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Chapter 1
THE WORLD IS FULL of broken people Splints, casts, s, and time can’t mend fractured hearts, wounded minds, torn spirits
Currently, sunshine was Micky Bellsong’s ust was an apothecary with a deep supply of this prescription
Tuesday afternoon, wearing a bikini and oiled for broiling, Micky reclined in a lounge chair in her aunt Geneva’s backyard The nylon webbing was a nausea-inducing shade of green, and it sagged, too, and the aluh the lawn furniture were far older than Micky, as only twenty-eight, but who sometimes felt ancient
Her aunt, fro except a reliable sense of huarden” That would be the rosebush
The property ider than it was deep, to allow the full length of the house trailer to face the street Instead of a laith trees, a narrow covered patio shaded the front entrance Here in back, a strip of grass extended from one side of the lot to the other, but it provided a scant twelve feet of turf between the door and the rear fence The grass flourished because Geneva watered it regularly with a hose
The rosebush, however, responded perversely to tender care In spite of aular aeration of its roots and periodic treatment with ly and as blighted us any speciardens of Hell
Face to the sun, eyes closed, striving to eht, yet troubled by insistentfor half an hour when a small sweet voice asked, “Are you suicidal?”
She turned her head toward the speaker and saw a girl of nine or ten standing at the low, sagging picket fence that separated this trailer space frolare veiled the kid’s features
“Skin cancer kills,” the girl explained
“So does vitamin D deficiency”
“Not likely”
“Your bones get soft”
“Rickets I know But you can get vitas, and dairy products That’s better than too much sun”
Closing her eyes again, turning her face to the deadly blazing heavens, Micky said, “Well, I don’t intend to live forever”
“Why not?”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but nobody does”
“I probably will,” the girl declared
“How’s that work?”
“A little extraterrestrial DNA”
“Yeah, right You’re part alien”
“Not yet I have to make contact first”
Micky opened her eyes again and squinted at the ET wannabe “You’ve been watching too many reruns of The X-Files, kid”
“I’ve only got until irlfence to a point where it had entirely collapsed She clattered across the flattened section of pickets and approached Micky “Do you believe in life after death?”
“I’m not sure I believe in life before death,” Micky said
“I knew you were suicidal”
“I’m not suicidal I’m just a wiseass”
Even after stepping off the splintered fence staves onto the grass, the girlnext door We just moved in My name’s Leilani”
As Leilani drew closer, Micky saw that she wore a co, from the ankle to above the knee
“Isn’t that a Hawaiian name?” Micky asked
“My s Hawaiian”
Leilani wore khaki shorts Her right leg was fine, but in the cradle of steel and padding, her left leg appeared to be malformed
“In fact,” Leilani continued, “old Sinsemilla—that’s my mother— is a little nuts, period”
“Sinsemilla? That’s a …”
“Type of marijuana Maybe she was Cindy Sue or Barbara way back in the Jurassic period, but she’s called herself Sinse as I’ve known her” Leilani settled into a hideous orange-and-blue chair as decrepit as Micky’s bile-green lounge “This lawn furniture sucks”
“So”
“She ought to’ve been paid to take it Anyway, they put old Sinsemilla in an institution once and shot like fifty or a hundred thousand volts of electricity through her brain, but it didn’t help”
“You shouldn’t make up stuff like that about your own mother”
Leilani shrugged “It’s the truth I couldn’tas weird as what is In fact, they blasted her brain several times Probably, if they’d done it just once more, old Sinsemilla would’ve developed a taste for electricity Now she’d be sticking her finger in a socket about ten times a day She’s an addictive personality, but she means well”
Although the sky was a furnace grate, although Micky was slick with coconut-scented lotion and sweat, she’d grown all but oblivious of the sun “How old are you, kid?”
“Nine But I’m precocious What’s your name?”
“Micky”
“That’s a name for a boy or a e are named Michelle or Heather or Courtney”
“My age?”
“No offense intended”
“It’s Michelina”
Leilani wrinkled her nose, “too precious”
” Michelina Birdsong”
“No wonder you’re suicidal”
“Therefore—Micky”
“I’m Klonk”
“You’re what?”
“Leilani Klonk”
Micky cocked her head and frowned skeptically “I’ you tell me”
“Sometimes names are destiny Look at you Two pretty naeous as a over”
“Thanks I guess”
“Me, on the other hand—I’ve got one pretty name followed by a clinker like Klonk Half of me is sort of pretty—“
“You’re very pretty,” Micky assured her
This was true Golden hair Eyes as blue as gentian petals The clarity of Leilani’s features promised that hers was not the transient beauty of childhood, but an enduring quality
“Half of ht turn heads one day, but that’s balanced by the fact that I’m a mutant”
“You’re not a mutant”
The girl sta brace to rattle softly She raised her left hand, which proved to be deforer were fused into a single it that was connected by a thick web of tissue to a gnarled and stubby er