The Heart Will Lead You Home Read online

  Almost all the other girls at school had already matured into their more womanly figures, as her mother liked to call it, but little Lizzie’s body had been quiet as a mouse. It was utterly humiliating to know that here she stood on the brink of her first day of ninth grade, and she still had to stuff her bra when the other girls filled theirs out with their own bodies.

  She consoled herself with knowing that she had at least three new outfits that she was sure would make all the other girls die from envy. If she couldn’t fit in with the rest of the school, at least she could be more fashionable. But fashionable or not, she was still itching to be accepted by at least a few people at Dixie. Today was her new chance. Today was the day that she’d show up for school, and instead of being the brunt of everyone’s mockery, maybe today she could just sink into the woodwork, and go unnoticed for a while.

  Yes, she was at the point where even going unnoticed was a heck of a lot better than being made fun of all the time. That would mean they would have forgotten about her, and when she was out of mind then she didn’t get nearly as many spit balls thrown at her.

  Lizzie took her image in one more time in the mirror, smiled at herself to make sure she had the smile she’d been working on all summer just right, then slipped into her backpack and headed out the door.

  “Wait a minute, honey,” her mother called from down the hall. “Don’t forget your lunch, and where is my kiss, baby girl? Are you too old for kisses now?”

  “No, mama.” Lizzie smiled and gave silent thanks that she finally had her old mom back. She was no longer skin and bones, and her skin had her healthy glow back like Lizzie had always remembered.

  “Good luck at school today, sweetie. You’re an official high school girl now. I never thought I’d see the day. Well, here’s your lunch, now run on to school.” Faith watched her as her daughter that was growing up far too fast strolled down the sidewalk. When she reached the end and was about to cross the road Faith called out, “You look beautiful today, honey.”

  Lizzie didn’t turn around, but she heard her mother’s call and she smiled. It was just what she needed to hear.

  By the end of first period Lizzie looked around and blinked. It seemed, somehow, that her miracle plan had worked. She checked her backpack, then checked it again and found, sure enough, no signs of nasty notes or other foul play in that region. She felt her hair, three times, and felt no sign of spit balls that had whizzed in her direction. And, she mused with a half grin on her face as she strolled to her locker and exchanged a few books; no one had even poked a taunt in her face either.

  No one had noticed her.

  Lizzie wanted to jump for joy. If this kept up she just might be home free. She just might be able to forget about some of the awful reasons that she hated this school so much. She closed her locker then headed off to second period- Mrs. Fleming’s ninth grade math. Math was her least favorite subject, but she promised herself that if she made her way through it and learned the material then she would reward herself by getting her mom to take her on another shopping spree.

  All through second period, and third and fourth as well, her plan to go unnoticed succeeded wonderfully. No one even glanced in her direction, and she wondered if it was just some awful first year ritual that everyone had to go through when they were new to this place. When she got in the line for lunch, her brain was busy trying to comprehend the fact that she hadn’t been picked on for an entire half day. She wasn’t quite sure what to do when no one was. She must be having a lucky streak.

  She picked her tray up off the edge of the counter where the cash register was and began to maneuver through the mass of moving bodies and their personal belongings. Her tray blocked her vision from one backpack in particular, and before she knew it she was lying face down with her face nose deep in her bowl of mashed potatoes.

  So much for that streak of good luck.

  She could hear people laughing and then her nickname started being chanted, first from the cool kid table, but it rapidly spread throughout the room. “Loser Lizzie. Loser Lizzie. Loser Lizzie.” Over and over again. Couldn’t she just disappear and die?

  She was busy trying to collect the English peas that had rolled all over the place, and had finally collected the last one when a hand, a decidedly masculine hand, came into her line of vision. She recoiled from it, afraid that it was someone about to strike out at her or possibly rub some of the mashed potatoes she still had on her face into her hair as well. But the hand stayed outstretched, and she realized it was someone trying to help her up.

  Since she was having a hard time trying to get a foothold on the slippery mashed potato floor, she grabbed hold without looking and let the person help her up.

  “Than-“ The rest came out in a squeak as she looked up for the first time and saw Payton Cartwright attached to the other end of that hand. She stood speechless, and she knew her face had turned a hideous shade of flame red from the roar of laughter that pulsed through the cafeteria again.

  Payton took his hand back, and Lizzie realized with horror that she had been holding on to her crush’s hand for a solid fifteen seconds. What a shame she couldn’t remember what it felt like, she thought later. But at the time all she could remember thinking was that she would never wash that hand again as long as she lived.

  He had smiled at her, she did remember that. And that smile had been like a burst of sunshine burning through everything bad that had happened to her minutes before. It was the same smile that he bestowed on other girls in the school, the one that made her eyes roll because he wasn’t giving it to her, and because it made the other girls giggle and fall all over him like he was a male model.

  And now she knew why they did that. One look at that smile- one which she knew from experience he must have practiced in the mirror at least a few hundred times- and her crush was solidified. How could she help it, really? Oh, she supposed she could, but what was the harm, seeing as he was so far out of her league and she already knew she had no chance whatsoever of winning him.

  Instead of listening to that ugly nickname the school had bestowed upon her- Loser Lizzie was so stupid, wasn’t it? - She thought about Payton Cartwright the rest of the day. He’d grown taller over the summer, and his hair that was normally a dark shade of brown, had bleached just a little and had cute little highlights all around. His body had grown thicker, and muscle was beginning to fill in where the little boy’s body was giving way to a man’s. But his eyes, his eyes were still the same brilliant shade of green, a hybrid of emeralds and lush green summer grass. She could look into those eyes all day, she imagined, if only she were given the chance.

  Her walk home wasn’t nearly as happy as her walk to school had been, but she waved at Grannie and said hello, and forced herself to remember how good she had looked in her outfit that day, regardless of whether she’d had to wear mashed potatoes on it or not.

  Even her sister had said so when she joined her at the front steps of Dixie just after school that day. It was Mary Catherine’s first day of seventh grade, and also her first day at Dixie. Lizzie was slightly jealous that she seemed to making friends, at least one or two, while Lizzie still didn’t have any. But she loved her sister too much to be jealous for too long.

  That afternoon Skipper and the two girls took beach towels and walked down the road to Granny’s pond. They had to pass several hay fields along the way, and they spotted several of the kids from school standing in the center of one playing a game of baseball. They were too far away to hear much of what they were saying, but every once in a while both girls could hear the other kids laughing, and Lizzie felt her heart tug. She had loved playing baseball with her friends back in Chicago. Of course, there it hadn’t been played in a hay field, but in the middle of the street when no cars were coming, but it was still something she missed like crazy.

  If she had had more confidence, or at least known the other kids wouldn’t laugh her out of the field, she would have considered asking them to play. But inste
ad she took her sister’s hand and they made their way through the rickety old fence that blocked the dirt drive down to the pond.

  They skipped rocks for while; trying to see which one’s rocks would skip the farthest. It made Lizzie feel good that she could at least win at that. When they tired, they took turns pushing the other in the old tire swing that hung at the edge of the water. Lizzie had seen some of the other kids use it to see who could hurl themselves the farthest out into the pond, but she liked it mainly because even though she’d never swung in a tire before, she found it comforting somehow.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on life, filling in each other on their days while they lay on the towels stretched out in a sunny spot close to the pond. The squawk of a hawk caught their attention, and at dinner that night that was all they seemed to remember about their day: the magnificent wing span of the great bird and how elegantly it had dived with its talons out to capture some unsuspecting prey. Their parent’s were quite impressed.

  She liked thinking back on their visit to the pond that night as she lay in her bed. If she found nothing else while she spent her days in Edenville, at least she had found out there was a lot more to nature than what she had known when she left Chicago. Her father had taken her and Mary Catherine camping at the end of the summer, and they’d spent most of that long weekend hiking through the woods not too far from their home, identifying trees, and watching birds and other wildlife that sauntered into their view. That alone had opened Lizzie’s eyes to the world outside of the continuous buzz of the big city, and what life was like in a calmer, quieter, more serene kind of setting.

  As the days grew shorter, and time marched on toward Christmas, Lizzie found herself still the brunt of the majority of the jokes at school. But at least now her skin had grown so thick, and her mind so full of comebacks she would probably never use, that she didn’t seem to mind the taunting so much.

  She had made it her mission that when someone threw a barb at her she would focus on her comeback line instead of how much the comment hurt, and she found her feelings not getting hurt quite so much. She also focused on her wardrobe, and she was pleased with the sense of style she seemed to have developed. It wasn’t exactly trendy, at least not like the exact replicas that everybody else wore to copy the gang. No, since she didn’t have to worry about whether it made her look cool or not, she could wear whatever felt good to her.

  She had just stepped out of first period, when she heard the buzzing going on around her. She tried to ignore the talking, afraid if she looked at any one person in particular that they might single her out for spitball target practice later on in lunch that day. Lizzie kept her head ducked, but her ears on full alert as she made her way to her locker, and was surprised at what she heard.

  “Hey Lou Ann,” Billy called across to the group of girls huddled near her locker. Lizzie didn’t dare look that direction, but she knew Lou Ann must have looked his way because she heard Billy say, “Have you seen the new girl yet? She’s almost as red headed as your mama.”

  Lizzie thought she was the only new girl in school, but since she obviously didn’t have hair even remotely close to red she knew he couldn’t have been talking about her. Was it true? Was there a new girl in school? Lizzie’s mind raced with a million different thoughts, one of which was if she could possibly make friends with her.

  She pondered about this new girl all through the next three periods until it was time for lunch. And when she walked in to the cafeteria with her bagged lunch, she saw exactly what she had feared.

  The rest of the school was christening the new girl’s backpack.

  Slate McDermott, the biggest bully in all of Dixie Academy, and possibly all the schools surrounding it, held her backpack well above the short, pudgy, red headed girl’s outstretched arms, and laughed as she jumped as high as she could, which unfortunately wasn’t very high. A big double bowl full of applesauce was in his other hand, and Lizzie watched in horror as a single tear dripped down the red heads face. Oh, no! She should never have let them see her cry. She was a now goner for sure.

  “Stop it! Stop it you big bully!” But Slate just kept right on laughing, his nasty brown, crooked teeth glittering under the fluorescent light, and when he poured the applesauce into her open backpack, Lizzie could have sworn she saw smoke puffing out from the new girl’s ears. The red head reared back and slammed her fist into Slate’s stomach then snatched her backpack from him as he doubled over howling in pain, and ran like mad to the other side of the lunchroom. Fortunately for her the teachers on duty came in right about then, because Slate didn’t have a chance to make his payback in time.

  But Lizzie saw the wicked gleam in his eye, and she knew that the red head better be on the lookout, because Slate was well known to hold a grudge, and he got his payback no matter how long it took to get. He was definitely the wrong guy to pick on the first day at a new school.

  Lizzie sidled up next to the table where the new girl sat all alone and softly cleared her throat to let the girl know she was there. She hadn’t expected the girl to whirl on her so quickly, or for the two fists that came up, ready to land a crushing blow to whoever or whatever was currently bothering her.

  “H-Hi,” Lizzie said softly, taking a small step back and out of the way of those obviously dangerous fists.

  The red heads eyes glittered with a ferocity that Lizzie could only assume came with the practice of being on the low end of the totem pole for a long, long time. The girl slowly perused Lizzie’s face, and she watched as the new girl’s fists slowly uncurled and went back down by her sides. She never smiled, but the light of fire went out of her eyes, so Lizzie assumed she was fairly safe from harm.

  “Hi,” she said again, a little more confident this time. “My name is Lizzie. Lizzie Benford. I moved here about a year ago. Just thought I’d let you know you’re not alone.” Was the girl mute? Why hadn’t she said anything? Lizzie felt uncomfortable being the social one in the group for a change, so she kept on talking to try and ease the discomfort she felt. “This is actually my table, but I’d be happy for you to sit here if you want.”

  The girl sat again, and Lizzie was tired of talking so she let her own backpack fall to the floor then took a seat on the opposite side of the table from the girl. She dug into her brown bag and pulled out the turkey sandwich her mother had packed for lunch.

  “You know,” she said after a while, “That Slate guy, he’s not very friendly, and he holds big time grudges. I’d watch out for him if you ask me.”

  “No body asked you, and it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The red head stared at her levelly, obviously not in the mood to put up with any more crap that day. “You heard me. I’ve had plenty of run-ins with the school bully. You just have to know how to handle ‘em is all.”

  “Oh.” How did you handle a bully, she wondered, without running and screaming and trying to hide?

  “Just stick with me kid, and you’ll be all right.” Lizzie shook her head, and tried not to laugh. Was it that obvious? Was it written on her face that she had no friends and she’d been picked on way more times than she could possibly keep track of? Apparently so, because the red head poked out her hand and smiled blandly.

  “I’m Grace. Grace Jacobs. Obviously I’m the new kid here. So, what’s your story?”

  Lizzie told her and when she asked the same, Grace had shrugged her shoulders and replied, “My mama died when I was three, and my daddy just got a job at the mill here in town. Hopefully he can hang on to his job long enough to let me make few friends, and maybe spend more than a few years in one place this time around.”

  Lizzie didn’t miss that her baby blue eyes looked a little sad, or that she talked a lot tougher than Lizzie was willing to bet she felt. She knew what it was like to have hard times, both in a family and in school. For the first time in months, Lizzie felt her heart give a happy tug. At last, at last, at last, she had finally found som
eone to be her friend.

  The two had been inseparable ever since. Between classes they waited for the other, and when times were hard they stood up for one another. They walked home, along with MC, every afternoon, and every Friday night they spent the night together. It was almost as common to have three little girls at the dinner table around the Benford place as it was to have two. But the Benford’s welcomed little Grace with open arms.

  One afternoon in particular, shortly after they had been let out for Christmas Break, Lizzie and Grace took a stroll down to town to buy a milkshake from the pharmacy store. Lizzie liked the way the bar stools set up at the low counter in the front of the store would let you swivel back and forth, and Mr. Gilchrist, the old white haired man that ran the Pharmacy, always put a big cherry and lots of whipped cream on top of their milkshakes. Grace said it was because he had a crush on them, but Lizzie just thought it was because he knew they needed the extra attention.

  They were sitting on the stools, facing out the window, having a good time talking about life, when Lizzie stiffened and her gaze fixed out the window on something just on the opposite side of Main Street. Grace followed her gaze and saw the group of boys leaning back against the wall of the brick front to the hardware store. Grace recognized them from school, but she’s just passed them off as dumb jocks and hadn’t given them a second thought.

  “They mean something special to you?” Grace watched as Lizzie turned a little pink, then looked down, apparently fascinated, by her milkshake.

  “No.” But Grace could tell that they did.

  “Oh, okay.” She sipped her shake through a straw, having to pause every few sips to get the clumps of ice cream out of the straw. She’d glance out the window every few minutes just to see what the boys were doing.