Delta Girls by Gayle Brandeis - book cover, description, publication history. Title: Delta Girls: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle) Author(s): Gayle.
Table of contents
He leaned up, the blood rushing back to his skull. He yawned so big that his jaws popped. Rusty rubbed his fingers across the swollen skin. The coach felt warm. Thirty minutes later, Number 45 spotted a funnel cloud and screeched. The other Lady Tigers scrambled up and pressed their faces to the windows, looking.
Rusty and the coach remained where they were, the very last seats in the back of the bus, Rusty on the right seat and the coach on the left. All shiny, it seemed to grow bigger each time he eyed it. He imagined they are still on the road, bound for home. Not the way he does around the Lady Tigers, but in that quiet, hungry way that falls over him when he considers poetry.
The time in the park, the time at his house after school. The way it burned the first time he touched himself after Sparse had been sent away. The coach, he understands. All too well, he says. The coach has known heartache too. Their faces were turned from him, on alert for cyclones outside. He tried speaking, I am in a dream! The Lady Tigers turned as if they had heard him anyway.
They turned and their mouths dropped open and they spoke with thunder. Number 8 sat beside him, cussing. A greasy jar of peanut butter was making the rounds.
- Triple Jeopardy (A Nero Wolfe Mystery Book 20)?
- The Late Life Bloom of Rose Rabinowitz: A Novella by Ronald Pies.
- leondumoulin.nl - Libraries - Book Discussion Guides;
- Paperback Editions;
- One more step!
- Poem Central: Word Journeys with Readers and Writers by Shirley McPhillips.
The Lady Tigers used the same spoon to dig out a fat dollop and eat. Seeing her reminded Rusty of the funnel cloud and he asked Number 8 about it. DeDe, who was lounging in the seat in front of them, leaned over and told Number 8 she had an idea for how to keep the sissy awake. Number 45 trotted back down the aisle.
Delta Girls
Patting Rusty on the knee, Number 8 proclaimed she had one. She rode horses and her parents were veterinarians. Number 8 finished chewing and offered Rusty the jar. See, she slept with her mouth open. DeDe interrupted her to ask the point of the story. Even Rusty laughed while Number 8 waved her middle finger for all to see. Nosebleeds had been her trademark. As she warmed up her throwing arm before a game, she sometimes got them.
But they became the stuff of superstition. But during the games her nose oozed blood, she pitched perfect shutouts, not allowing a single player from the opposing team even a base hit. His dad and Double Zero. He was holding a bag of ice to the bridge of her nose, trying to clot the bleed. He was up to his elbows in red, and the sight made Rusty feel sick.
His dad should be more careful, he remembered thinking, letting her bleed all over him like that. No one heard him: They were listening to DeDe. How she was in the Sunflower. How she was minding her own business, looking at crochet needles for her mom, when who rounded the corner? For a moment, a split second, DeDe considered hiding. First about the weather.
Was taking classes at the community college. Pretty as you please. Numbers 16 and 45 glanced his way. Something between pity and contempt. It was the same look his mother gave him when he told her about Sparse. She looked at her lap. He saw his mom dipping ashes in the soda can. With his dad gone. Number 45 spoke up. Rusty nodded to the coach across the aisle, still unconscious. DeDe reached toward him, and he violently jerked back. She was only placing a sweat rag against his nose.
Why do I have to complete a CAPTCHA?
The Lady Tigers stuck to their plan. As soon as the weather cleared, some two hours after the wreck, they were trailing down the interstate toward the Space-Way. None of them wanted to stay behind with Rusty and the coach. Number 8 assured him they were both out of danger. Her mom was a doctor after all. When Rusty said he thought she was a nurse, Number 8 squinted. He doubted very much that he was ever in danger, but the coach was a question mark.
His knot still looked nasty. He came to when the girls were out of earshot and stumbled outside to puke in the ditch. Rusty searched the front of the bus until he found the Catwoman comic wedged under the gas pedal.
He looked it over: The raven-haired Selina Kyle had found herself in the jungles of South America, fighting drug lords with her usual mix of stealth, sass, and double-jointedness. The coach had put on his polo and was shoving his feet into his New Balances when Rusty stepped off the bus.
He stumbled to his knees when he tried to walk over to Rusty. The ground made more ugly noises as he straightened back up. Rusty climbed the small bank and stood on the edge of the interstate. Bits of sunlight burned through the remaining overcast. Birds wheeled around in the big sky, crazed by the stillness left after the storm.
Not a single car coming in either direction. That was the Delta for you: He rolled up the Catwoman and peered through it. The Lady Tigers were about half a mile away, toting their bats in case of trouble. They would probably confuse the hell out of whoever was working the Space-Way until DeDe explained everything. First to the Space-Way attendant, then to whomever she got on the pay phone.
He would cut to the quick: He tried imagining her answer, but none came. Rusty kept looking at the Lady Tigers. The Prisoner in the Castle. Seven Stones to Stand or Fall.
Attention Required! | Cloudflare
A Column of Fire. The Hour of the Fox. A Boy in Winter. The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom. Looking for More Great Reads? Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now. LitFlash The eBooks you want at the lowest prices.
- Related Articles.
- Rainbow Gatherings!
- The Man From Shorrox.
- What can I do to prevent this in the future?.
- Alissa Nutting Recommends a Story About the Aftermath of Abuse?
- Wind Drinker;
- Essential Student Cookbook: 400 Quick Easy and Cheap Recipes.
Read it Forward Read it first. Unbound Worlds Exploring the science fiction and fantasy universe. Stay in Touch Sign up. Random House On Sale: Northern California, during the violent end of the s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their Let Me Tell You. Since her death in , her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more But that year, civil war breaks out across Melville House On Sale: People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier suddenly show signs of advanced dementia.
Is it just normal aging, or an epidemic? Is it a coincidence, or a secret terrorist plot?