Wink Poppy Midnight Read Online Free Page A

over the road straight to my nose.
    It seemed so much nicer over there, in Wink’s world. Much,much nicer than being in this empty, foreign bedroom with a red-blooded Poppy.
    â€œDon’t call her what?
Feral?
It’s better than Wink. Wink is like something from a children’s book.
And then Wink and her pink horse, Caramel, rode off to Fairyland on a path made of clouds.
”
    Poppy was watching the farm, closely, almost as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Look at all those kids running around. Why should Wink get so many siblings while I have none? Leaf said once that I would have been a better person, if only I’d had a sibling or two. He said I’d be ‘less selfish by half.’ As if I—”
    â€œLeaf?” I said. “Leaf Bell? You used to know him? People at school said he’s down in the Amazon searching for a cure for cancer. They said he sleeps on the ground and eats nothing but nuts and berries and he speaks their Mura language like a local—”
    â€œShut up.” Her eyes were back on mine. “Just shut up, Midnight.”
    She went to the door, opened it, left.
    Came back.
    She sidled up to me and put two fingertips on my heart. Pressed.
    â€œYou and the Bell girl . . . you looked good together.”
    I said nothing, waiting for the punch line.
    â€œI mean it, Midnight. You should get to know her better.” She moved her fingers to my cheek, and ran them down, over my jawbone, across my neck. “Wink is weird and quiet and so are you. You two should be friends.”
    I flinched. “What are you up to, Poppy?”
    â€œNothing. I’m just trying to be a better person. I’m bored with being mean, bored, bored, bored. So I’m attempting to improve myself. I’m setting you up with the weird girl across the road. I want you to be happy.”
    â€œNo you don’t. You don’t even know what the word means.”
    But she just shrugged, and laughed, and left.

I SNUCK OVER to the Bell farm once a few years ago, and just watched the goings-on from the shadow of the woods. I was there for a while, and they never even looked in my direction, not any of them, like I was invisible, like I was a ghost.
    I had this idea that I’d catch Leaf off guard, and maybe a look would pass over his face, fleeting but there, really there, and then I would know. I would know that he thought of me.
    He and Wink were outside with their siblings, they had a picnic and then played some game with a lot of hootingand hollering, and he was different with them, so different, especially the pretty brunette sister, he was rowdy and loud and he laughed all the time. I’d never even heard his laugh, not his
real
laugh anyway. And after a while I started feeling bad about myself, standing alone in the woods while they all laughed and played together, and I’m Poppy, I never feel bad about myself, ever, so I went home and never did it again.
    The eighth time I followed Leaf to the hayloft, I kissed him with my whole soul, all of me, all the bad parts and the good parts too. I kissed and kissed him, his thin straight nose, his freckled cheeks, his wide bony shoulders, his hard white torso, but his green eyes never even met mine, not once. So I got naked, I thought I would stun him with my stunning beauty, but he only shrugged his shoulders and said I could be the spitting image of Helen of Troy for all he cared, I was still not worth the breath I breathed.
    His younger sister called out from somewhere in the yard and he went down to her without another word. I cried while I put my clothes back on, fast, fast, the hay caught up in the creases and scratching me all the way home, but it felt good, like the nuns and their hair shirts, a punishment on the path to redemption.

W HEN THE H ERO knocked on our old screen door at sunset I thought he was coming to get his fortune told, like everyone else who came to our house.
    He came