Dreamland Lake Read Online Free

in one night—like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve.
    So on Saturday morning, I was so tired that even getting out of bed was a big deal. But I did. And first thing, I went over and touched the window to see if it was real glass—just in case SOMEBODY had switched it on me and put in a pane of silent plastic.
    Waiting for Saturday night was almost worse than The Dream itself. I better explain the deal Flip and I worked out about Sunday morning delivery. On Saturday, the
Dunthorpe Evening Commercial
was always thin—down to twelve pages. But on Sundays, the
Commercial
combines with the
Morning Call
in a big, fat supplement—with a four-color comic paper, and a Society Section, and the
Family Weekly
magazine. And it had to go out before dawn.
    Since you had to be at the drop-off by four on Sunday morning, Flip and I made a deal about alternating Sundays. That way, we didn’t both have to get up and deliver the Sunday edition every week. It was typical of my luck that the Sunday after the dead man was my turn.
    Usually, I’d turn in early and set the alarm for three-thirty. But that Saturday night, I knew the minute I’d turn off the lights and slip into bed, it’d be OLD BONES AT THE WINDOW all over again. So I horsed around the room while my mom yelled up every once in awhile to stop prowling and get some sleep. The third time, she yelled, “Your father is starting up the stairs.”
    I doubted it, since he’s not the family disciplinarian. I flipped off the light anyway and made a dive for the bed. But I definitely decided not to sleep. It’d be more restful just to lie there and think than to have old Estella Winkler Bates hissing in my ear. And that must have done the trick because the next sound I heard was the alarm going off.
    I was dressed and nearly down to the corner before I realized I was out alone before daylight. It never had bothered me before, even though I wasn’t ever in love with carrying forty pounds’ worth of Sunday paper around in the clammy cold. But that morning, I was looking behind every bush and tree. At first, it felt creepy when I thought I was the only person awake in Dunthorpe. Then I was hoping I really was the only person awake in Dunthorpe. The street lights were still on, and the trees made jerky dancing shadows on the sidewalk. And I started jogging—partly to keep warm.
    They’d already dropped off the bundle in front of Walgreen’s Drugstore. I was just ready to drag it back into the doorway to roll the papers when I realized I’d forgotten to bring my wire cutters. So I lost ten minutes, fiddling with the wire that binds the pile so tight it usually cuts the top paper in half. And trying to get the wire untwisted with hands I couldn’t keep steady, I drew blood a couple of times and wiped it off on my windbreaker because I didn’t give a damn.
    The Sunday delivery’s a grind—not even counting that you have to get up in the middle of the night. The bike’s useless because the load’s too heavy. And there’s an unbreakable rule against throwing the paper up on the porches because it might disturb the subscribers’ sleep. So you had to carry the papers aroundin a canvas bag, and you had to walk up every set of porch stairs, and you had to lay the paper right down in front of the door.
    One of the customers, Old Man Sanderson, was always up already, waiting for the paper. He stood right inside the front door and watched you every step of the way, to make sure you brought it up to the door and didn’t throw it, which wouldn’t have mattered anyway since he was already awake. But if you did throw it, he turned right around and called the paper, and they issued you a “complaint referral.” So you might as well walk up and lay it at the old devil’s feet because that’s what he wanted, and he didn’t get his kicks any other way.
    I was starting off on the route, and the sky was getting a little gray in the east, which somehow just made everything spookier.