It was on the first day of summer vacation that Poppy found out she was going to die.
It happened on Monday, the first real day of vacation (the weekend didn't count). Poppy woke up feeling gloriously weightless and thought, No school. Sunlight was streaming in the window, turning the sheer hangings around her bed filmy gold. Poppy pushed them aside and jumped out of bed and winced.
Ouch. That pain in her stomach again.-Sort of a gnawing, as if something were eating its way toward her back. It helped a little if she bent over.
No, Poppy thought. I refuse to be sick during summer vacation. I refuse. A little power of positive thinking is what's needed here.
Grimly, doubled over-think positive, idiot!-she made her way down the hall to the turquoise-and gold-tiled bathroom. At first she thought she was going to throw up, but then the pain eased as suddenly as it had come. Poppy straightened and regarded her tousled reflection triumphantly.
"Stick with me, kid, and you'll be fine," she whispered to it, and gave a conspiratorial wink. Then she leaned forward, seeing her own green eyes narrow in suspicion. There on her nose were four freckles.
Four anda half, if she were completely honest, which Poppy North usually was. How childish, how-cute!
Poppy stuck her tongue out at herself and then turned away with great dignity, without bothering to comb the wild coppery curls that clustered over her head.
She maintained the dignity until she got to the kitchen, where Phillip, her twin brother, was eating Special K. Then she narrowed her eyes again, this time at him. It was bad enough to be small, slight, and curly-haired--to look, in fact, as much like an elf as anything she'd ever seen sitting on a buttercup in a children's picture book--hut to have a twin who was tall, Viking-blond, and classically handsome .. well, that just showed a certain deliberate malice in the makeup of the universe, didn't it?
"Hello, Phillip," she said in a voice heavy with menace.
Phillip, who was used to his sister's moods, was unimpressed. He lifted his gaze from the comic section of the L.A. Times for a moment. Poppy had to admit that he had nice eyes: questing green eyes with very dark lashes. They were the only thing the twins had in common.
Phillip said flatly, and went back to the comics. Not many kids Poppy knew read the newspaper, but that was Phil all over. Like Poppy, he'd been a junior at El Camino High last year, and unlike Poppy, he'd made straight A's while starring on the football team, the hockey team, and the baseball team. Also serving as class president One of Poppy's greatest joys in life was teasing him. She thought he was too straitlaced.
Just now she giggled and shrugged, giving up the menacing look. "Where's Cliff and Mom?" Cliff Hilgard was their stepfather of three years and even straighter-laced than Phil.
"Cliff's at work. Mom's getting dressed. You'd better eat something or she'll get on your case."
"Yeah, yeah ..." Poppy went on tiptoe to rummage through a cupboard. Finding a box of Frosted Flakes, she thrust a hand in and delicately pulled out one flake. She ate it dry.
It wasn't all bad being short and elfin. She did a few dance steps to the refrigerator, shaking the cereal box in rhythm.
"I'm a ... sex pixie!" she sang, giving it a footstomping rhythm.
"No, you're not," Phillip said with devastating calm. "And why don't you put some clothes on?"
Holding the refrigerator door open, Poppy looked down at herself. She was wearing the oversize T-shirt she'd slept in. It covered ' her like a , minidress. "This isclothes," she said serenely, taking a Diet Coke from the fridge.
There was a knock at the kitchen door. Poppy saw who it was through the screen.
"Hi, James! C'mon in."
James Rasmussen came in, taking off his wraparound Ray-Bans. Looking at him, Poppy felt apang-as always. It didn't matter that she had seenhim every day, practically, for the past ten years. Shestill felt a quick sharp throb in her chest, somewherebetween sweetness and pain, when first confronted with him every morning.
It wasn't just his outlaw good looks, which alwaysreminded her vaguely of James Dean. He had silky light brown hair, a subtle, intelligent face, and grayeyes that were alternately intense and cool. He was the handsomest boy at El Camino High, but that wasn't it, that wasn't what Poppy responded to. It was something insidehim, something mysterious andcompelling and always just out of reach. It made her heart beat fast and her skin tingle.