Brighter Than the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

that there’s not a king of England right now.
    “Yes. Because she’s yours. I got pregnant right before you got the boy.”
    He turns back to me, and I slam my eyes shut.
    “I just need you to take her for a few days. Just until I can hunt down my aunt Donna. You remember her.”
    He nods. “Don’t mean I can take her.”
    “Please, Earl. I have nowhere else to turn.” When he doesn’t budge, she says, “I can pay.”
    That gets his attention.
    She pushes the envelope toward him again. “I got two thousand in there. It’s yours if you’ll just keep her safe until I can find Aunt Donna.”
    He hesitates. Looks the ragamuffin up and down. Then agrees with a low rumble in his chest. “You got one week, then she’s out on the street.”
    She nods, her face suddenly bright like all her prayers were just answered, and I wonder if she even knows the man she’s talking to. If she realizes she’s just delivered her daughter into the arms of the devil.

9
    Her name is Kim. Kim Millar. She’s shy and hides behind anything she can find, which suits Earl just fine. I can’t wait for her to leave, because then I can ditch this Popsicle stand. The minute I get a chance, I’m outta here. Earl hasn’t messed with me at all the whole time she’s been here, though. He’s mad. It’s been two weeks, and Kim’s mother still hasn’t shown up. He keeps threatening to take her downtown and dump her off at the nearest shelter.
    He’s gone to look for Kim’s mother when I take the skinny shell of a girl a bowl of ramen noodles. She’s hiding behind the couch again. It’s her favorite place to hide, so I have to hunch over and hand her the noodles through the tiny space between it and the wall.
    She doesn’t take them. She never takes them.
    “You have to eat,” I say to her.
    “I’ll eat when my mom gets back.” It’s the first thing she’s said to me in two weeks.
    Surprised, I sit beside the couch. “That could be days.” I know she eats. Just not in front of me or Earl. She waits until we go to bed; then she scrounges for food and hides it away with her behind the couch. I can see a crunched box of crackers from where I sit and an empty can of deviled ham.
    She scoots farther back into the tunnel, so I start to eat her noodles. I slurp them up, making lots of noise, until she caves.
    “Maybe I’ll have a little.”
    I pass her the bowl. She inches closer.
    “How old are you?” I ask.
    She takes a mouthful of noodles and mumbles softly, “Four and a half.”
    “I’m seven and three-quarters.”
    “I don’t like Earl.”
    I laugh. “I don’t like Earl either.”
    “Is he your dad?”
    “Hell no.”
    She nods unfazed, clearly used to bad words. Earl told me her mom is a prostitute and they were probably living on the streets.
    “Do you have a house?” I ask, very interested, as I am going to be living on the streets soon myself.
    She shakes her head.
    “Where do you sleep?”
    Now she ducks her head and slurps up another spoonful of noodles.
    “Is your mom really dying?”
    She nods.
    “Do you—?”
    “Why do you have seizures?” she asks just before she lifts the bowl and drinks the juice, making slurping sounds that rival my own. Little droplets slide down her chin.
    “Who says I have seizures?”
    She swallows hard and lowers the bowl. “Earl. You were having one today and he got mad.”
    I cross my arms over my chest. He didn’t need to tell her that. I had to see Dutch. She was … upset. I could feel it. When I go to her, she is at a park with her stepmom. She tells her a little girl that the whole town is looking for is making castles in the sandbox. The little girl’s mom runs and stumbles and calls out to her daughter. Denise is mortified. She can’t see ghosts like we can. She doesn’t believe her, and right there in front of everybody and God, she slaps Dutch right on the face.
    Anger consumes me almost as bad as when Dutch was taken into that apartment. Everyone was yelling