Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,13
at running as I was at everything else. I tore, strained, but the doors shut, and the bus pulled away, and that was the last time I saw him.
I’d sworn that I’d never let a boy steal me, steal my heart, my mind, any single part of me. I’d sworn it over and over since I was old enough to know the difference.
But my knees hit the pavement with a crack anyway, and I lost it, I totally lost it, one second, two seconds, head hanging, eyes gushing, but people could see, they might be watching. I got back up, and left two bloody scrapes on the sidewalk where my kneecaps had been.
I thought about finding Zoe and Buttercup and spilling my guts and telling them my secrets. I could see them in my head, black dresses and striped socks, patting my shoulders and graciously tolerating my new vulnerability while losing respect for me with every tear that slid down my face.
I went over to the Hunt house instead and lost my virginity to Midnight.
I BARELY EVEN noticed when the Wolf did what she did at the Roman Luck house. My head was all caught up in the unforgivables, who were bothering me, even with the sugar, so I’d started thinking up a plan to get rid of them for good.
I decided to show Midnight the hayloft. The hayloft is where events happen and plots unfold and I wanted events to happen and plots to unfold.
WINK DIDN’T CRY or anything. I don’t know why I thought she would. The Bells never cried. That’s one of the reasons they were impossible to bully.
She was quiet as I walked her back home, but then, she’d been pretty quiet the whole night. And I didn’t know her well enough to know if that’s how she usually was anyway. She didn’t talk in school, but neither did I, and it didn’t prove a thing.
“Do you want to see the hayloft, Midnight?”
We stepped out of the trees and back onto her farm. Two of the dogs got up from where they were sleeping in the long grass near the chicken coop. They shook themselves and came over to greet us, soft, warm tongues on my cold hands.
“Yes I do, Wink.”
And she smiled, lips parting slightly, eyes bright. Just like that. Like she’d already forgotten that her dress had been pulled up and her unicorn underwear seen by a dozen kids from school.
How did she do it? How did she not care?
I was in awe of her, all of a sudden.
I used to be in awe of Poppy. All those years ago, laughing at her blood-dripping knees at the edge of my driveway, her bicycle in a heap beside her.
That’s how I used to be.
Wink’s farmhouse was dark and I figured it must be around eleven. The lights were still on in my house across the road, though, which was typical. Dad often read and worked until deep into the night. We were both night owls. Mom and Alabama were morning people.
I walked over to the ladder I’d seen Wink on earlier. I put my hand on a rung, and started climbing. I’d never been a guy for heights—that was my brother, who used to go cliff-jumping at the alpine lake near Kill Devil Peak. But I’d never seen the point of risking your life for one good fall.
Up and up. My hands were sweaty and my right palm slipped. I looked down at Wink’s red head, coming up beneath me, and felt all right again. I got to the top of the ladder and put one knee in the square opening, and then the other, and I was inside the hayloft.
Watery white moonlight streamed between the cracks in the boards, so I could see pretty well. Wink crawled in behind me, quick and easy like she’d done it a million times, which I guess she had.
The hay smelled nice. Kind of sweet and dry like sawdust. There were square bales of it everywhere, all over the big, airy, angled-ceiling room. Most were piled up against one wall, but the floor was covered in a thick carpet of hay too.
Wink picked up something from the ground, and then reached into her pocket with her free hand. I heard a fzzt sound, and then a flame cut through the darkness. She lit the lantern she was holding, and set it back down. The hayloft filled with shadows.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked. “A lantern with all this hay?”
Wink