Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn Read Free Book Online

pink ears, at his crewcut, hair so short I can see his scalp. Did I really kiss him last night? Did I drink three beers or four? Did Ellie and Bobbi Jo and me sit in the creek and sing? Did Ralph and Cheryl go off into the woods and not come back? And the scene with Cheryl and Buddy and Ralph, the anger breathing fire in the air, did that really happen?
    The whole night seems like a dream, a story somebody told me. I glance at Ellie. The heat has curled her ponytail. Wisps of hair escape and cluster in ringlets on her neck. She seems far away too. I almost expect her to turn to me and ask if I'd seen the fairies hiding in the trees, casting spells on us like Puck in
Midsummer Night's Dream.
All night we'd wandered through the woods, enchanted, she might say, lost in magic and dreams.
    On the bridge, Paul takes out a pack of Luckies. "Anybody want a cig?"
    I glance at Ellie and she shrugs why not. When she takes one, I take one.
I will if you will.
We need practice, we need to learn how to inhale.
    The four of us sit in a row on the railing and smoke. The night's spell comes back, and I'm convinced the woods are full of magic. I feel eyes watching us, hidden in the deep green. A rustling here, a scurrying there. For some reason, I shiver and breathe in so much smoke that I cough and choke and almost fall into the creek.
    Charlie laughs and slaps my back a few times. "Don't fall, Long Tall Sally," he says and puts an arm around my shoulders. "You kissed me last night," he whispers.
    I blush. "It must have been the beer," I tell him.
    "Maybe you and me should get together with a six-pack every night." He wiggles his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
    I laugh and shake my head, but even while I'm laughing him off, I'm thinking how much I liked kissing Charlie. Or maybe just how much I like kissing.
    I finish my cigarette, toss it into the creek, and watch it drift away. Ellie tosses hers after mine and slides off the railing. "We should go," she says. "Cheryl and Bobbi Jo are probably waiting for us at my house."
    We're back in the woods again. The path is splashed with sunlight and birds are singing from hidden places in the trees. Ellie is walking with Paul. I'm walking with Charlie. We must look like a mismatched couple. But for once I don't care. I like Charlie. I like him a lot.
    Charlie's telling me a funny story about his father coming home drunk one night and going into the wrong row house. "He can't understand why everything seems backward, turned around, like a mirror image of our house with everything in the wrong place. He starts to go up to bed and sees Mr. Evans at the top of the steps, pointing a gun at him and shouting, 'Stop or I'll shoot!'"
    Charlie pauses to control his laughter and goes on. "Dad looks at him and says, 'Bob, what the hell are you doing in my house?'"
    We're all laughing now. "After that," Charlie says, "Mr. Evans made sure he locked the door before he went to bed."
    We come to the edge of the woods and step out into the morning sunlight. The heat hits us in the face. I can almost feel the starch in my crinoline dissolve.
    "Whew," Paul says. "It's going to be a scorcher."
    "It already
is
a scorcher," Charlie says.
    We cross the park, so ordinary in the daylight. A Rolling Rock bottle catches the sunlight, a reminder of last night. Paul picks it up and tosses it in the trash with the others. "We don't want cops thinking kids hang out here and drink beer," he says.
    Charlie nods. "They'll start cruising by every night, shining their spotlights, hoping to catch some juvenile delinquents." He looks at me. "And I'll never get another kiss from Long Tall Sally."
    We all laugh, but something moves inside me at the thought of kissing Charlie again. Can you be in love with two boys at the same time? Suppose it had been Don I kissed last night? Confused, I turn my head, afraid I'm blushing. I don't want Charlie to know what I'm thinking. Or Ellie either.
    At the corner, the boys go their way and we go ours.