The Ghost of Lizard's Rock (12 page)

That night after dinner, I
told Mom I had some homework to finish and gave her a wonderful hug
and a kiss on the cheek. I could see that it made her very
happy.

I looked across the room
at Eric who was all stretched out on the couch sound asleep. He had
told Mom and me at dinner that football practice had been very
hard. The team ended practice with twenty or so wind
sprints.

I quickly changed into my
pajamas and stretched out on my bed with the old leather journal in
hand. Carefully, I opened the old worn cover and stared down at the
first page in front of my eyes.

June 28, 1918

Cow Pie Gang

Wesley Price

Rufus Redpath

Maggie Wilson

Josephine Grace
Jones

“Wow,” I thought, “That’s
nearly a hundred years ago.” I gently reached for the corner of the
first page and turned it. My eyes began to grow wider as I
read.

Friday, June 28

My name is Josephine Grace
Jones. My friends call me Josie. I am the writer of the journal
because I have the best penmanship of all of us. Today was our
first meeting. We decided that the cave would be our secret hideout
and that no one should ever find out about it. Rufus and Wesley
found it by accident last summer while they were exploring the
gigantic rock above us, looking for lizards. We all agreed to use
only the tunnel entrance on the dry side and never share it with
anyone else. We named the rock above our hideout – Lizard’s
Rock!

“Lizard’s Rock,” I
thought. “That’s how it got its name.” My eyes continued to look
even further down the page.

Josie had drawn a picture
of a large rock. Underneath the rock, she drew two round shapes
representing the caves. The cave on the left was at the edge of the
large rock and the words ‘wet cave’ was written just above the
circle. This cave was connected to the other cave by a tunnel in
the drawing.

I looked more closely at a
brief message written beside the cave on the left.

At the back of the wet
cave is a tunnel hidden by a large flat rock. This tunnel is dry.
It will lead you to the hideout.

Josie had described
exactly what Jacob and I had found yesterday.

The cave on the right had
one word written above it – ‘hideout’. A second tunnel went to the
right of the ‘hideout’ and out the other side of the rock. Josie
had written a message by the entrance:

The tunnel to our hideout
is hidden directly under a rocky ledge at the bottom of Lizard’s
Rock. When the morning sun rises in the east - stand below the
ledge. You will see a shadow cast upon the rock’s face from
Warner’s Mountain in the east. As the sun rises high in the sky the
shadow will begin to disappear. Just as the shadow fades away mark
the place. That is where the entrance is hidden behind a large flat
rock and some bushes.

I looked up from the pages
of the old book. This was the most incredible mystery that I had
ever discovered. I looked back down at the words on the
page.

You can’t see the tunnel’s
entrance unless you walk below the rocky ledge and to the left side
of it. When you are standing directly below the spot you marked,
reach through the branches of the bushes in front of you and push
the large flat rock to the right. The tunnel is hidden behind it.
Close the flat rock back into its position once you are in the
tunnel. The rock will stop the wind from entering the cave. Oh by
the way – watch out for snakes!

A shiver went down my
spine. I had never even considered that there might have been a
snake in the tunnel or even in the hideout.

We all agreed to use the
tunnel entrance on the dry side unless we were being followed. If
that were to happen, the wet cave would be our escape tunnel. We
would just run out the other side and disappear into the
forest.

It reminded me of animals
that have their dens built under ground with many tunnels to escape
from when a predator comes near.

I thought, “Josie and the
others were so smart, but what were they up to? Was this more than
a kid’s place to play?”

I placed my finger in
between the pages and gently closed the book - holding it close to
my chest. My eyes stared at the ceiling above. Everything in the
caves was exactly as Jacob and I had discovered it. I opened the
journal again and read on.

We are going to need two
lanterns in the hideout with plenty of kerosene. One of the
lanterns will be placed by the entrance on the dry side and the
other just inside the wet cave. Rufus thinks he knows where a
couple of old ones are on their farm that were not being used. He
figures that he could sneak a little kerosene as well. Each of us
seems to know where we can find a few things for the hideout such
as a table and a few chairs.

Today is my
13
^th
birthday. Maggie brought a cake that she baked herself. It
was really good. I am the last to turn 13 in the gang.

We decided that we were
running out of time today and that we would come back in the
morning with everything.

Tomorrow we will decide
how we are going to get even with Jerry Halter for picking on
Maggie’s little brothers!

Josie

‘Picking on’! The words
seemed to jump right off the page. Were they being bullied? I
turned the page quickly to the next entry.

June 29

Maggie and I worked our
way to the top of Lizard’s Rock and sat on the rocky cliff waiting
for Rufus and Wesley. We had a great view of the forest below and
could see everywhere. I got a little nervous looking down below -
if a person fell, it would surely kill them.

It wasn’t too long before
Rufus wandered toward us through the trees with two lanterns and a
jug full of kerosene. He waved at us and headed toward the secret
entrance.

Wesley was just a few
minutes behind Rufus. He was walking two of their horses loaded
with a few pieces of small furniture for the hideout.

Maggie and I crawled back
down from the rock and met the boys at the entrance. We had left a
couple of old wool blankets and a dozen candles in an old water
pail near the entrance. We got all the furniture and other things
into the hideout before noon.

We decided that Maggie
will be the leader of our gang. Maggie told us that it was
important for us to be a good gang – not a bad one.

We then decided on a name
for our gang. The Cow Pie Gang was actually Rufus’ idea. At first
we all laughed, but after a few moments we decided it was the
perfect name for our gang and the ‘cow pie’ will be our
brand.

The thought of a ‘cow pie’
as a symbol of their gang was too much! I broke out into loud
laughter. Knowing full well that Mom would soon walk through the
door to see what was so funny. I placed the journal under my pillow
and leaned back against the headboard of my bed.

Mom knocked on the door
right on schedule and opened it, “Everything okay?”

“I was just thinking about
something that Oliver did to Michele. It was pretty
funny!”

“It must have been pretty
funny,” said my mom as she started to leave. “It’s getting
late.”

“I’ll go to sleep in a
little bit,” I smiled back. “Good night Mom – love you!”

“Love you too!” Mom stood
by the door a little suspicious of what I was up to. She always
seemed to know when I was up to something. “I expect your lights
out in five minutes.”

“Yes,” I answered, “five
minutes.”

“See you in the morning,”
added Mom as she closed the door and returned to her
bedroom.

I quickly pulled out the
journal and began reading again.

The next decision that we
made was to find a way to stop Jerry Halter and his friends from
picking on Maggie’s little brothers. Last week, Halter stole some
candy from them as they walked out of the store.

Jerry Halter is older than
us by at least a couple of years. Most of the time, he has Guy
Smith and Trevor Allen with him. They are his age and much bigger
than most people our age.

My eyes darted back and
forth across the pages written by Josie. After a few minutes, I
closed the journal without turning anymore pages and smiled, “The
Cow Pie Gang.”

The Cow Pie Gang Rides
Again

I thought the worst had
past and that Maddison’s wicked ways were over. I also foolishly
thought she was scared enough of Michele that she would leave me
alone. I was so very wrong!

The day started out the
same as yesterday. I set my alarm early enough so that I had time
to straighten my hair and could skip the ponytail and baseball
cap.

It was still odd when I
caught a glimpse of the new me in the mirror. I had looked the same
way for so long that each time I saw my newly-cut hair styled, it
caught me by surprise. I recognized the face looking back at me but
more in the way you recognize a stranger than myself. I added a
touch a lip-gloss and checked my reflection a final
time.

I pulled on my new jeans
and a pink (The perfect shade of pink according to G.G.) hoody
sweat top, then headed down the stairs and joined Eric in the
kitchen.

Eric’s mouth was full of
food, as usual, so I assumed he was trying to say “hi”, but it
sounded more like a grunt.

Mom was there too. I still
hadn’t told her anything about Monday and I swallowed hard to stop
the words from flooding out.

Eric made a face at me
when her back was turned. He gestured with his head and mouthed the
words “tell her”.

I shook my head back and
forth and grabbed a piece of toast.

Mom still looked tired.
Working nights is hard on her and she never sleeps enough during
the day. “Hi honey,” she said turning around with my lunch bag in
her hand. “How are you?”

“Good Mom,” I mumbled with
my mouth full of toast. The peanut butter made the toast stick to
the roof of my mouth and I reached for a glass of milk to wash it
down.

Before Mom could ask any
more questions about school Eric jumped to his feet, grabbed his
lunch from the counter and started for the door, yelling “bus” over
his shoulder. Eric paused just long enough to say that he wouldn’t
be home for dinner because of football practice.

Mom leaned against the
kitchen counter with a smile on her face as she watched Eric and me
scrambling to get out the door.

“Come on Kati, we gotta
move it.” Eric said turning to give mom a quick kiss on the
cheek.

“Bye Mom,” I said kissing
her cheek too and grabbing my stuff.

Eric glanced over his
shoulder to make sure the door was closed before he hissed, “You
need to tell her. This kind of thing doesn’t stop and just go
away.”

“I’m not telling her!” I
glanced around to see if anyone was listening as we joined the
crowd waiting for the bus. “Yesterday was fine. Michele took care
of Maddison.”

“So you say,” Eric just
gave me a look. It was as if he knew something.

An odd silence took over
the bus again as I stepped on and made my way to what was now my
seat. I could hear the flip and click of cell phones again. I did
my best to ignore it.

I looked down and noticed
the scuff on my new shoes again and smiled wistfully remembering
how beautiful they had been when G.G. first bought them. They were
still beautiful, I thought, they just had some
character.

I was still thinking about
my shoes when Allie joined me on the bus. “Now can we finally
nuke’em?” Allie plopped down onto the seat beside me. Her dark eyes
stared unemotionally at me for a second and then a small grin began
to form around her lips.

“Maybe” I replied with a
grin. Thinking back now I wish I had said “yes”.

The bus ride appeared to
be fairly uneventful. Oliver and Dan got on at their stop and sat
down in front of Allie and me. After a few minutes the bus came to
a stop at the road to Jacob’s farm. We all looked over the tops of
the seats to the front of the bus as Jacob stepped on and began
working his way down the aisle.

“Good morning,” Jacob
stopped beside Oliver and Dan’s seat. The guys scooted over next to
the window to make room for him.

The rest of the bus ride
went quickly and routinely, even as we came to a stop in front of
the school.

Allie didn’t say anything;
she just smiled and led the way down the aisle and out the door of
the bus.

Dan, Oliver, and Jacob
were off the bus in a second and scurrying to the front doors of
the school. Who knows what they were up to.

Allie’s smile faded
quickly when she saw Robert and two of his friends standing in the
middle of the sidewalk, blocking the way for a small elementary
school girl to get by.

The frightened little girl
stood frozen all by herself, unsure what to do, and began to
cry.