Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) Read Online Free PDF Page A

spot.
    Guess he didn’t break your thumbs.
    Sol started typing out I also decided I’m going to stop eating meat, starting tonight. Dad didn’t like that , and said, “So how do we have to break this up?”
    “Why’s your tail wagging?” Meg looked suspiciously around the side of her laptop. “What’d your boyfriend say?”
    “Dunno yet.” He hesitated, but he’d told Carcy now, even if the ram hadn’t responded yet, so he could tell Meg too. “I stopped eating meat.”
    Her mouth gaped until she brought it slowly closed. “Athletic failure and rejection of cultural heritage all in one night? Did you hope Daddy Dearest would have a heart attack and spare you the punishment?”
    “I just figured…I guess…get it all out at once.”
    Beep. Cool , Carcy replied. You’ll feel healthier in no time. :)
    “You sure did that. Tell him about your boyfriend, too?”
    “You’re kidding, right?” It was hard to think about what to type back to Carcy. He wanted to talk more about the evening with his father, the courage he’d had to muster. The ram had no idea what meat-eating meant to a family of wolves. I thought he was going to hit me , he typed.
    “Well, why not get it all out at once?”
    Sol snorted. “I’m not legally an adult for four months. He can still beat the shit out of me. Or lock me in my room, or take away my phone and computer, or send me to anti-gay Bible camp for the summer.”
    “Or what, ground you? You’re not thirteen anymore. But yeah, Bible camp would suck, even if it wouldn’t work.” Meg talked distractedly, staring at her laptop screen. She tapped a couple keys on her keyboard. “So here’s some background on our project. Comin’ to your e-mail.”
    Did he? Carcy asked.
    There didn’t seem to be much he could say to that, except No.
    Sol’s e-mail flashed on his phone. He checked to make sure it was Meg’s message and skimmed it as Carcy’s next text came back. Too bad. If he hit you, you could call Social Services.
    He didn’t type a reply. Instead, he went to his phone’s e-reader to see if “Confession” had been delivered yet. “I started looking at the books you recommended. Pretty interesting.”
    “You don’t have to read them all if you don’t have the time. I’ll do the art research. Mr. Vandermeer says I could be an artist if I could learn to use a color besides black.”
    “I like your black-on-black paintings.”
    She looked up again, her eyes trailing along his arms and down to his tail. “I’d kill for your fur,” she said. “Save me a fortune in dye.”
    He laughed. “Your fur is brown enough anyway.” But his tail wagged, and he felt relaxed for the first time all afternoon. And when he checked his e-reader, “Confession” had loaded. His phone beeped again with another message from Carcy. *strokes your flank* You got time now?
    Doing schoolwork at Meg’s.
    Later, then. *licks your nose*
    *kisses*
    “You reading or sexting?” Meg sounded bored. “If you’re sexting, I wanna see.”
    Sol tapped the book open to the first page. “I’m just…telling him about my evening.”
    “Hey,” Meg said. “Is he interested in baseball?”
    “I, uh…” Sol stared down at his phone. “I don’t think so.”
    “He oughta be interested in your baseball, anyway.” Meg realized what she had said, and pointed at him. “No ‘ball-boy’ jokes.”
    Carcy had, in fact, made one of those jokes, early on in their relationship. Sol pretended to ignore Meg’s comment. “We don’t talk about it that much. What’s that got to do with anything anyway?”
    “Ah, if he encouraged you, maybe you’d do better.”
    Sol had a fleeting vision of sitting on his bed with Carcy beside him, talking excitedly about what Mr. Zerling had said about him, or hearing Carcy praise his play in a game. Stupid, he told himself. Like that’d happen. But for a moment, imagining it, he’d felt that passion stir in him, the pride in putting on his uniform, the