Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,18

bare. So my room was just the bed, the bare windows, two black bookcases (full), and one dresser. Plus the aforementioned wardrobe. Nothing on the walls. I thought I might put up the map of Middle-earth that Alabama got me for Christmas, right over the bed, maybe. But nothing else. I liked the open space.

Mom used to say I was a minimalist. But Alabama was a pack rat like her, and their endless boxes of pack-rat things were now sitting in the musty brick basement, filling it to the brim. I wondered if they would ever come back for them, or just start acquiring new pack-rat things in France.

Dad didn’t seem to mind the boxes. He didn’t mind much of anything, concerning Mom and Alabama.

Dad loved my half brother just as much as he loved me . . . and maybe this should have pissed me off, since Alabama got most of my mom’s love, and half my dad’s as well. But I was sort of awed by my dad’s capacity for loving a son who wasn’t his blood. I think Alabama was too. He and Mom were of the same mind about pretty much everything, but with Dad . . . he always gave in, even when he didn’t agree.

I used to catch Alabama standing in the doorway of Dad’s office, watching him as he huddled over his rare books. He would have this soft look in his eyes, this small smile on his face, and the whole scene was kind of beautiful.

I missed my brother.

I went to the windows and put my palms on the sill and breathed in the green-smelling summer air, grass and dew and pine. The leaves on the apple trees twinkled in the morning sun like stars.

The light hit my bare chest, and I leaned into it.

I liked being out in the country. It suited me better than town.

Three red-haired kids were running around the Bell farm. The dogs were barking happily at a brown-and-white goat, and one of the kids had climbed on the goat’s back and was shouting, Tally-ho billy, tally-ho . . . but the goat was just ignoring everyone, standing still and eating some wildflowers growing near an old red water pump.

I didn’t see Wink.

I closed my eyes. That girl made me feel like I was dreaming. Broad daylight dreaming.

She would make a good Sandman, I guess.

After the hayloft kissing, Wink had cuddled into me, trusting and easy, like she’d been doing it her whole life. Her skinny legs nestled between mine, her palms spread open over my chest. Her face pressed into my neck so tight I could feel it when she blinked, soft lashes on my skin.

I’d only ever kissed Poppy, before the hayloft. Poppy did everything flawless, perfect. She knew right where to put her lips, and yours.

And yet, Poppy’s kisses were flimsy and soft, like butterfly wings or fresh bread crumbs.

But Wink kissed . . . deep.

Deep as a dark, misty forest path.

One that led to blood, and love, and death, and monsters.

She kissed with yearning.

I’d felt that yearning before. I’d yearned at Poppy all year, so hard I thought I might burst into flames, spontaneous yearning combustion. But I’d never felt any yearning back.

I stretched into the fresh air bouncing through my window, and smiled.

Who knew there was so much going on inside a small, red-haired girl with strawberry-buttoned overalls.

Alabama dated a lot of girls. A lot of girls. Girls went to him like flies to honey, like kids to puddles, like cats to shafts of sun.

I once asked him if he liked any over the others. If any of them meant anything. We were walking home from a late-night horror movie. I remembered Alabama’s boot heels click-clacking on the cobblestone street that led to our old house. My brother stopped walking and looked at me. He always wore his hair long, past his shoulders. He sometimes tied it back with a thin strap of leather, but not that night. It was blowing free in the summer breeze, flickering black then blue then black again in the yellow streetlight.

“Midnight, do you know Talley Jasper?”

I did. Talley was a puzzle. She had waist-long brown hair and played the cello—she was always lugging that big instrument around. She sat by herself at lunch, reading a book while she ate an apple. She was always eating apples. Her parents owned some overpriced clothing company, but she never acted like the other rich kids, spoiled and aggressive and entitled