Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,3

the Buckley Air Force Base always saluted Dad, even though he wheeled himself up to the platform in a wheelchair—his final badge of military duty, one he could never leave home without.

“This your kid?” one guy asked, looking at me where I cowered behind the wheelchair. I stared up at his camouflage clothes, his broad shoulders, and tried to imagine my dad dressed like that and standing tall.

“Yeah. She’s eleven,” Dad said. “Figured it was time to teach her to shoot.”

The guy nodded approval but looked skeptical. “Never too young to start ’em out. Just warn her about the recoil. We wouldn’t want her leaving with a black eye.”

The rest of the time at the shooting range was a blur of guns, noise-muffling ear covers, and recoils that flung me backward, but I remember the look in my dad’s eyes at the end of the lesson. And the other men’s eyes. Surprise.

“With the finger control you’re learning in piano, you’ll be a sharpshooter in no time,” Dad said, his hazel eyes glowing with pride.

One by one, the M16s are lowered as the men study me. I take a tentative step forward, and all four guns point at me before I can flinch. I don’t move.

“Ellen, come here!” one of the men calls, staring at me through the scope on his gun. He seems to be the oldest of the four. His hair is white, at least.

The front door opens, and a thin, hard woman steps onto a front porch edged with shrub skeletons. The white-haired man nods toward me. The woman puts her hands on her bony hips and squints. I have seen her before. She is the mother of one of my schoolmates. I used to play at this house, and this woman was always baking. She used to be as soft and round as her cookies.

She presses a hand to her heart. “Dear Lord Almighty, that’s Fiona Tarsis. If she doesn’t have the mark of the beast, let her pass.”

Three of the four guns lower.

“Hold up your hand,” the white-haired man calls. I lift both my hands over my head, palms facing them—a sign of surrender. “No. Your right hand,” he says, voice hard and mistrusting. “Show me the back of your right hand.”

Of course. He wants to see my tattoo. I turn my right hand, palm facing me, tattoo facing him.

Ellen sighs, the sound carrying down the quiet street. “She’s clean.”

The fourth gun is lowered, but none of the men relax.

“Get on past here, Fiona,” the white-haired man calls. I nod and start jogging. As I pass the house, the dogs go ballistic, jerking against the chains anchoring them in place. I stare into the front yard and study the men. But I was wrong about something. Only three are men. The fourth, the one who kept the M16 trained on me the longest, is Jacqui, my old schoolmate.

But there’s something really wrong with her. She’s on the verge of being an adult. And her thick brown hair is cut like a boy’s—short as a soldier’s.

“Get on by,” the white-haired man warns. I stare straight ahead and jog as fast as my weary legs will carry me, which is not very fast.

Just as I pass the edge of their property, a shadow appears beside me. I gasp and cover my head with my arms.

“Fo—Fiona!” It’s Jacqui—the older, womanly version of her in spite of her boy hair. Her hands are in my hair, twisting it, shoving it down the back of my shirt. “Cut your hair off,” she says, eyes scared. She presses something into my hand and retreats to her front yard. I look at what she’s given me and frown. A half-eaten snack pack of crackers. The sight of them makes my parched throat clamp shut, so I stuff them into my pocket.

Movement catches my eye. In the last rays of the setting sun, a child perches on the roof of Jacqui’s house, a gun in his small hands, his eyes darting all about. Behind a fence in Jacqui’s backyard, I can see the tops of cornstalks. Green cornstalks. In the midst of the corn stands Ellen, trailing a fine-bristled brush over the feathery wisps that shoot out at the top of the corn, moving from plant to plant in a methodical, deliberate manner. Painting the corn.

I look back up at the boy. He can’t be more than eight years old, but the way he holds the gun, he might as well have held it