Kendall said that the girl did love him back but their parents thought they were too young and ordered them to stop seeing each other. Then Kendall stopped talking and went to shut the bedroom door. Skittles snuck in and I thought for sure that Kendall would freak out about it but she didn’t even notice. It felt nice, sitting close to my sister like this. Kendall sat down next to me again and even though the door was shut she whispered how Joseph and the girl would sneak out at night and go down by the train tracks and do it.

I must have had a weird look on my face because Kendall looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “Yes. They did it. They. Had. Sex.” She said this nice and slow for me, to make sure I understood.

I told her that I knew what sex was, though it made my stomach feel gross saying it out loud. I told her I thought way back in the old days they were pretty strict about stuff like that. She told me that lots of fifteen-year-olds had sex.

I looked at her closely. Kendall is fifteen and is very pretty. She has long blond hair that my mom says most women have to pay a hundred bucks a month to get. Kendall’s skin turns brown in the summer and she has curves. I’m pale and never tan no matter how much time I spend in the sun. I just get sunburned, peel and then turn white again. I also don’t have curves, plus I’m short for my grade. People always think I’m younger than I am. I wonder if Kendall is doing it. Boys are always calling our house.

Then I started thinking about Gabe and wondering if he ever had sex with anyone.

Kendall told me to close my mouth and not act so surprised. She told me that she wasn’t having sex, that there wasn’t anyone in our loser town that she would let touch her. She wanted to wait until she went away to college. Then she told me to shut up again and let her finish the story, that she had homework to do.

She said that Joseph Wither and the girl, Lucy, would sneak out and have sex down by the railroad tracks and one day her dad caught them. He dragged his daughter away and told Joseph that if he ever came near Lucy again he would kill him.

That made me start thinking about the school project and how in the world we are going to give a report about two teenagers doing it by the railroad tracks. Somehow I don’t think Mr. Dover is going to let us talk about that. I wonder if it’s too late to change our topic to Johnny Appleseed or Sleepy Hollow.