A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) Read Online Free Page B

over my head and threw it on the bed behindme. Bar Mitzvah day or not, I had to get my setting-up exercises in or I would never weigh enough to go out for the football team in the fall.
    I stretched out on the floor and did ten push-ups, then I stood up and began to do knee-bends. I looked down at myself. The thin, stringy muscles on my body stood out sharply. I could count my ribs. I scanned my chest carefully to see if any real hairs had come out in the night, but it was still the same small golden fuzz. Sometimes I wished that my hair was black like Paul’s instead of blond. Then they would show up more plainly.
    I finished the knee-bends and picked up the pair of Indian clubs from the corner of the room. Back in front of the window I began to swing them. I heard the click of a light-switch through the open window and a flood of light poured into the windows of the room across the driveway from mine. Almost instantly I dropped to my knees and cautiously peered over the window-sill.
    That was Marjorie Ann Conlon’s room. She was Mimi’s closest girl friend. Sometimes her shade was up and I could get a good look. I was glad her house faced west, for that made it necessary for her to turn the light on every morning.
    Carefully I peeked over the window-sill and held my breath. The shades were up. That was the third time this week she had forgotten to pull them down. The last time I had watched her I thought she had known I was looking, so I had to be extra careful. She was a funny kind of a girl, always teasing me and staring at me when I spoke to her. In the last few weeks we’d had several hot arguments about almost nothing and I didn’t want to invite her to my Bar Mitzvah party, but Mimi insisted on it.
    I saw the closet door in her room move slightly and she came out from behind it. She stopped in the middle of the room for a moment, looking for something. Finally she found it and leaned toward the window. I could see her real good.
    Paul said she had the nicest figure in the neighbourhood. I didn’t agree with him. Mimi’s was much nicer. Besides, Mimi wasn’t all out of proportion the way Marjorie Ann was.
    She was facing the window now, seeming to be looking out at me. I lowered my head even more. She was smiling to herself as she hooked on her brassière, and I began to feel uncomfortable. It was a very knowing smile. I wondered if she knew I was watching. There seemed to be a peculiar awareness in the way she moved around the room.
    Outside in the hall there was a noise. I could hear Mimi’s voice.Quickly I turned and dove back into bed. I didn’t want Mimi to catch me peeking. I stole a quick glance out the window and saw the light go out in Marjorie Ann’s room. I sighed. That proved it. I had been right: she knew I was watching her. I heard footsteps coming toward my door, and I closed my eyes and pretended I was asleep.
    Mimi’s voice came from the doorway. “Danny, are you up?”
    “I am now,” I answered, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes. “What do yuh want?”
    Her eyes swept across my bare chest and shoulders. A suspicious light came into them. “Where’s your pyjama top?” she asked. Then her eyes fell on it lying at the foot of the bed. “You were out of bed already?”
    I stared at her. “Yeah.”
    “What were you doing?” she asked suspiciously. Her eyes wandered over to Marjorie Ann’s windows across the driveway.
    I made my eyes big and innocent. “My exercises,” I said. “Then I hopped back in bed for a snooze.”
    I could see my answer didn’t satisfy her, but she didn’t say anything. She bent over the foot of the bed and picked up my pyjama top from where itlay, half on the floor. Her breasts pushed hard against the thin rayon pyjamas she wore. I couldn’t keep my eyes from them.
    Mimi noticed where I was looking and her face flushed. Angrily she threw the pyjama top back on my bed and walked toward the door. “Mamma told me to wake you up and remind you to