Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson Page B

walked into her room and to her window. The workers had poured out into the trees, and several small fires had popped up now, all randomly spaced apart, like stars on the ground. It was beautiful. It was like fireflies.
    Murphy stood for several minutes, having a heated argument with herself, her heart in her throat. She wanted to help. And she wanted to keep driving. She wanted to belong with people who helped one another. But it was so foreign that she needed to convince herself that she could.
    Finally she decided it would hinge on Leeda. If Leeda had the nerve to go down there with all those people, who had worked through the two weeks while she and Murphy had slacked, then Murphy would too. Murphy’s ears perked, listening for her to come out of her room.
    After a few more minutes Leeda’s door creaked open, and Murphy heard her walk down to the bathroom. A minute later she came back down the hall, and her door creaked again behind her, closed. There was the faint sound of bedsprings creaking as she crawled into bed.
    Maybe Leeda couldn’t see herself down there either.
    Murphy closed her door. In her bed, she watched the fire lights dancing across the ceiling until she fell asleep.

Chapter Ten
    B irdie tugged up the waist of her jeans, which were threatening to slide off her sweat-slicked hips, and landed on her knees on the grass. She shifted around onto her butt, slumping back against the nearest tree, and peered around at the damage they’d done.
    It was almost morning. It wasn’t a shade lighter than night, but the animals had started moving around, the birds had started chirping, and it smelled like day.
    A few of the workers were still shadows straggling up and down the rows of trees, tossing this and that dead limb, or piece of farm debris, onto the fires scattered at intervals down the white sand trails. A few branches were smoldering. And the fires themselves were beginning to burn out. But the night was over. And they were out of fuel. There wasn’t much more they could do.
    Birdie’s dad had come out to supervise only briefly, looking so depressed that Birdie thought they should set a fire at his feet so he wouldn’t freeze too. And then he had gone back inside. The workers, on the other hand, who had no ownership in the orchard and had a million other places they could work, hadstayed all night. Over the past half hour the majority of them had begun to straggle inside to bed, many stopping to hug Birdie and kiss her on the cheek before disappearing across the grass. Birdie just couldn’t believe how good people could be.
    And also how disappointing.
    Neither Leeda nor Murphy had emerged from the dorms, and this befuddled Birdie. She hadn’t noticed their absence until the past half hour, when the work was calming down. But now that she had, she couldn’t help but feel let down. “Whatever,” she muttered. They’d be gone by tomorrow, and Birdie didn’t care anymore.
    A few minutes passed, and soon the last figure left was the first that had come out to help Birdie. She watched Enrico from her spot by the tree, sure that she was hidden, and admired the way his arms worked over the fires and how his shirt was soaked in sweat. That sweat had all been for her orchard, and that made it that much more mesmerizing. She stared at him, willing him to see her.
    And then he turned and started walking toward her, and she realized he’d known she was there the whole time.
    Enrico sank down beside her, onto his knees like she had, then into a cross-legged position.
    “Birdie, I think you must be Supergirl,” he said, giving her an exhausted smile. He swiped at a smudge of ash beside his eye. “You are very strong.”
    Birdie shook her head and stammered. “Oh—oh no. I don’t have a choice, you know. But you guys…” Birdie felt choked up. She was too tired to be embarrassed, though, and she simply let her voice trail off.
    Enrico, who appeared equally incapable of being awkward atthe moment, let