Girl Power
Authors: Melody Carlson
Girl Power
GIRLS OF HARBOR VIEW
Melody Carlson
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal
.
— 2 Corinthians 4:18
“Hey you!” boomed a voice from down the street. Morgan’s head jerked around just in time to see three boys on bikes, about a block away, but quickly speeding straight toward them.
“Oh, no,” groaned Carlie. “It’s
them
!”
“Ignore the jerks,” Morgan told her new friend. Then she stuck out her chin and continued to walk at the same casual speed. “And slow down, Carlie. You know they’re just trying to scare us.”
It was the first time the two girls had walked home from school together, and Morgan had hoped it was the beginning of a new friendship.
“Hey, who said you could walk down our street?” hollered that same grating voice. A bike tire skidded to a halt right next to Carlie. On it sat redheaded, freckle-faced Derrick Smith. He always reminded Morgan of an overgrown turnip with a bad butch. Unfortunately, he was the self-appointed leader of this new gang of seventh-grade bullies.
“Ignore!”
Morgan hissed to Carlie as she continued to walk, humming a tuneless song that was meant to inspire
confidence. Then she noticed Carlie’s dark eyes grow wider as another boy screeched up, right next to Morgan this time. It was Jeff Sanders, of all people. A third boy Morgan didn’t recognize cut off the girls from the front. Morgan glared at Jeff, wondering what he was doing with this crowd. Normally, he seemed like a pretty nice guy. She looked him square in the eye, and to her relief, he glanced away uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you guys get a life and leave us alone?” Morgan said in her bravest voice.
“Cuz you’re on our turf!” Derrick sneered at her and then thumped Carlie on the shoulder. She jumped away from him, bumping into Morgan. “And we don’t like sharing our turf with trailer trash,” he said, laughing loudly right in poor Carlie’s face.
“Leave her alone!” yelled Morgan. Now Carlie looked scared. Hopefully she wasn’t going to fall apart. Morgan wasn’t sure that she’d be able to defend both of them.
Then, to Morgan’s surprise, Carlie threw back her shoulders, put her hands on her hips, and glared at Derrick. “Back off!” she yelled. Morgan stared at her new friend, certain that flashes of lightning had just shot from Carlie’s eyes.
“That’s right,” said Morgan. “You guys need to just chill.”
“And keep your filthy hands off me, or you’ll be sorry!” Carlie shook a clenched fist at Derrick.
Morgan admired Carlie’s nerve, but she hoped this girl didn’t have anything crazy in mind. Two sixth-grade girls against three seventh-grade boys didn’t stack up very well. Just then Morgan noticed a man across the street. He was slowly wheeling his trash can out to the curb. He looked even older than her grandma, but the presence of a nearby adult renewed her confidence.
“You don’t own this street, Derrick Smith!” She spoke loudly, hoping to draw the attention of the old man. “What’s your problem, anyway? We’re just minding our own business, and you guys are acting like total jerks.” It seemed to be working, because the man by the trash can was peering across the street at them.
She shook her finger at Jeff now. “And I don’t get you, Jeff. I mean, you used to be nice to me, and your mom’s pretty good friends with my mom. What’s up with that?”
“Come on, Derrick,” said Jeff in an offhanded way. “I thought you said you had something to show us anyway.”
“All right,” said Derrick. “
This time
, we’ll let you girls off with just a warning. But I don’t want to see you on our turf again.” Then he peeled out, and the other two boys followed.
Carlie’s eyes were still bright with anger. “Those stupid creeps! They act like they own the whole neighborhood. This is the second time this week I’ve been pestered by them. Who do they think they are, anyway?”
“My mom says they’re ‘wannabes.’” Morgan kept her voice calm as she started walking again, but she felt sort of wobbly inside, and her knees were a little shaky. Of course, she wouldn’t admit she was frightened to Carlie. Not right now anyway. She didn’t know the girl that well yet. Besides, Morgan liked for people to think she was brave. It made her feel safer somehow.
“What’s a ‘wannabe’?” asked Carlie as she paused to readjust her backpack strap.
“Kids who
want to be
like someone else, like these guys ‘wannabe’ like a gang. Didn’t you notice they all had similar kinds of jackets? Kinda like a real gang.”
“So what’s the difference between ‘wannabes’ and real gang members? They both dress alike and they both push people around.”
“Yeah, maybe there isn’t much difference. I don’t know for sure.”
“It’s funny,” said Carlie as they continued walking. “My parents moved away from Southern California—before us kids were even born—just to get away from junk like this. Now here we are in this little podunk town in Oregon, and it’s the same old, same old.”
“So … uh … were you scared, Carlie?”
“Yeah, sure. In fact, I was really scared at first. Then I just got real mad. I imagined my dad hunting down that Derrick kid and teaching him a thing or two. That made me feel a whole lot better. Man, you were really cool, Morgan.”
“Well, I was scared too. I just tried not to show it. I wish those guys would get a clue. That’s the second run-in I’ve had with them this week too. I can’t imagine putting up with that kind of crud all summer.”
“Me neither.”
Morgan looked up at the cloudless blue sky. The morning fog had burned off now, and there was hardly a breeze at all. “And this weather could almost make you think that summer’s really here.”
“I know.” Carlie smiled. “I can’t believe there are only two weeks of the school year left. I can’t wait for summer vacation and hanging out on the beach—all that fun in the sun.”
Morgan laughed. “Well, girl, it’s plain to see you haven’t lived on the Oregon coast during summertime yet. Or else you’d know that summer and nice weather don’t always go hand in hand around here. Didn’t you guys just move here a couple months ago?”
“Yeah, we came up here from northern California. My dad got laid off from his old job, and my uncle wanted him to come up here and work on his fishing boat. We’ve been here since the end of March.”
“I’ve been hoping to get to know you,” Morgan said, trying to think of why she hadn’t reached out to this girl sooner. “But you usually zip off right after school. And I never see you playing outside around the trailer park.”
“That’s ‘cause I usually watch my little brothers after school. But today Mama’s at Tia Maria’s house, so I get a break.”
“Who’s Tia Maria?”
“My aunt Maria.
Tia
is Spanish for ‘aunt.’”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t have any aunts. But I have a grandma. We’re living with her right now—until my mom’s business takes off better. Our house is at the west side of the park, near the entrance. You can go through our backyard straight over to the dunes, and then the Harbor is only about a ten-minute walk from there.”
“Cool. Our house is close to the front too, just a couple of spaces down from you.”
“I know. I saw you move into the Porter’s old place. I kind of like to keep track of who lives where at the park. I was even thinking about getting a paper route, but you have to be thirteen, and I won’t be until July.” Morgan stopped and pointed up ahead. “Look, it’s those stupid jerks again. It looks like they knocked down that new girl, what’s-her-name. We better go help.”
They both started running, and Carlie easily kept up. Once again Morgan felt surprised by this girl. Up until today, Morgan had assumed that this girl with the pretty curls and cutsie clothes was too prissy to be a very good friend for her. But today she was seeing a whole different side of her.
When Morgan and Carlie reached where the new girl had been knocked down, Amy Ngo was there too. Amy was helping the downed girl to stand. The girl’s jeans were muddy and torn, and her face was streaked with tears. She let Amy help untangle her from her bike then stood and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, looking down at her bike.
Morgan bent over to pick up the bike, and Carlie knelt to examine the front tire. “It looks like you might have a bent wheel,” she said with a frown.
“What happened?” asked Morgan.
“I saw the
whole
thing,” exclaimed Amy Ngo importantly. Some of the kids called her Amy “Ngo it All.” She’d skipped a grade and was the smartest kid in their class, as well as the teacher’s pet. But worst of all she seemed to like for everyone to know it too. Morgan had always kept a safe distance from this girl.
Amy continued her take on the accident as if she were testifying in court. “It was that Derrick Smith. He’s the leader of that gang of delinquent boys. Jeff Sanders and Brett Johnson were both with him. But it was primarily Derrick who was harassing Emily. I was about a block behind her and it looked like she was getting away from them, but then the boys were all around her, and the next thing I knew, Derrick poked a stick right into Emily’s front tire, and she flipped over into that puddle.” Amy paused to catch her breath. “What a mess!”
Morgan looked at Emily now—so that was her name. Leave it to Ngo it All to know that too. The knee where Emily’s jeans had torn was bleeding and looked pretty bad. Hopefully it wouldn’t need stitches. Morgan had gotten stitches in her foot last summer after she’d stepped on a broken bottle in the sand. Along with a tetanus shot.
“You should probably clean that knee up, Emily,” she suggested. It felt strange to use her name since they hadn’t officially met … well … other than when Miss Thurman introduced her in class. But that shouldn’t count since, as usual, Morgan hadn’t been paying too close of attention. “I’m Morgan,” she continued. “And I live in Harbor View too. You’re in my class at Washington.”
Emily nodded then tugged at the torn part of her jeans as if to put them back together again. “My favorite jeans,” she said a little desperately. “Ruined.”
“It’s your knee that looks ruined to me,” observed Morgan. She wondered about Emily’s priorities.
“Oh, no!” Emily cried as she looked all around. “I lost my house key! I must have dropped it when I fell.”
So all four girls searched all around the ground, but without any luck.
“It’s probably in the bottom of that puddle,” suggested Amy, poking around with the stick that Derrick had used to trip up Emily’s bike.
“I don’t think we’re going to find it,” said Carlie.
“I can’t get into my house,” said Emily, who looked once again on the verge of tears.
“Well, you need to take care of that knee right now,” said Morgan firmly as she took Emily by the arm. “Come on over to my house, and my grandma can clean it and bandage it for you.” She glanced at the other girls. “You guys come too. Carlie, you bring her bike. And you get her backpack, Amy.”
The funny thing was that the girls followed Morgan’s orders without even questioning what gave her the authority to tell them what to do. And within minutes they were walking into her house.
“Grandma, these are some of my friends,” began Morgan as the four girls all piled into her living room. Then she pointed them out, one by one, introducing them to her grandma. “And this is my grandma, Mrs. Evans,” she finished.
“Pleasure to meet you, girls.”
“And Emily had a wreck on her bike,” Morgan continued. “And she lost her key and is locked out of her house. I thought maybe you could look at her knee, Grandma.”
“Come on in here, child,” said Grandma kindly, just exactly how Morgan knew she would. “Sit yourself right down, and I’ll clean up that scrape.”
Emily looked uncomfortable as she climbed onto the kitchen stool. Her face was pale and kind of
pinched-looking. Morgan wasn’t sure if it was from the hurt knee or just the strangeness of everything. To be honest, it was kind of strange for Morgan too. She’d never really had any friends inside her house before, and now suddenly here were three girls she hardly knew that she’d just introduced as “her friends.” Was that crazy or what?
Just then Morgan remembered how she’d specifically asked God to send her a friend. It was after a sermon at her church just last week. The pastor had challenged the congregation to ask God for the impossible. At the time, it hadn’t seemed even slightly possible that Morgan would ever find one single friend to hang with. Now she had
three
. Or so it seemed.