The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison Read Free Book Online Page A

flyers featuring Annica Steele’s face, a Photoshopped diamond crown atop her perfect hair, one word at the bottom of each flyer: BALLER .
    Not only am I surrounded on all fronts by prom flyers, I’m also surrounded by Jeremy. He makes sure to grab a seat next to me in English class on Monday and, after lunch on Tuesday passes me a note, messily folded. I unfold it in the bathroom, in private. It says: Study? Tonight? I throw it out, then feel bad and have to dig for it in the trash, underneath balled-up paper towels and used-up lip-gloss containers.
    By Wednesday, I can’t wait any longer. I can’t get my mind off of Sapphire or Flynt, the boy who called me pretty. I’m aching to scratch the growing itch of all of the details I’ve yet to discover about their secret sunken city. Instead of taking the bus to school, I hop the 96— a good number, thirty-two threes— and ride to the end of the line. I never used to dream of cutting school, as awful as it could be—I was too scared. But, suddenly, I understand: fearlessness comes when you realize there are more important things to solve than vocab questions and limits. I find my way back to the Dumpsters, hoping to find Flynt scavenging as promised.
    Instead, I find three notes taped, one on top of the other, to the Dumpster closest to the street. Scrawled in mad, loopy script, barely legible, each one (with minor variations) says the same thing. The last one reads:
Dearest Lo,
If I’m not here, it’s because I’ve been called by darker forces to a place known, in the hush-hush, as Malatesta’s. Walk due north two blocks and make a left down the alleyway marked with X s in red paint. Be stealthy. Be brave.
x Flynt
    My heart flutters; he’s left me a note. Every day since we hung out. I follow his instructions—the whole time worrying that he won’t be where he says he is, or that I’ll get too lost to find him, or that this will turn out to be a joke or a prank.
    Luckily, I spot the alleyway Flynt described in his note—subtle red markings, graffiti skulls, forming an ominous border around cement walls.
    Farther down the alleyway is a clearing, and within it, a large lean-to, a huge M whose entrance is painted in drippy black. Tap tap tap, banana , again, tap tap tap, banana , and again, tap tap tap, banana , to be extra safe . I step cautiously inside. There are several tables and chairs, obviously Dumpster-scavenged, scattered unevenly throughout the space. People—pierced, tattooed, Mohawked—are seated or sprawled on the dirty floor, working on various art projects.
    I find Flynt squatting in a corner, painting on a giant wooden board with his hands and elbows, his face furrowed in intense concentration. Every visible part of his body is covered in paint.
    “Flynt?”
    No one looks up.
    “Flynt,” I say, louder this time.
    A girl sitting close to him leans over and blows on his ear. She has studded emeralds pierced into her cheeks.
    “Hey, F,” she says, “you’ve got a visitor.”
    He looks up and grins at me, bear ears standing at attention. I think there might be paint on his teeth. His eyes are fiercely green right now, cheeks flushed.
    “Lo! You found me!” He gets up, wiping his hands on his patched jacket. “Give me a second to pack this stuff away. Then I’m gonna show you all around the mystical world of Neverland.”
    He stoops to lift the heavy board, simultaneously making introductions: “Lo, meet Seraphina—she makes killer wigs, and a million other things it would take too long to name”—the girl with pierced cheeks nods to me—“Marlow, resident puppet maker, poet, revolutionary”—a skinny black guy in rainbow suspenders with a half-shaved head looks up, confused—“and Gretchen, vegan chef, dancer, and illustrator extraordinaire”—a very tall girl in a tutu wide as a hoopskirt and heavy black lace-up boots curtsies to me. “These three pretty much run the place.”
    I wrap my coat around my (now) holey cashmere