Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

dirt. Ma and Dad are inside
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    listening to some man on TV who wants to be the next governor of West Virginia.
    "Who we going to play hide-and-seek with?" I ask her. "You hide and then I hide and then you hide ... where's the fun in that?"
    "Becky can play," Dara Lynn says.
    "Yeah!" yells Becky. "Let me play, Marty! And Shiloh can play!"
    Shiloh hears his name and pads over, ready for something, he don't know what. Why wasn't I born into a family of nine boys? I'm thinking. A baseball team! I think of my ma being one of nine children, and how they must never have lacked for something to do, someone to do it with.
    The swing keeps turning around and when I face forward again, there's Dara Lynn and Becky and Shiloh, all lined up looking at me with begging eyes.
    "Okay," I say. "I'm "it." You two go hide."
    I lean my forehead against the rope as the swing goes on its lazy circle around and around. "Five ... ten ... fifteen .. . twenty...." I say.
    "Hide, Becky!" I hear Dara Lynn screech.
    I get to a hundred and still hear Becky running around up on the porch. Count to two hundred.
    "Here I come, ready or not!" I yell, and open my eyes. Becky's on a chair on the porch, got a pillow over her, feet sticking out. I smile and play like I don't see her. Go after Dara Lynn instead.
    I'm looking around in back of the chicken coop, the shed, but all this time she's behind one of the tires on Dad's Jeep. I get just far enough away from that bag swing, and in she comes, her skinny legs flying. That girl can run!
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    "Free!" she yells, pounding one hand on the bag swing. Becky slides down off the porch chair and I make like I'm trying to beat her to the swing. I let her pound her little hand on it.
    "Fwee!" she sings out.
    "Okay, I got to be "it" again," I say, and drape one leg over the swing, circling around, my eyes closed. "Five ... ten .. . fifteen...."
    Out of the corner of my eye I can see Becky starting up the path to the far meadow. "Don't you go up there, Becky!" I call.
    She stops and turns around. I bury my head again and go on counting.
    Then Dara Lynn stubs her toe-Ma tells her not to go barefoot-and she's howling like she broke a leg.
    I get up off the swing again-Becky's sitting down now on the path-and go see whether Dara Lynn's going to live or die.
    Ma comes to the door with her scolding look.
    "We're trying to hear what this man has to say!" she says, and I tell her I can handle it, so she goes back to the TV.
    I get Dara Lynn to sit down on a stump and take a good look at her toe. She's dislocated it, is what she's done, 'cause the end part sort of hangs loose, bent to one side. Happened to me once-twice, I think--so I know. Dara Lynn looks down at it, too, and then she's howling again.
    "Dara Lynn, shut up," I tell her. "If you stop yelling for one minute, I'll fix it."
    She stops, but she's got her mouth open, ready to let loose with the next.
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    "This is going to hurt for two seconds and then it'll be okay," I say.
    She's crying now, shaking her head and holding her foot. "You got a choice," I say. "Either you let me put your toe back in place-it'll hurt for two seconds-or you go to Doc Murphy. Which you want it to be?"
    Dara Lynn scrunches up her face something fierce, closes her eyes, and tips her head back so she can't peek. "Fix it," she says.
    I hold her foot in my hand, then gently take hold of the end of her bent toe and give it a little tug.
    Dara Lynn yelps and jerks her foot, but when she looks down again, the toe's back in place. Maybe I should think of becoming a vet, not just a helper.
    "Okay," she sniffles. "You got to count to three hundred this time, though, 'cause I have to run slower, and I got the perfect hiding place."
    I sit down on the swing again and count to three hundred. "Five ... ten ... fifteen ... twenty...."
    When I go out hunting for the girls again, Dara Lynn's got a good hiding place all right-inside Dad's jeep-but it's too hard to get out of in a hurry, and I beat her back to the