Cool Crusader website on canary paper. Shannon passed them out, while another girl passed around a plastic cup full of pens.
“Shannon is our Abstinence Coordinator. Each of you should sign the Pledge and give it to Shannon, along with fifteen dollars cash. I’ll mail it all in, and you’ll get your own abstinence ring in two to four weeks. Just ask your parents for the money. Believe me, they’ll pay up for abstinence.” The girls laughed.
“I want every one of you to sign this pledge and turn it in to Shannon by the beginning of the main Cool Crusaders meeting next week. This is important, because we’re going to have a special mission next week. I want each of you to pick out a boy Crusader, and next week we’re going to break out into pairs, boy and girl, to talk about abstinence, why it’s important, and all the temptations involved. I expect each of you to get your boy to sign the Pledge and order a ring.”
Many of the girls, probably a majority of them, looked horrified at the idea. She tried to calm them down. “Now, I know this may sound challenging, but it is a challenge, to build your courage and confidence as a woman. We ladies have to be leaders on this issue, and trust me, boys will listen if you tell them you want to talk about sex.” The looks of fear turned to laugher. “Teens leading teens—that’s the whole point of Cool Crusaders. And I want every Cool Crusader in this church, guys and girls, wearing an abstinence ring to the Halloween Lock-In.
“Now,” Ashleigh said, “Let’s hear some reasons we are committed to abstinence.” A few girls raised their hands. Whatever any girl said, Ashleigh wrote it on the whiteboard, approving of all suggestions. She made a long list of bright purple words like GOD, PURITY, PARENTS, PREGNANCY, HEALTH, OUR FUTURE, and SELF-RESPECT. When the group was all tapped out, Ashleigh gave them a big smile.
“These are all great reasons,” Ashleigh said. “I’m glad everybody’s so fired up on this subject. Now, there’s one thing nobody mentioned, one you may not know about. And this one is a very big secret.” Ashleigh looked at the closed door, as if expecting spies and eavesdroppers. “I don’t want any of you talking about it outside this room. Raise your hand if you promise to keep this secret.”
Every girl raised her hand.
“Okay.” Ashleigh used her stage-whisper voice, the one that made a whole crowd feel like Ashleigh was taking them into her confidence, cutting them in on the real dirt. It was almost magical, the effect that voice had on a crowd. “Here’s the secret, and I want you each to think about it. Every guy you meet—except maybe in your family—all of them want to have sex with you. They’ve all thought about it. They might be thinking about it right now.”
Some of the girls, especially the middle schoolers, looked at each other with big, frightened eyes. There was much whispering and gnashing of teeth, and Ashleigh waited for all of them to finish.
“It’s really all they think about,” Ashleigh said. “Studies have shown that if a guy looks at you, he’s probably imagining you and him having sex together. They can’t help it, that’s how God made them.
“But when they see this,” Ashleigh tapped her thumbnail against her abstinence ring, “It means they can’t have what they want, because you’re devoted, and not just some slut.” Some girls giggled. “It makes them respect you. And, listen, it makes them want you even more. Think about the last time you wanted something you knew you couldn’t have—like an expensive pair of shoes your dad wouldn’t buy for you. Didn’t that make you want it more?”
Several girls nodded, and there was more whispering.
“Now—and this is the other part of this secret—the more you make a boy want you, without letting him have you, the better he will treat you. He’ll buy you things, take you places, do what you tell him, and stand up for you and protect you. The more you make them want it and don’t give it, the more control you have. Abstinence isn’t just saying ‘no.’ Abstinence is power.”
Ashleigh let that sink in a minute, then asked if there were any questions. A freshman girl, Erica Lintner, daughter of the town police chief, raised her hand.
“I like ‘abstinence is power,’” she said. “Maybe that could be like our saying, or our, whaddya call it…”
“Slogan?” Ashleigh suggested.
“Yeah!” Erica said. “Our slogan.”
Ashleigh pretended to consider this very carefully. “Hmm. ‘Abstinence is power’ as the slogan for our campaign. I think Erica has a great idea. What does everyone else think?”
Lots of girls hurried to agree with Ashleigh. Erica beamed, clearly very proud of herself.
“So here’s what we’re doing,” Ashleigh said. “Each of you write your top three picks for your boy ‘abstinence buddy’ on the little heart-shaped pieces of paper Shannon is passing out. Shannon and I will go through them, and by the time you leave tonight, you’ll know who your buddy will be.”
This led to tremendous chatter. A sophomore raised her hand.
“Can it be a boy you have a crush on?” she asked.
“Of course,” Ashleigh said. “Any boy you’d like to talk about sex with.”
Another girl, a very dorky bucktoothed sophomore named Veronica Guntley, raised her hand. She spoke very slowly when Ashleigh called on her.
“I was thinking,” Veronica said. “When you say all the guys want to have sex with us, well, does that, well, does that include Principal Harris? And Coach Humbee? And the dentist? Or Dr. Goodling? Or what about--”
“How dare you?” Ashleigh asked in a low, hissing voice. She stalked toward
Veronica, and other girls shifted their chairs away to leave Veronica isolated in the middle of the room. “My father is a man of God. He is anointed!”
Ashleigh was looming over Veronica now. The younger girl had scrunched way down in her seat, staring at her hands, her face bright crimson and very close to tears.
“God’s ministers are not like normal men,” Ashleigh said. “God’s blessing changes them and makes them holy. What is wrong with you, Veronica? Why are you having these thoughts?”
“I’m not!” Veronica wailed.
“I think you’ve made your thoughts clear to the group, Veronica. I want you to apologize to me for making accusations about my father, and to all the girls for trying to ruin this meeting.”
“I’m sorry!” Veronica cried. “Everybody, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. Please, Ashleigh, please don’t hate me!” Veronica buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Ashleigh let her do that in front of everyone for a couple of minutes. Then Veronica asked without looking up, “Do I have to quit the Crusaders now?”
Ashleigh waited a long pause, then said, “Veronica, stand up.”
Veronica stood, crying hard, her whole body shaking.
Ashleigh placed her hands on both of Veronica’s hot, slick cheeks, and curled her fingers around to touch the back of Veronica’s neck. The gust of power rose in her, the secret thing that only Ashleigh had and nobody else, and it ran like an electric current out through Ashleigh’s fingers and into Veronica’s skin. Veronica’s trembling slackened.
“It’s not Christian to kick people out just for being dirty and sinful,” Ashleigh said. “You just need to learn to control yourself better. That’s what this abstinence campaign is all about. We can work out your problems together. So no, I’m not kicking you out of the Crusaders. Not tonight.”
“Oh, thank you!” Veronica threw her arms around Ashleigh’s waist. Ashleigh tried not to look grossed out when the girl buried her snotty, wet face in Ashleigh’s breasts. Ashleigh returned the hug, smiling to hide her revulsion. The girl’s nose was really dripping.
“I love you, Ashleigh!” Veronica cried.
