Man in the Moon Read Online Free Page B

because he was looking at me. I had no choice but to speak up. “No sir, I don’t.”
    “Because they’re smarter than people,” he said.
    What a bunch of bullcorn! Dogs, smarter than people? Then why don’t dogs go to school or get jobs or drive cars? Why doesn’t Buddy sleep in the house while we sleep in the dirt? Why don’t dogs dip
themselves
in creosote to get rid of fleas? And I swear I’ve never once seen a dog open his own box of Gravy Train. Of course I didn’t say none of that. I simply asked, “How are dogs smarter than people?”
    “Over the years, people have complicated their lives,” Mr. Lunas said, looking back up at the stars. “In their quest to better themselves, they’ve forgotten where they came from. How they got here, and why they came at all. They invented ink and paper and pens to keep track, but somewhere in the distant past, they lost all memory. Dogs don’t need history books. They know what’s important. They’re filled with memories of their early existence, from the most vicious wolf to the tamest poodle. They know something people don’t.”
    Mama fanned herself harder and rolled her eyes at me. I guess she thought Mr. Lunas was a loony, too.
    Daddy stretched. “Well, I may not be as smart as a dog, but I know when mosquitoes are winning a battle with my hide. I’m going in.”
    We all gathered ourselves up and walked to the back porch. All except Mr. Lunas. He stretched his legs out in front of him like he was going to camp out in that chair. A breeze blew through, shaking the cornstalks. He closed his eyes and smiled like that sound was a fancy orchestra playing his favorite song. The whole business gave me the chills, even though it must have been eighty-five degrees outside. Mr. Lunas was the oddest fellow I’d ever met.
    I didn’t bother propping a chair under my doorknob that night. I sat with the light out, looking through my bedroom window. I could see Mr. Lunas, still leaning back in the chair. Buddy would circle him a few times, put his front paws up on his lap, then go to circling him again, like he wanted his attention or was trying to tell him something. Mr. Lunas never looked down at Buddy. He’d just reach his hand out and rub Buddy’s fur. Buddy would pant and whine a little. He’d nudge at Mr. Lunas, like a puppy wanting to play. I’d never seen Buddy take to someone the way he did this silly-looking old man. Maybe it was because Mr. Lunas thought dogs were smarter than people and Buddy could sense that. Who knows? But I did know one thing for sure. If a dog likes somebody, he can’t be all
that
bad.
    My eyes started drooping, so I crawled into bed. The night was too hot for covers. I lay there looking out the window at the fireflies with their little searchlights blinking. A million crickets sang through the pasture. A couple of June bugs bounced into the window screen, and just as I dozed off I heard something that froze my blood again. In the five years we’d owned Buddy, I’d heard him bark, growl, and whimper. But tonight he did something I’ve never heard him do. He howled at the moon.

Phase Four—Waxing Gibbous
    T he moon was getting rounder, and so was Mr. Lunas. Mama took to hiding food like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. I could hear her and Daddy arguing late at night. Mama would say that Mr. Lunas was a freeloader and that he had to go. Daddy would jump back at her, insisting that Mr. Lunas was a war hero who deserved our respect and our food. He’d tell Mama that once he got a job, she wouldn’t be so tense. Then she’d start off on why hadn’t he found a job yet, and that digging ditches was respectable work too, why didn’t he do that? That’s about when I’d cover my head with a pillow to block it all out.
    I stopped being curious about Mr. Lunas. No sense looking out the bedroom window. He was out there, night after night. Sometimes he sat, sometimes he stood. But his fascination with the moon and sky never