The Game of Boys and Monsters: A Short Story

By Rachel M. Wilson

From Rachel M. Wilson, author of Don't Touch, comes an eerie and utterly compelling short story about best friends Leslie and Evy, whose friendship changes when the enigmatic Marsh brothers move to town.

Nina LaCour, author of Everything Leads to You, Hold Still, and The Disenchantments, called Rachel M. Wilson's debut novel, Don't Touch, "a tender love story about the beauty and the risk of showing someone who you really are," while Tim Wynne-Jones, author of Blink & Caution, hailed it as "fiercely compelling, darkly funny, and [a novel that] hums like a high-tension wire with energy."

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9780062330581

Rachel M. Wilson

Rachel M. Wilson received her MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Don't Touch is her first novel. Originally from Alabama, she now lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Book preview

Contents

Begin Reading

Excerpt from Don’t Touch

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About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Game of Boys and Monsters

It started as a game. Evy’s game, because, looking back on it, we were always playing Evy’s games.

Evy, "with long e’s, please, had been my best friend since we were born—in the same week, in the same hospital. She would say, We were meant to be best friends, Les. It was destined."

Destined was one of Evy’s favorite words.

We weren’t supposed to be born on the same day, but Evy was eager. From day one, her mom said, Evy never did have any patience.

Evy wasn’t just born first; she grew up faster than me. She claimed her first boyfriend in second grade. By the time we were in middle school, she’d already had at least one kind of sex with two guys—at summer camp though, so people at home didn’t talk.

She told me because she trusted me and liked me best.

Other girls in our class, girls who got along with boys, they split off, formed an unbreakable ring with a sharp, glittering edge. They armed themselves with contact lenses, charm bracelets, highlights, and tinted lip gloss (because lipstick is trashy).

But Evy stuck with me. Evy gave the rest of them a big F-you, showing up with her renegade hair that she would never cut or dye in ropey braids and tumbling curls, the definition of romantic. She edged out the sweetness with a pair of chunky, vintage glasses that she didn’t even need and a smack of hot-pink lipstick right before it was in.

Evy smacked her lips, and the boys went, Oh.

The boys were always going Oh when Evy looked their way.

The night the game started, we were sitting on Evy’s roof outside her bedroom window. It’s a teenybopper TV drama cliché, Evy liked to say of her perch, but there’s a reason for it. This is the only place on this whole lot where we’re taller than what’s going on inside.

I liked it because we could see the stars.

On that night they were extra sharp, crisp and bright, and the chill in the air seemed to match. We shivered in tank tops because earlier that day, when the sun was hot, we’d gone bike riding down to the village and back for no reason, just to ride.

We’d seen some guys from our class there, and Evy pushed me toward Ben, Ben of the wide smile and sideburns and paws like a bear. She’d stop pushing me if I asked her, but here we were starting tenth grade, and I’d never had a kiss, much less a boyfriend. It’s about time, I’d been thinking lately, and I didn’t mind Evy pushing me so much with Ben. The sun warmed my face, but not as much as the heat pulsing up through my skin to flirt with the cool breeze. When I wiped a slick of sweat, my cheeks burned hot to my touch.

Hey, you’ve got a leaf, Ben said, and he’d reached into the sweaty mess of my hair to lift it out.

Later on, at Evy’s, the night seemed to suck the last summer warmth from the air. I lay back on the roof to absorb what heat the shingles had stored.

It’s almost fall, I said. Best time for witches.

You are too weird, Evy said, but she didn’t mean it. She liked me that way.

Okay, so here’s the game, Evy said. Every guy is either a vampire or a werewolf. Our job is to decide which.

How can you tell the difference?

It’s something you feel, Evy said. Take Ben, for example. Ben is clearly a werewolf.

Why?

Well, he’s stocky for one thing, like he’s compact. There’s some muscle in there.

I thought you said it was a feeling.

"Yeah, but the feeling comes from a lot of things. . . . Okay, and his smile. He smiles all the time,