Don't Scream by Joan Lowery Nixon

Author:Joan Lowery Nixon [Nixon, Joan Lowery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82352-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

nine

I ignored Scott and sat on the floor to play with Ricky. “Up you go,” I said as I grasped Ricky’s chubby little hands and helped him stand.

“Up,” Ricky said, and gurgled happily at me.

“I’m going to look around,” Scott said, and ambled out of the room and down the hall.

“You said up,” I told Ricky. “Good for you! Can you say Jess?”

“Up,” Ricky said. His diaper-padded bottom dropped to the floor with a plop, and he laughed. “Up,” he said again.

“We’ll work on the concept later, sweetie pie,” I told him, and helped him stand again while I tried to put Scott out of my mind.

Scott wasn’t like any of the other guys I knew. Hiding from Lori and me in the woods and secretly following me here to the hospital—why? That was a weird way to behave, and if I’d had a choice, I’d have told Scott to get lost. But I couldn’t. Lori liked Scott.

I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do about Scott. I couldn’t even tell Lori how I felt about him.

“Ricky,” I said as I lifted him onto my lap, “I’m going to teach you how to play patty-cake, and we’re going to forget all about that guy and hope he doesn’t come back here and bug us.”

“Who’s bugging you?” Mark asked from the doorway. He crossed the room and squatted beside me. “Not me, I hope.”

I gave a start. “No, not you. You just surprised me. I didn’t expect to see you here. I’ve had all sorts of surprises today.”

“I made an appointment with Mrs. Hopkins, but I’m almost ten minutes early,” Mark said.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“Mrs. Emery said she’d talk to her about our volunteer program, but I thought it would help if she talked to the kids who want to help. She should hear our ideas straight from us.”

My backbone stiffened. “She’s all for the project. You don’t need to convince her. Anyhow, shouldn’t this be a committee action—including Scott and me?”

“Hey, Jess, I didn’t mean to steal any of your glory. I know how busy you are, so I was just trying to help.”

I said, “Let’s get one thing straight, Mark, I’m not doing this for ‘the glory.’ ”

“But it will look great on your high-school record and on college applications. It should impress anyone who checks up on you.”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone. That’s not my reason.” I kept hugging Ricky, who was content to snuggle against me.

I could tell from the twitch at the corners of Mark’s mouth that he didn’t believe me.

“You wanted to head this thing,” he said. “I could give more time than you in setting it all up and running it smoothly.”

My patience was almost gone. “If you remember, I agreed with you when you said you wanted to be in charge,” I told him. “But Mrs. Emery insisted—”

“I know, I know. It doesn’t matter. It ended up the way you wanted it to, didn’t it?”

I could hear anger prowling through Mark’s words.

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