Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,12

didn’t show up for work. Days went by. When the police finally broke down the front door they found the inside frozen in time, as if Roman had just stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. There was a coffeepot on the table, stone cold, and a plate with a moldy, half-eaten sandwich. The milk had curdled in the fridge. The radio was even still on, playing sad old Delta blues songs . . . or so went the rumors.

“If I told you what happened to Roman, you wouldn’t believe me,” Wink said out of nowhere, like she could read my mind. Her shoulders shrugged up and disappeared into her messy red hair.

I took the bait. “Yes I would, Wink. I’d believe you.”

Wink shook her head, but she was smiling.

“Let me guess. Ghosts drove Roman Luck screaming into the night, and now he’s off in an asylum somewhere, stark raving mad.”

She shook her head again. “The house is haunted, but that’s not why Roman left. Sometimes people just leave, Midnight. They realize they are on the wrong path, or that they are in the wrong story, and they just go off in the middle of the night and leave.”

Here was my chance. Here was the opportunity for me to say that I knew all about people leaving, that my mom took my brother and left, not in the middle of the night, but she left all the same.

The moment was slipping by, slipping, and I was letting it . . .

Wink gave me a searching kind of look, like she knew what I was thinking anyway. “Mim once read cards for a very, very old woman who used to live in Paris. She told my mother that she had an apartment there, on the Right Bank, still filled with her furniture and dresses and everything. She hadn’t been back since World War II. She said that one day she decided she was done with Paris, and the war, and she never went there again.”

“Is that true, Wink?”

“Of course it’s true. All the strangest stories are true.”

And then we both abruptly stopped talking. We just stood next to each other and didn’t talk.

It was coming back, the feeling from earlier, the calm, peaceful feeling . . .

Laughter.

I looked up.

The Yellows were staring at us. Poppy too. She said something and they laughed again. And then she repeated it. Louder.

“I bet Feral Bell has little-girl underwear on. I bet she still wears white cotton panties with polka dots or butterflies. What do you say, Yellows? Should we find out?”

“Shut up, Poppy.” And I tried to say it cool, say it how Alabama would say it, but I must have done it wrong, because Poppy just smirked at me, long and slow.

I looked at Wink and her face was serene. Calm.

“Grab them,” Poppy said.

And the Yellows were on us. The guys held my arms and I couldn’t move. Buttercup and Zoe went for Wink, and she didn’t budge, didn’t even flinch. Just stood there, looking peaceful. Almost like she’d been expecting this all along, and was glad to get it over with.

The non-Yellows gathered around. Watching. Waiting to see what Poppy would do next. Tonisha and Guillermo and Finn and Della and Sung. Rich shiny hair. Rich shiny clothes. Rich shiny faces.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t, Poppy. Please.” I didn’t even try to sound like my brother this time.

But her arms shot out and grabbed the edge of Wink’s green dress, and yanked it up.

Wink’s skinny white legs, red socks to her knobby knees.

Wink’s underwear. White, with little unicorns on them.

Just as Poppy had predicted.

Poppy pointed. “See?” she said.

And laughed.

And laughed.

LEAF GRADUATED AND left. I was sixteen and I wasn’t sure I had a heart, until it fucking broke in two, ripped shreds and veins and blood everywhere. He didn’t even tell me where he went, just up and off and I even saw him the day after graduation, standing on the road at the end of my street, waiting for the bus, the sun setting behind him, green duffel bag over his shoulder. I would have thought he did it on purpose, caught the bus where I was bound to see him, except that would have meant Leaf thought about me, and I knew he didn’t.

He gave me a nod as he climbed the steps, that’s it, like I was a fucking postman or a stranger in the street. I tried to reach him, ran all the way, I was as good