Creatures of Habit Read Online Free Page B

yellow glow of the night-light as he knelt there how his jaw clenched as he reeled off the rules. “You gotta ask Uncle Tim how much he weighs. Ask Patricia how come she looks and smells so much like her dogs. Don’t talk to the girl with the baby at all.”
    â€œC AROLINE .” H ER MOTHER was smiling but Caroline knew from the tone in her voice that she was getting impatient. “And where did Danny run off to?”
    Caroline gripped the banister and stepped slowly onto the second step. This was test number two and she knew that Danny was somewhere watching, at the corner of the house or up the pine tree where he kept his secret information. Buteven worse than that was the fact that Mrs. Hopper was watching, her big slick magazines hiding her bare stomach as she waved.
    â€œWhat have you done to your shirt?” Caroline’s mother smoothed the wrinkled collar. “And where are your shoes? Where is your brother?” Caroline shook her head, shrugged. Danny was watching, and if she messed up, he’d never let her be the maiden scout; she’d have to represent the posse of white men for the rest of her life. Mrs. Hopper had her eyes closed now but that didn’t mean anything. She could cast a hex any old time.
    â€œMy, my, grown like a weed,” Uncle Tim said and shook his head. “You’re a cute little boy now aren’t you?” They all laughed and Caroline stared at him, reached down to her hip where very soon she’d have her own tomahawk.
    â€œDon’t tease her. She’s a pretty thing. Got hair like us, Jimmy.” Aunt Patricia patted Caroline’s father on the arm and then she stepped closer, her arms swooping like a great white hawk as she caught Caroline in a cloud of highsmelling flea powder. Caroline pulled and twisted away before the Great White Hawk could begin to slobber.
    â€œCaroline, can’t you say something?” her mother asked and she nodded and again touched the place her weapon would hang at her side.
    â€œYou remember Cousin Randy.”
    The tall one, long legs like a posse rider and hair hanging to his shoulders, stepped forward. He wore his hair long and beads around his neck to trick the real Indian Scouts. He had round black eyes.
    â€œAnd this is his girlfriend, Sarah.”
    Another trick. Her hair was in braids, her feet in leather strapped shoes. She wore Indian jewelry and carried a Frisbee.
    â€œAnd this is Cousin Sue and little Paul Jr.”
    Sue looked like the Thin White Hawk and Paul Jr. was a poor excuse of a papoose.
    â€œCome meet little Paul.”
    â€œHow much do you weigh?” she asked loudly and pointed at Uncle Tim.
    â€œCaroline?” Her mother’s arms were around her now and steering her up onto the porch. “I’m sorry, Tim, who knows what gets into them.”
    â€œThe devil, I guess,” her father said and shook his head. He glanced over at Mrs. Hopper when he said that, a sure sign that he knew something about what went on in her basement. She had the straps of her suit undone and they swung forward as she bent to rub lotion on her legs. There was a moment when she was looking right at Caroline, amoment when their eyes locked.
It only takes a minute for her to put the devil in you. It can happen so fast nobody knows until it’s too late.
    N OW, IN THE black dark, Caroline was crouched down in the pine straw trying not to make a sound. She was looking for the devil, looking for a snipe. She felt something brush against her bare legs, leaves or snipe feathers or snakes or mosquitoes.
    â€œOur mosquitoes are so big,” her daddy was famous for saying, “they roll up your pants legs to bite you.”
    She swatted with her hand and moved her feet away from whatever was down there. She thought of Mrs. Hopper sitting up in a tree, a long black cape blowing around her and wild-eyed cats sitting on the limbs, and her leg jerked.
    â€œWill you stop?”