Matchbox Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

park again. The other man had vanished as well, and she wondered if he’d even been involved. Probably not. Maybe his presence had even encouraged Jeremy White to leave. She felt a twinge of guilt for thinking the worst of him.
    “Are we going home?” Lissa asked.
    Marley weighed her options. “No. We were only going to leave if that man didn’t. You can go play more.”
    But she didn’t just sit on the bench watching after that. She stayed close, and she studied every adult who entered the park through narrowed eyes.
     

-five-
     
     
    “ P enny, I’m so happy to see you!” Marley held the apartment door open so her friend could manhandle two large shopping bags into the living room. The twins, sitting at the table eating dinner, watched curiously.
    “Yes! I’m glad to be back. I really missed all the local comforts, and you guys.” Penny put the bags on the floor and paused to look over Marley, so Marley returned the favor.
    Of course, Penny always looked good. She wore expensive makeup, chosen to subtly accentuate her bronze skin and enhance her brown eyes. Her clothes, as always, were stunning: a blue wraparound skirt and an off-the-shoulder white blouse accented with chunky gold jewelry. Shoulder-length dark hair curled artfully around her face, and her fingernails, when she pushed it away, were recently manicured.
    “You cut your hair,” Marley remarked before hugging her. “I think it looks good.”
    “I’m still getting used to it,” Penny confessed. “Sometimes I’m not sure it was a good idea. But you—look at you. Branwyn said you’re taking care of Zach’s little girls?”
    Marley twisted her mouth in a half-smile. “Something like that. They’re eating dinner right now. They asked me for macaroni and cheese. That seemed reasonable, right?”
    “It’s on every kids’ menu in the country.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But guess what Zachariah never lets them eat?”
    Penny looked puzzled. “What, never?”
    Marley smirked. “He gives them ‘cine fredo’ instead.”
    Penny considered. “That makes sense, actually. Kind of European. I didn’t see a lot of kids’ menus there. But how’d you find out?”
    “It turns out four-year-olds, even really bright ones, aren’t very good at lying. Come on, I want to introduce you.”
    Penny looked the girls over. “Being that adorable should be a crime. My mother would flip. How can you tell them apart without the different shirts?”
    Marley said, “It’s a knack. You’ll get the hang of it. Lissa, Kari, this is my friend Penny.” She pointed at each of them as she named them. Both girls looked shyly down at their dinner.
    Then Penny pulled out two boxes from one of her bags. “I just got back from a trip and I brought presents for everybody, including you two. Do you want to open them?”
    Shyness was secondary to opening presents, it seemed. The girls bounced out of their chairs to seize on the wrapped packages. Each box contained a butterfly-winged fairy fashion doll. Kari immediately pulled out all the accessories, while Lissa took hers back to the table to examine as she finished dinner. Unprompted, Kari whispered, “Thank you,” and Lissa looked up, blushed, and echoed the statement.
    “Well done,” said Marley, to both Penny and the girls.
    “I picked them up on my way over,” said Penny, pleased. “Here, this is for you.”
    Marley opened a box to reveal a thick burgundy book. Its cover was fine leather over wood, and the blank pages had the look of handmade paper. She inspected the binding and smiled, then turned to the fragment of handwritten verse inside the cover.
     
    Cobbles like scales
    on a dragon’s back
    she sleeps, chained by concrete
    her dreams secrets swallowed long ago
    in another world she wakes
    and these constructs fall away.
    But what
     
    “You didn’t finish it,” she commented.
    Penny looked down, the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks only visible to an experienced eye. “It wasn't