Chasing Lilacs Read Online Free Page A

his own room.
    Every chance I got the next day, I asked Daddy questions about what the place in Wichita Falls was like. Did Mama have to
     wear a hospital gown? Would she get to come home and visit? Could we go see her? I hung on the kitchen counter, asking even
     more questions while Daddy smeared mustard on a piece of bread and slapped on a slice of bologna. “When does she start her
     treatment? Will she take pills or shots?”
    “They didn’t give me the treatment schedule. It’s not a regular hospital, so the patients wear their normal clothes.” He filled
     his thermos with coffee.
    “That’s good.” Since Mama’s regular clothes the last month had been a terry-cloth robe and nightgown, I couldn’t really picture
     her. Daddy had packed her a suitcase though.
    He screwed the lid onto the thermos. “There’s also a nice courtyard with benches, and some of the other patients were feeding
     the squirrels when I left.”
    “Did Mama like it? Did she want to feed the squirrels?”
    “Not while I was there. You sure are full of questions.” He snapped the lid on his lunch box and looked at me. “This ain’t
     no time to be brooding about your mama, so I want to get something straight. Mama’s in the right place, and you’ve got the
     whole summer, so I want you outdoors having fun.” He thumped me on the arm and left for his evening shift at the plant.
    I didn’t want Daddy to think I was brooding, and he was right about having the whole summer. So Tuwana and I started working
     on our newspaper like we planned.
    On the walk to her house, a curlicue of smoke lifted above the trees on my left. The top of a high chain-link fence surrounding
     the gasoline plant came into view beyond the camp. Inside the fence, gray buildings with rows and rows of windows had smokestacks
     at the ends pointing up like Roman candles. Near the front, great white balls of steel, taller than three houses, huddled
     together. Containers of some kind. Engine noises and hissing sounds filled the air—refining natural gas, Daddy said. He told
     me underground pipes brought the gas in where it went through a series of boiling, compressing, and cooling like the biggest
     science experiment you ever saw. From there it went through an underground maze to another plant that made gasoline, the kind
     you get at the filling station. Daddy worked crazy shifts, a week of daylights, then a week of evenings, then graveyards,
     but he said it sure as heck beat working on the oil rigs.
    Tuwana dragged out her mother’s Royal typewriter, and we set it up outside on a scratchy green army blanket.
    She hunched over, pecking the keys, while I dictated what to write and spelled words for her. One
m
in
Siamese
for the article about the Zyskowskis’ new kittens for sale. Five dollars each.
    “I wish you’d let me type the stencil,” I said after spelling thesixth word for her. “I’m the one who wants to be a newspaper reporter.”
    “It’s my mother’s typewriter from when she went to steno school, so I do the typing, okay?”
    She plunked away, and every three or four pecks, she tilted her head, first one way and then the other. I ignored her and
     stretched out my legs. Leaning back on my elbows, I let the sun warm my face. Puffy white clouds drifted past. A dragon. An
     elephant. A ship with pointy ends like the Vikings sailed. My mind drifted too with the
tap-tap-tap
in the background. When it stopped, I glanced over at Tuwana.
    “Tuwana, what happened to your hair?”
    “It’s about time you noticed. You’ve been here thirty minutes and not one word.”
    “Well, what happened to it?”
    “This, you may be pleased to know, is a poodle cut. Mother gave me a Toni perm last night. It’s the latest thing. Don’t you
     love it?”
    “Well, it’s perky, like a poodle, I guess, if that’s what you were going for.”
    “You oughta have my mom cut your hair and give you a Toni. Then we’d be the most popular girls in seventh