Glory Girl (2 page)

“Who?”

“Him!”

Angel turned back to her mirror. She was rolling her hair, the thick, golden, Rapunzel-like tresses, on fat plastic rollers. Carefully she pinned a roller into place. No matter what time the Glory family got home, no matter how tired she was, Angel always rolled her hair.

“I just wanted to know what one letter said, one stupid letter, and he gave me his deep-freeze look and said, ‘Go to bed, Anna.’” She sighed. “And, listen, Angel, I spent the whole night freezing in the back of that auditorium. There was no heat at all, and I didn’t complain once.”

She looked at Angel resentfully as she kicked off her shoes. “You don’t know how it feels because you’re up on the stage. You’ve got the lights on you. You’re never cold.” She pulled off her sweater and slipped out of her skirt. “I’m back there in the dark, shivering, the orphan child.”

“You’re not an orphan.”

“Well, that’s what it feels like.”

Angel wound a stray hair around a roller. She loved her hair. She didn’t know how people who didn’t have nice hair amused themselves. “Maybe …” she said thoughtfully. Then abruptly her eyes went back to her hair. Her doll-like face smiled back at her in the mirror.

“Maybe what?” Anna asked. She pulled her nightgown over her head and got under the covers in one motion. “Brrrrr.” She looked at her sister. “Maybe what?” she asked again. “Angel!” Sometimes Angel clicked off in the middle of a conversation, just sort of disappeared, leaving Anna with the feeling she was talking to a blank wall. “Maybe what, Angel?”

“Oh, nothing. Just about the letter. Maybe something’s wrong. That’s all.”

Watching her sister, Anna felt a chill that was more than the sheets. Angel, with her dreamy eyes, could sometimes see into the future with amazing clarity.

“Like what? What could be wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you heard anything? Do you—”

“Oh, let me alone. You know I can’t talk when I’m rolling my hair.”

Anna drew the covers up around her neck. She watched as Angel, smiling slightly, selected another roller. By the time Angel was finished, Anna had fallen asleep.

M
ATTHEW AND JOSHUA, THE
Glory twins, had as many stitches in them as rag dolls. They were proud of their stitches, too, and kept a record of them. So far, Joshua had forty-nine and Matthew forty-two. Matthew would have had eight or nine more except that Mr. Glory had refused to take him to the hospital the afternoon he skated into the parked pickup truck on Oak Street.

“Stitches cost money,” Mr. Glory had said, inspecting the wound coldly. “You boys have to learn that.”

“He went into the truck on purpose,” Joshua said, looking with envy at Matthew’s leg.

“I had to,” Matthew whined. “It was the only way I could keep from going onto the highway. What’d you want me to do—get myself killed?”

“I’ll close this myself,” Mr. Glory said. “Get me the adhesive tape, Joshua.”

“Yes, sir!”

“I want stitches.”

“Do you have any idea how many albums we would have to sell to pay for sewing up that leg? And when I get through, if you bend that knee and open it up …”

“What’ll you do to him?” Joshua asked.

Mr. Glory did not answer. He always left his threats hanging. But he applied the tape with such firmness that Matthew had to walk stiff-legged for a week.

This morning, since Matthew didn’t have to go to school, he decided to play with a bicycle he had found in the junkyard. The bicycle was old and rusty and had no chain, but Matthew was not discouraged. “Anybody who wants to see me ride better come outside!” he called to the quiet house.

“I’ll watch out the window,” Anna called from the kitchen. Anna had stayed home today too. Usually she went to school whether she had to or not. School was better in a lot of ways than home. At school she even sang in the chorus, and no one noticed she couldn’t carry a tune.

But today Anna wanted to find the letter that had upset her father last night. She was determined to read it.

“Be careful, boys,” Mrs. Glory called from the bedroom.

Joshua followed his brother slowly into the yard. He did not want to watch, because he was jealous of the bike. Both twins had wanted wheels from the day they were born.

“It won’t go,” Joshua said. “It hasn’t got a chain. That’s what makes a bike go, like a motor makes a car go.”

Joshua hoped with all his heart this was true. The only reason he was following Matthew was so that, when the bicycle didn’t work, he could yell, “I told you so! I knew it wouldn’t work!”

Ahead of him, Matthew was pushing the bicycle up the hill. Joshua paused to throw a weed into the air and hit it with an imaginary bat.

“It’ll go.” Matthew was unconcerned. “The tires are good.”

“Tires don’t make it go. Chains do. I saw that on TV.”

“Liar!” Mr. Glory had removed the channel control on the TV, and the TV was permanently tuned to the religious network. “Anyway, you just wait and see.”

“That’s what I’m going to do—wait and see you fall on your face.”

“And I’m not letting you have a turn.”

“I wouldn’t ride that heap of junk if you paid me.”

They were halfway up the hill now, and Joshua stopped.

He watched Matthew and his bicycle for a moment. The bicycle was going sideways. It was like those old grocery carts that keep turning into the stacks of canned goods. It wouldn’t go. It couldn’t. But just in case …

Joshua smiled. He waited until Matthew was intent on his bicycle, and then he slipped behind some bushes. He crouched. He leaned up to peer through the leaves. He had not been seen. He got set to pounce.

At the top of the hill Matthew was turning his bicycle around. He eased one leg over the seat as carefully as if he were getting on a strange horse. “I’m ready,” he called down the now empty hill.

No answer.

“Where are you, Josh? Don’t you want to see me ride my bicycle?”

No answer.

“All right, then, you’re going to miss it. Anna, watch! I’m starting. Joshua, you better look if you want to see me.”

He pushed off. His start was ragged. His front tire dug into the earth like a plow. He was glad Joshua hadn’t seen that. He lifted the bike out of its rut and pushed. The front tire began to roll. “Here I come!”

His voice rose as the bicycle picked up speed. “I’m really coming! Look, Josh, look!”

The front wheel struck a rock and wobbled, causing the bike to weave from side to side. “Whoa!” Matthew cried. His feet found the pedals and, forgetting there was no chain, he began to pedal. “Yikes!” He held his legs out at the sides. He pushed first with one foot and then the other. The bicycle picked up more speed.

“Josh, it works!” he yelled happily.

Behind the bush Joshua was ready. His eyes shone with pleasure. He shifted nervously. He was intent on one thing—his brother weaving down the hill on that bicycle.

He duck-walked forward two steps. Matthew’s happy yells came closer. “Look, Joshua!” He was yelling, pleading now. “Look at me!”

“I’ll look all right,” Joshua said, smiling to himself.

The bicycle was almost at the bush now. With a gasp of anticipation, Joshua jumped out, screaming. He was directly in front of the bicycle, in a crouch, his arms outstretched. He was as ready as a lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Yannnnnnnnngh!” he cried.

He had a moment of intense pleasure as he saw Matthew’s startled expression. The bicycle hit a rock—Joshua hadn’t known that would happen—things were getting better and better. His eyes gleamed as the bicycle swerved to the right and wobbled back and forth on the rocky ground.

“Hah!” he cried triumphantly.

He was planning to add a second, “Hah!” but suddenly the bicycle was no longer wobbling. It was coming straight for him. Over the handlebars he saw Matthew’s face white with alarm.

“Hey, watch out! Look where you’re—”

Joshua broke off. He struggled to get up and failed. He scrambled backward. He stumbled. He threw up his hands to protect his face and then, in a crouch, took the impact of the front wheel directly in the chest.

He screamed. He fell backward, kicking out like a Russian dancer. Then he was thrown onto his back. He twisted sideways to save himself, but the bicycle came after him. It was like an enraged bull.

“Aiiiiii,” he screamed as the bicycle caught up with him and rode over his head. Chainless, it poked fourteen holes into his scalp.

“
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
…”

The bicycle swerved to the right then and crashed into the dead kudzu vines. Joshua’s scream went on and on in the still, cold air.

Matthew came up out of the dead vines, slow and mad. He had no idea of the damage the bicycle had done. He thought it was another one of Joshua’s tricks. Joshua was always pretending to be hurt worse than he was.

“What’d you do that for?” he yelled at his brother. “You made me wreck, you stinking—”

He did not finish his insult because at that moment he saw his brother. Matthew stood, drawing in one long breath, his hands clasped over his mouth.

Joshua was twisting like a beached fish, throwing himself so violently from side to side that he was sliding down the hill. His hands clutched his head. Blood was streaming from each of the fourteen holes, running through his fingers, down his trembling hands.

Matthew began screaming then, too, but his was a quiet in-and-out sound. He was used to the sight of blood—they both were—but not this much, and not from the head. Matthew could not move. He had not known a head could hold so much blood. He had thought there was nothing up there but brains.

Finally he got his voice. “Mommmmmmmm!” He turned and began to run down the hill. His knees were so wobbly that he jerked along like a puppet.

He saw Anna coming out the back door, and he changed his cry to “Annaaaaaaaa!” She ran toward him. Behind her was Mr. Glory.

“What is it? What have you boys done now? I told you I wanted some peace this morning. I told you I needed to think. You—”

As Anna passed Matthew, he pointed up the hill to where his brother lay. “Joshua,” he gasped. “Joshua’s scalped!”

A
NNA STOOD AT THE
window with one arm around Matthew’s shoulders. They had been standing there ever since Mr. and Mrs. Glory had left for the hospital with Joshua.

“It’s my fault if he dies,” Matthew said glumly.

“Joshua’s not going to die.”

“How do you know that? You’re not a doctor.”

“I saw him. I was the first one there, remember? I helped Mom wash his head.”

Matthew was silent for a moment. Then he said, “His eyes … that’s what makes me think he’s going to die.”

The memory of his brother being carried to the bus came back to him. Joshua’s head had been wrapped in a pink bloodstained towel, his face had been a small, pale circle, his arms dangled at his sides.

His eyes had been rolled back into his head. That was what really scared Matthew. It was as if Joshua were trying to see how much damage had been done inside his head.

Those sightless eyes had made Matthew feel bad enough to be taken to the hospital too, a second patient. “This one was run over by a bicycle,” his parents would tell the doctors. “This one is just plain sick.”

Anna turned away from the window with a sigh. She felt she needed to do something to take her mind off Matthew. Her glance fell on her father’s desk. It was then that she remembered the letter.

“Where are you going, Anna?” Already Matthew missed the comfort of her arm.

“Just over here.”

She walked to the desk and pulled open a drawer. She looked through the contents and slammed it shut. She opened a second drawer.

The noise caused Matthew to turn around. He watched with growing alarm as he saw Anna going through their father’s desk. This was something so forbidden that even he and Joshua had never done it.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for something.” Anna did not glance up. She shuffled through some papers.

“What?”

“A letter.”

“Dad will be mad at you for going through his things.”

“Who’s going to tell him?”

She looked at Matthew then, hard, over an open drawer, and he turned away with a sigh. “Not me,” he said tiredly. Suddenly he felt as if it should be bedtime. He actually wanted to go to bed for the first time in his life. “What time is it?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

“At night?”

“Matthew, look outside! It’s broad daylight!”

“Well, I’m tired. I feel like—”

He glanced down and saw that his pants were covered with drops of his brother’s blood. When had that happened? He pulled up his pants legs. His sneakers too. He could not remember when he had been close enough to Joshua for—Oh, yes, when his parents were carrying Joshua down the hill. He had helped them, or tried to, until his father told him to get out of the damn way. It was the first time Matthew had ever heard his father curse, and he had gotten out of the way immediately. He had run ahead and opened the kitchen door.

“Do you think Josh’s going to die?” he asked Anna. His interest in the desk search was gone. He stared at the empty road.

“No.”

“I do.”

“Matthew, scalp wounds always bleed like that. A boy in my room hit his head on the pencil sharpener, a little wound, no deeper than that, and he bled all over the whole school. And Joshua had about a dozen wounds like that. Anyway, I had a good look at him when we were washing his head, and they were just punctures.”

She slammed the drawer of unpaid bills shut, saw that two letters had fallen to the floor and picked them up. “It’s got to be here,” she said, discarding them.

“What?”

“The letter!”

“Oh.”

Matthew felt as tired and confused as an old person. He felt like Grandpa Glory, who couldn’t keep anything straight. Grandpa Glory had never even understood that he and Joshua were twins—he thought they were just one boy who was real active. “Here you are again,” he was always saying.

“Listen, Matthew, maybe you can help me. Last night Dad got a letter, and it made him furious, and he wouldn’t tell me who it was from.” She straightened. “I have a right to know what’s going on in this family. You do too. We have a right to see that letter!”