Read The Butterfly Clues for Free Online Page B

shrugs. “So, I find materials wherever I can from this, our eternally wasteful nation-home of Neverland.”
    When Flynt says Neverland , he might as well be saying heaven . “Check it out. Great haul this morning.” He turns around and plunks a canvas sack at my feet. He’s always moving, never still.
    “Open it up. Look around. Store’s open till three.” He rocks back and forth on his heels.
    I pull out a ceramic lamp cracked down the center, a bag full of broken blue glass, a wooden board studded with a graveyard-like schema of rusty nails, a giant dented metal picture frame–like thing.
    “So, what do you think?” He’s grinning again, tugging at one of his blondish dreadlocks and then at the frayed bits and holes in his pants. I like the little imperfections in his clothes, the way they’re kind of rumpled and don’t really match and how his coat has colorful patches sewn onto its elbows. It all looks so right on him, on his lanky body. Really right. And soft. Not like the boys at school—overly pressed jeans and gelled hair and matching everything. All cold, clean, sharp lines.
    “They’re cool,” I say, and mean it. I unconsciously go to finger the rusty nails and have to stop myself. Flynt is watching me closely and I blush, embarrassed. “What will you use them for?”
    “Dunno yet. Something wildly, earth-shatteringly original. Or, you know, probably something ugly and terrible that will never let see the light of day.”
    We begin putting his things back in the sack, kneeling together on the dirty concrete. “You live around here, Lo?”
    I stare at the ground, weirdly self-conscious that I don’t. “No. Just outside of it.”
    “Where’s just outside?” he asks.
    “Lakewood. I can take a bus right here, though. It’s easy.” I can feel heat still burning through my cheeks.
    “Never been there. I don’t really leave Neverland much. At all, really,” he says. “It’s sort of my unbreakable rule.” I look up at him and notice that he’s blushing, too.
    “You never leave at all?” I repeat. “Doesn’t it get kind of … boring?” At the last second, I stop myself from saying depressing . I stare across the broken landscape of Neverland: all randomness and grit.
    “Not really.” He shrugs. “This is home, for right now at least. And Neverland is great.”
    I must be making a face because Flynt adds, “Trust me, it’s true. There’s lots of cool stuff around here. You just haven’t had the right tour guide.” The grin never leaves his face, but his eyes are sharp and alert, like an animal’s. “So, Lakewood Lo, you never actually answered me either: what are you doing, ambling around these parts, fiddling with broken door handles? You”—he hesitates for a second—“ever been here before?”
    I can’t tell him the truth; I feel that, like a pulse through my body. I stand, wiping dirt from my knees; Flynt stands, too, watching the clouds of dirt rise between us. “Um, well, I have this old friend—or I had this old friend. She was murdered a few days ago. I saw her picture in the paper and a photo of where she lived.” I point to the puke-yellow house directly beside us. “And I felt like I should come here and, you know, pay my respects or something.”
    Adrenaline is pushing words from my lips I hadn’t, stupidly enough, been prepared to say. I rush on, clutching the horse pendent around my neck, spitting out invented details as they come to me, “We were really, really close as kids and then she moved away and my parents would never let me come out here to visit … and now she’s, well, she’s gone.” Avoid eye contact. Deep breath.
    Flynt gets quiet. He’s tugging at an errant dreadlock again; he’s no longer grinning. “Hey. I’m really sorry about your friend. I heard about that. Well, I read about it, too.” He looks back toward the Dumpsters. “It’s rough. People are crazy, especially around here. Trust me. I know most of them.”
    “Yeah,