16-17. / Sneak Peek 3

The first bird to fall didn’t make news. It dropped from the sky above the garage while my brother was checking the Doberman’s gums for signs of the rabbit that had gone missing from the hutch. The bird bounced off the roof and hit the driveway head-first.

The girl did not slip into her favorite miniskirt—black pleather with a chrome zipper, short enough to show the tattoo of a starling on her thigh. [And so, the bird was not exposed, wings spread, bright eye blind.

Denise has the Red Hots. She doles them out one at a time. One for me then one for her and then we eat them and make squinchy faces and then she doles them out again.

The wolf came to live with us that winter. My parents explained that the government was making her come to stay, which didn’t seem right to me. She was a wolf, after all. Wolves aren’t supposed to live in houses. I lay on the bottom bunk. Mom and Dad talked in the kitchen.