Kimmy’s eyes grew large and watery. She started to babble and weep. “Wait, Rae, that’s not even why I’m—I came up because—I’m not a snake, see, the binoculars—” But Rae had already waltzed past her and down the hall toward her bedroom.

Kimmy followed after her sister, launching quiet but desperate protests.

Before entering her room, Rae leaned close, roughly snatched the binoculars off over Kimmy’s head, and whispered, “Don’t you dare follow me into my bedroom. Don’t you dare follow me anywhere ever again.” Then Rae disappeared into her room and the lock clicked.

Kimmy ground her tears into her eye sockets with the heels of her hands. She felt wrecked, empty, indignant, and hopeless. Shortly, though, she realized that she couldn’t wallow in self-pity. She remembered why she had come up in the first place, and she knew that she must retrieve Poppy for Alex during this important time. She must somehow move past the terrible and unfair thing that had just happened with Rae, for Alex’s sake.

Kimmy knocked quietly on Poppy and John’s door, and when Poppy answered, hair in a crazy ball atop her head, face scrunched up, Kimmy whispered, “Alex started her period and she needs a maxi pad.”

“Oh, really?” Poppy’s sleepy face leapt to life, and she said, “I’ll be right down. I’m just gonna pop into the bathroom to grab a few things.”

Kimmy tried to contain her tears as she made her way back downstairs.

Fortunately, Alex appeared not to have moved, and the light was still off in their bedroom, so Kimmy could blow her nose and compose herself in darkness. It seemed like Alex was still crying too—several newly crumpled tissues had appeared at her side. Kimmy took Alex’s clean hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, and they held hands until Poppy arrived in their bedroom a minute later.

Poppy kissed Alex’s forehead and offered her a Motrin. She explained that she didn’t keep maxi pads around, but the liners she had would probably suffice, and she also had tampons, if Alex wanted to learn to use those, so that she could swim tomorrow.

Poppy kissed Alex again, examined her daughter’s face, and said, “You doing OK? How do you feel, starting your period?”

Alex shrugged. “I’m OK. I don’t really care, so I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.” She giggled, which quickly brought more tears.

This opened the floodgates in Kimmy—she began to cry too. She cried because she was hurt by Rae’s accusations and names, she cried because Rae was drinking wine, and this seemed a cause for major concern, yet already Kimmy knew that she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—rat out her sister and so would have to keep a big, terrible secret. She cried because she hadn’t taken the binoculars to spy, she hadn’t been spying at all, it was an accident that she’d seen what she’d seen, but Rae would never believe it. She cried because she missed her stuffed animals at home, and because Alex had started her period and she didn’t even seem glad about it, whereas Kimmy couldn’t wait to start her period, there were so many girls who couldn’t wait, and here Alex had hers and she didn’t even care. She cried for the dead fawn. She cried because of course the moon was not fake. Of course this dumb old world was exactly the way it seemed.