Wink Poppy Midnight(17)

I looked at Wink, and she was looking at me.

“Should we go to dinner?” I asked.

She shrugged.

I got to my knees. I put my fingers on the small of her back, and kissed her belly button, right through her cotton overalls. She put her hands on my head, her strawberry-stained fingertips in my hair. I turned my chin, and leaned my cheek against her.

“What the hell is this?”

I jerked. Wink’s hands dropped to her sides. I opened my eyes. Closed them. Opened them again, let go of Wink, and stood up.

Poppy.

Wink stepped backward, a quiet sidle into the corner shadows. Poppy ignored her. She was wearing another short, swoopy sort of dress, the kind that showed more than it hid. It was green, the same color as Wink’s eyes.

“You weren’t home and your dad wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. He’s always hated me.” She paused, and ran her hand down her hair, smoothing it, drawing attention to it. “But I figured it out.”

“You’re trespassing,” I said. “This is Wink’s farm. You’re not welcome. She doesn’t want you here.”

Poppy laughed.

She grabbed me by the front of my shirt and yanked me toward her. Then she narrowed her eyes at the darkness behind me. “Is that true, Feral? You don’t want me here?”

Wink stayed in the shadows.

Poppy let go of my shirt and walked into the dark. She wrapped her fingers around the right strap of Wink’s overalls and pulled her, one step, two, back into the fading evening light at the center of the hayloft. Wink followed, meek as a lamb.

Poppy brushed a curly strand of Wink’s hair off her cheek. Wink didn’t stop her.

“Do you think Midnight is a prince come to rescue you from being a loser?” Poppy kept her fingers on Wink’s face. “Is that what you think? I bet you kissed him last night, after you showed everyone your unicorn underwear at the party. I bet you crawled all over him. You Bells—you’re nothing but animals. Dirty and sex-crazed like a bunch of smelly goats.”

“Stop it, Poppy.”

I didn’t scream it. I didn’t even raise my voice. But she took her hand from Wink’s cheek and turned around.

“You protecting your new little girlfriend, Midnight? Wow, that’s adorable.” She put her hand on her hip and twitched her torso until her dress swung against her upper thighs, swish, swish. “How can you stand it? How can you stand kissing such a pasty, freckled, dirty thing? Is it just hormones? Is this some kind of Testament to the Male Organ? Should I be taking notes? Putting together an academic study?”

“You’re so mean.” I said it quiet, really quiet, but she was listening. “Why are you always so mean? What’s wrong with you? Were you born like this? Sometimes I think there must be a hole in your heart . . . one that hurts and makes you roar like an animal with its leg in a trap. Is that it, Poppy? Is that why?”

Poppy just stared at me. An evening breeze blew in and stirred the hay and we all just stood there.

She turned.

Walked to the ladder.

Climbed down.

Left.

And then Wink was at my side, slipping her hand into mine. “Let’s go to dinner,” she said.

And without even looking, I knew she was smiling. I could hear it in her voice, sense it in her fingers, strawberry tips pressing into my palm.





“YOU STARE AT Leaf Bell. You stare at him a lot.”

“A lot,” Zoe echoed, her stupid brown pixie curls twitching as she nodded her head, her and Buttercup both looking at me. The two of them lived next door to each other, had always lived next door to each other. They showed up in kindergarten doing the creepy, creepy twin thing, same clothes and repeating each other’s sentences and talking in unison. They have different hair and different skin and different eyes, and one’s tall and one’s tiny, but for a long time I could barely tell them apart. Though to be honest I never really tried.

We were sitting in the bleachers, done running, wet hair from the showers making damp trails down our T-shirts. Buttercup and Zoe ran in black shorts and black shirts, and striped socks pulled up to their knees, it would have been less laughable if they didn’t take it so seriously.

The boys were on the track, Leaf in front, he was always in front. He was the best runner at our 1,300-kid school, we took state the last two years and he was why.

“Leaf is vile.” Buttercup.

“All the Bells are vile.” Zoe.

“Aren’t they?” They said that last bit together, twinsy style.

“Shut up, Buttercup. Shut up, Zoe.”

And then they swapped a secret, knowing smile. I felt like slapping it off their faces but instead I told them that if they ever mentioned Leaf’s name again I would spread a rumor that I’d caught the two of them kissing the hot new math teacher Mr. Dunn in the cemetery, back by the Redding mausoleum, long grass hiding them from view. Details make a lie, it’s all in the details, Buttercup and Zoe knew this by now. I’d taught them.

And they never said his name again, even on the day he left, even after I told them about Midnight, and what I’d done.

When I found Midnight in the hayloft with his cheek against Wink’s stomach and her hands in his hair . . . the expression on his face . . . and Feral looking down at him . . . There was something happening between them, something not in the plan.