Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

her mother job, you’d know all this by now, but I can see you don’t. I’m not surprised. She never did her job with me, either.”
    “Then how did you learn all this, Cassie?” I asked.

    “Never mind how I learned. It’s how
you
learn that matters now, so pay attention.” She stood up.
    She paced for a moment silently, as if she had to be sure she used the right words. When she spoke, she didn’t look at me at first. It made me feel as if I were in a classroom.
    “Our bodies are built to make and carry babies and then deliver them whole and healthy into this world. It’s natural to our female selves. Our bodies don’t care how young we are. When all of our hormones and development are aligned, it’s as if some switch were turned on. In fact, there are some girls who get so mature so early that they have big psychological problems.”
    She paused and looked at me.
    “Remember that girl I pointed out to you, Donna Wellington, the girl in the fourth grade with breasts as developed as a girl in eleventh or twelfth grade? Remember? We saw her on the playground, and she looked so out of place.”
    “Yes.”
    “Can you imagine what’s been happening to her? She’s probably terrified of herself. In a sense, we should all be a little terrified of ourselves, because, as I said, our bodies don’t think about consequences. We’re little baby-making machines, that’s all.”
    “You make it sound as if we’re all two different people fighting with each other.”
    “We are,” she said, spinning on me. “That’s the point, Semantha. There’s you in your developing body, and there’s you in your mind, which doesn’t always keep up. You already know where to touchyourself to feel the excitement, right? Right?” she asked again sharply, stepping toward me.
    “Yes,” I said. She looked as if she would pounce on me if I hesitated one second.
    She nodded and sat on the bed again. “Now, I’m sure you’ve been lying here,” she said, her voice growing softer as she ran her hand over my bed, “dreaming of what it would be like to have Kent Pearson touch you in those places.”
    I started to shake my head.
    “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t be dishonest with me, Semantha. Not for a second, not an instant. Tell me the truth right now. You have, haven’t you? Well?”
    I took a deep breath. Despite my age, my youth, I still felt there were things that should be private and only mine. She was reaching so deep down inside me, reaching to explore places I hadn’t explored myself. She was crawling into my fantasies, my dreams. Even the closest of sisters, brothers, even husbands and wives, can’t possibly share all that.
    “You don’t have be ashamed with me, Semantha. I’m your sister, your only really faithful companion. No one will care for you as much as I do. Being sisters, we can share the most intimate things, and now that you’re obviously at the age when you will have more intimate things to share and explore, I’ll be here for you. So, admit it. Am I correct about your thoughts concerning Kent Pearson? Well?”
    “Yes,” I said, barely above a whisper.
    She nodded, smiling with satisfaction. “That’s good, Semantha. It’s good that you trust me. Youknow I trust you, because I’ve told you things I wouldn’t tell Mother. I knew you wouldn’t go running to her to tell on me, either. You’re my best friend in the world.”
    That took me by surprise. Of course, I knew she had no real friends. She talked to other girls about schoolwork and did hang around with some girls at school, girls I thought no one really wanted to have as friends, but I never dreamed she would tell me that I was her best friend. Sisters didn’t have to be best friends. I knew many other girls and boys, for that matter, who wouldn’t consider their sisters and brothers best friends. Most were always complaining about them.
    “Now, then,” she continued, returning to her mother demeanor, “since you’ve already fantasized, imagined Kent touching you in places that would get you excited, the danger of your actually permitting him to do so is that much greater. It might even seem as if you’re still dreaming, and don’t forget that there is that terrific curiosity in you, that thing about your body I described, its craving, as I put it.”
    “Craving?”
    “It craves to be touched, to be riled up and brought to that point where it can welcome more. It’s the
more
that’s most dangerous.”
    “Oh.