Free The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring Page A

Winnalee! Now get the hell out of that tub!”
    Freeda turned back to Aunt Verdella, her hands on her hips. “Hell, if you’re gonna overindulge in something, it might as well be sex. At least sex won’t rot your liver or clog your goddamn arteries. That’s my theory, anyway.”
    Then her laugh stopped. She marched into the bathroom, where Winnalee was singing a made-up song about fairies.
    â€œWhat are you doing? Don’t let my water out!” Winnalee screamed. We heard a couple wet slaps and then some more yelling.
    Aunt Verdella hurried to the bathroom door. “Come on now, honey,” she said. “Button here is waiting to play with you.”
    I heard the bathwater gurgle as the last of it chugged down the drain, then Winnalee came into the kitchen, butt-naked, her long curls dripping. She didn’t have any red slap marks on her crinkly skin, so I figured maybe she was the one who’d been doing the slapping.
    â€œCome on,” she called to me, as she ran through the kitchen, her feet padding wet prints across the floor.
    â€œGet your ass back here and wipe up these goddamn puddles! You hear me?”
    Winnalee ignored Freeda and kept running.
    I followed her up the stairs, where she dug in her closet for something to wear. She grabbed a pair of red shorts with sailboats on them and a pink shirt with yellow flowers and put them on. She didn’t bother to put on underpants first.
    I watched the door, waiting for Freeda to race up the stairs and give it to Winnalee good for not minding, but she didn’t come.
    â€œHey, I thought of something else we need for our adventure,” Winnalee said.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œA compass. Tommy said the beck is straight west. If we have a compass, we can find it.”
    Out of the two windows above the window seat, I could see the patch of white pine Tommy had pointed to. The one that led to the beck, he said. And to Fossard’s ghost. Just looking out at that clump of trees made me scared.
    Winnalee kicked at the dirty clothes on her floor. She watched me as she did this. When she heard a clunk, Winnalee rooted around with her foot. When she brought her foot up, the handle of a hairbrush was stuck between her toes. She took it from her foot, flicking aside the pair of underwear that was snagged on the bristles. “You’re scared to go look for fairies, aren’t you?” I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head. “You are too,” she said. She tilted her head and her hair dripped down her side, all the way past her hip.
    â€œAll because of that ghost Tommy talked about.”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know if I’m so scared of that ghost,” I lied. “It’s just that I’m going to get in a heap of trouble for running off.”
    Winnalee brought me her hairbrush, then plunked down on her bed beside me and twisted herself so I could reach the back of her head. “Ouch! Start from the bottom first, then brush the topper parts,” she said.
    As I pulled the brush down, her hair straightened, then sprung back into loops once the brush left it. I watched it, thinking of how if I had her hair, I’d brush it all day long.
    â€œYou are too scared. Because you’re afraid of dead people.” She paused a minute, like she was thinking hard, then she said, “You’re scared of live people too. But you don’t have to be a-scared of either.”
    Winnalee got up. She turned and yanked the brush out of my hand and tossed it on the unmade bed. She grabbed me by the shirt and tugged me over to the window seat, where her ma was sitting in that jar. She leaned over, her still-damp fingers fumbling for my wrist. “Ma?” she said right to the jar. “Button’s scared of dead people, so I’m gonna have her talk to you a bit so she can see that dead people aren’t going to hurt her. Oh, and I washed behind my ears too.” I