Before She Was Found(24)

I told her that no one does sleepovers anymore but she just gave me a look that said, Yeah, right. The truth is, I haven’t been on a sleepover in a long time. Not since before Ellie moved away. And that was only two times and even then we just watched movies and ate ice cream. Once we rode our bikes to the park but we never went down to the railroad tracks. I’ve always hated the sound of trains—like an old woman screaming in a thunderstorm.

Besides, when I was in first grade, two boys were playing chicken on the tracks and one of them didn’t jump off them fast enough and ended up getting hit by the train. I have bad dreams about that sometimes—standing on the tracks and not being able to move. The engineer blows the whistle over and over but I still can’t move my legs. When I have this nightmare I end up falling out of bed and waking up on the floor with my mom, dad and Kendall standing over me. It’s embarrassing.

I think the boy’s name was Charlie and that his family moved away pretty soon after the funeral. I didn’t want to ask Kendall to tell me about Joseph Wither and why kids went down to the railroad tracks on overnights but my curiosity got the best of me and I didn’t want to sound like I didn’t know anything (even though I don’t) when Violet, Jordyn and I worked on the project the next day.

Kendall kept teasing me about not knowing who Joseph Wither was; she liked holding this over my head. She loved it when she could rub my nose in stuff.

I wanted to just ignore her and pretend it didn’t matter to me but it did so I ended up promising to do her chores for a week. Kendall even invited me into her bedroom, which is a miracle—she never lets me in there. We sat on her bed just like we did when we were little. She told me that Joseph Wither lived in Pitch about a million years ago in a house on Hickory Street, which is the same street where Violet lives. I asked Kendall if she knew which house it was.

She told me to just shut up and listen, that he lived in a house on Hickory Street with his mom and dad and two little sisters. Joseph Wither was seventeen years old at the time and was in love with the fifteen-year-old girl who lived in the house across the street.

I asked if she loved him back and then clapped my hand over my mouth when Kendall glared at me.

Kendall said that the girl did love him back but their parents thought they were too young and ordered them to stop seeing each other. Then Kendall stopped talking and went to shut the bedroom door. Skittles snuck in and I thought for sure that Kendall would freak out about it but she didn’t even notice. It felt nice, sitting close to my sister like this. Kendall sat down next to me again and even though the door was shut she whispered how Joseph and the girl would sneak out at night and go down by the train tracks and do it.

I must have had a weird look on my face because Kendall looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “Yes. They did it. They. Had. Sex.” She said this nice and slow for me, to make sure I understood.

I told her that I knew what sex was, though it made my stomach feel gross saying it out loud. I told her I thought way back in the old days they were pretty strict about stuff like that. She told me that lots of fifteen-year-olds had sex.

I looked at her closely. Kendall is fifteen and is very pretty. She has long blond hair that my mom says most women have to pay a hundred bucks a month to get. Kendall’s skin turns brown in the summer and she has curves. I’m pale and never tan no matter how much time I spend in the sun. I just get sunburned, peel and then turn white again. I also don’t have curves, plus I’m short for my grade. People always think I’m younger than I am. I wonder if Kendall is doing it. Boys are always calling our house.

Then I started thinking about Gabe and wondering if he ever had sex with anyone.

Kendall told me to close my mouth and not act so surprised. She told me that she wasn’t having sex, that there wasn’t anyone in our loser town that she would let touch her. She wanted to wait until she went away to college. Then she told me to shut up again and let her finish the story, that she had homework to do.

She said that Joseph Wither and the girl, Lucy, would sneak out and have sex down by the railroad tracks and one day her dad caught them. He dragged his daughter away and told Joseph that if he ever came near Lucy again he would kill him.

That made me start thinking about the school project and how in the world we are going to give a report about two teenagers doing it by the railroad tracks. Somehow I don’t think Mr. Dover is going to let us talk about that. I wonder if it’s too late to change our topic to Johnny Appleseed or Sleepy Hollow.

Just then Kendall’s friend Emery came into the room and wanted to know what we were talking about. Kendall filled her in, making me look like a stupid idiot, of course, and Emery jumped on the bed and said, “Oooh, this story is so scary.” Emery, when she isn’t totally ignoring me, is actually pretty nice. She has really long, thick brown hair that Kendall says she flatirons every day. It takes her like an hour each time.

Kendall kept telling the story and said that, one night, Joseph and Lucy made plans to meet down by the tracks near the train depot but Lucy didn’t show up. Lucy’s family just up and moved away and she never got a chance to say goodbye to Joseph.

Emery takes over the story and says that Joseph was devastated. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t go to school. Emery’s eyes got big and excited and she started talking in a whispery, ghosty voice, so I knew she was getting to the good part of the story. She said that Wither started hanging out by the railroad tracks, just sitting there waiting for Lucy to come to him. Then one night his house was burned down with his family inside and he disappeared. I can just imagine it. Joseph Wither walking along the railroad tracks going from town to town searching for his lost love. It was very romantic.