Anybody Shining by Frances O'Roark Dowell Page B

ghosts. It goes against the Bible.”
    Another lie. They was starting to pile up like the stacks of apples in Mama’s cake, and my stomach hurt with each new one.
    â€œStill, don’t you think it would be interesting to meet Aunt Jennie Odom?” Tom asked, limping up to the porch. “Mrs. Campbell said she must be nearly a hundred.”
    I threw an empty seedpod into the yard. “Sounds dull as dirt to me. I bet her brain is addled.”
    â€œThat’s not how Mrs. Campbell made her out. She sounds fascinating.”
    â€œIf collecting recipes sounds fascinating, then I guess so. But it don’t to me. I think we should stay here and sit for a while, and then we can walk down to the post office to see Miss Ellie. She’s always got a good story to tell. We could do some good reporting down there.”
    Tom give me a funny look, and then he just shook his head. “No, I plan on going to Pilgrim’s Gap. If you don’t want to go, then at least tell me the way.”
    I looked at my feet. “Don’t rightly know.”
    â€œFine then,” Tom said, turning on his heel. “I’ll find the way myself.”
    Well, Pilgrim’s Gap is a good two miles from here, through rough woods. I threw down the bowl of peas I’d been holding in my lap and headed after Tom, who was moving fast for a boy with a bad leg. “You’ll get eaten up by a bear,” I called out. “Or a wasps’ nest will fall out of a tree and land right on your head, and then where will you be? All stung to pieces is where!”
    Tom kept on walking. “If you’re not going with me, then at least stop yelling. I can’t hear myself think.”
    Tom’s back was turned to me, like he wanted nothing more to do with the likes of Arie Mae Sparks. Well, I just couldn’t bear that for a second! Without even thinking, I yelled, “Your mama says you ain’t supposed to!”
    I swear I didn’t mean to say that, it just come out. Tom whipped around.
    â€œWhat has Mother told you? Some story about my heart, I’ll wager. She tells everyone the same nonsense. Father says it’s because she was so worried about me when I was a baby that she can’t break the habit.”
    I ran to catch up with him. “So you know about your heart?”
    â€œI know that Mother tells everyone it’s weak and that I’m not to move a muscle, but my heart is fine. Even Dr. Hatcher says so! Maybe a bit weaker than other boys’ hearts, but I can do whatever I want. It’s this bad leg that holds me back, not my heart.”
    I looked at Tom’s leg and wondered again how it got bad in the first place. I studied on Tom’s face. Was he telling me the truth? There was a nervous edge to his tone, like he was testing out those words for the first time. But I had never knowed Tom Wells to be a liar, and I thought if you had yourself a true friend, you ought to believe him.
    â€œSo it won’t kill you to walk to Pilgrim’s Gap?”
    â€œNot unless a bear eats me,” Tom said with a grin.
    And so I decided to go with him. I even decided to tell him the truth about my lies. “My mama didn’t really say I couldn’t believe in ghosts,” I admitted as we entered the woods. “Fact is, she believes in ghosts more than anybody I know. She’ll scare you to death with some of her stories.”
    â€œMy father likes to tell ghost stories,” Tom said. “He claims to have seen the ghost of his dead grandmother when he was a boy. She leaned over his bed in the middle of the night and said, ‘Tell your mother not to worry.’ ”
    â€œAbout what?”
    Tom shrugged. “She didn’t say.”
    I found that a satisfying reply. “That’s what makes a story sound real, when there’s some mystery in it,” I said. “Stories in books have explanations for everything, but real-life stories