Chapter 5 Kit
Kit
It’s after dark when the rain starts.
My mom loves summertime thunderstorms, says it breaks up the heat.
I hate storms. I curl up tighter on top of my blanket, too hot to be underneath, but one more clap of thunder like the last one, and I will risk melting into a pile of mush to hide under the covers.
Call me dramatic, I don’t care. I can’t fall asleep when the world is literally growling outside the window.
Brett sighs above me on his bunk, and I feel the bed shift with his rolling. Back and forth. Back. Again.
“Kat-boy,” he whispers, and then his head is there, dangling upside down where I can see him. “Hey, Kat. Didn’t that one sound like one of Tucker’s farts?” he whisper shouts, like I’m not just right below him.
“You mean one of yours?”
Brett shakes his head, curls bouncing back and forth. “Mine are way more impressive. It was a Tucker fart ‘cause it was weak.”
I swear the windows vibrate with how loud the next clap of thunder is. I jump and then jump again when someone walks over and climbs right into bed next to me.
Bowen.
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls the pillow so we can share, tucks a hand under his face, and closes his eyes. His bent knee presses into my leg.
“That one was one of mine,” Brett says smugly without missing a beat. He doesn’t comment on Bowen, and neither do I.
I hate storms, and my best friends know it.
I wake up with one of those best friends snoring in my face and the other one star-fished right on top, suffocating both of us with his Red the dragon plush tucked under his arm.
Brett doesn’t like storms, either. Not that he would ever admit it.