Promise Not to Tell: A Novel by Jennifer McMahon Read Free Book Online Page B

to Del. He made howling sounds like an animal trying to speak. Spit ran down his chin. The two bigger boys pushed him up against Del, who just stood her ground. She dropped the twig she was smoking and ground it out with her foot, then leaned forward and kissed Mike Shane on the lips. It was a long, soap opera kind of kiss, and when Del pulled away, Mike’s face was no longer pale but a vivid, burning red. The kids gathered around squealed, laughed, said gross .
    “Ew! Potato Girl germs,” Ellie said.
    “Worse than cooties,” Samantha added.
    “Poor Mute Mike,” one boy said.
    “They deserve each other,” sang back another.
    Then the party was broken up by Miss Johnstone, who demanded to know what was going on.
    “Playing cowboys,” said Del. “I’m sheriff,” she added, smiling, pointing to her shimmering badge.
     
     
     
    W HY’D YOU LET THEM do that today?” I asked later, when I met Del back by the dead crow.
    “What?”
    “The way they teased you and Mike. Why’d you kiss him? You didn’t have to.”
    “What was I gonna do?” she snorted.
    “Go get Miss Johnstone. Holler out. Anything.”
    “Yeah, right,” she said.
    “You could have tried.”
    “It wasn’t so bad.”
    “What was it like?”
    “What?”
    “Kissing Mike Shane.”
    “Like kissing any boy, I guess.”
    “Have you kissed lots of boys?”
    She shrugged casually and pulled back the sleeves of her shirt. Her left forearm was covered in purple bruises that I was sure hadn’t been there the day before.
    “Enough.”
    With that, Del tore off toward the pasture where her pony was penned, pointing her fingers like the barrels of guns, shooting everything in her path.
    “I’m Wyatt Earp!” she hollered. “Gonna get me a bad guy. Come on, Deputy. Catch me if you can!”
    So I chased Del through the garden, past the horse fence, both of us shooting from pointed fingers, her yelling, Catch me if you can, the whole way. I chased her past the pigpen, keeping my distance from the fence, not slowing to try to get a look at their teeth. We ran to the root cellar, which Del announced was a bank being robbed. We drew our guns and threw the wooden door open, hoping to catch the robbers in the act.
    “Shoot ’em dead!” Sheriff Del cried.
    “Shoot who dead?” asked the raspy voice behind us.
    We turned and saw Del’s brother Nicky. He had a real rifle in his hands, a BB gun, probably the one he used to kill the unfortunate bird hanging in the field.
    Suddenly Del wasn’t Wyatt Earp anymore.
    “Take us shooting, Nicky,” she whined, grabbing the fabric of his white T-shirt and twisting it into a ball as she pleaded.
    “No way, Del.” The boy spoke to his sister, but studied me with his sly fox smile. He was long and tan. His arms hung low, looking impossibly dark as they poked out from the sleeves of his white T-shirt. He wore stained blue jeans and the same huge, worn work-boots as the day before. His face looked as if it were chiseled from some dark, exotic wood.
    “Take us, or I’ll tell Daddy about you know what,” threatened Del, still tugging at the shirt.
    “Bullshit. I’ll tell Daddy you’ve got a friend who comes over.”
    “Take us, or I’ll tell him, Nicky. I swear.”
    “No way.” Nicky jerked his shirt out of Del’s grip and took off running toward the back field.
    “The bank robber’s getting away!” shouted Del. “Stop him! I think it’s Billy the Kid!”
    We took off after Nicky, chasing him through the garden, the field of peas, and into the woods, up the path that I took home. It looked like he was going to lead us straight to New Hope, but he jogged down an overgrown path I’d never noticed off to the left. The path went on a ways, the vegetation thick and jungle-like, before it opened into a clearing. In the center of this grassy area stood a tiny, leaning cabin, like something from a fairy tale. A witch’s house, a gathering place for trolls.
    Nicky was stooped over, his hands on his knees,