Night Swimmers Read Online Free

reached for the instant coffee.

R OY WAS SITTING AT the kitchen table making men out of Pillsbury refrigerated dough. He had worked over them so long that they had a gray look. He was now rolling a piece of dough between both hands.
    “This man’s going to have a tail and it’s going to be soooo long that you won’t believe it.”
    The dough was hanging out the bottom of his hands, swinging back and forth.
    “Well, don’t make them too funny looking or Dad won’t want to eat them.” Retta glanced at him. “Roy, did you wash your hands before you started?”
    “Yes, I washed my hands before I started,” he said, imitating her tone and wagging his head from side to side.
    With great care he attached the tail to the dough man and curled it upward. When the angle of the tail was perfect, he rubbed his hands proudly on his shirt.
    “I get the one with the tail,” he said.
    He was still looking at his dough men with a fond, pleased smile when Johnny came into the kitchen. “Want to see what I’m making?” Roy asked.
    “Nope.”
    “I’m making dough men.”
    “I’m not going to eat any of them. They’re filthy.” He crossed to where Retta was working at the stove. “What’s for supper?”
    “Spaghetti.”
    “You call what you make spaghetti?” Johnny asked. “It’s nothing but tomato soup poured over noodles. Real spaghetti has meat in it and onions and a lot of other stuff.”
    Retta was never hurt by criticism of her cooking because she herself was always pleased with the results. She got a lot of her ideas from the school cafeteria and from Kraft television commercials.
    “Where did you go?” Retta asked. She took a sip of soup to check the flavor, then turned to Johnny. “We came back to get you and you were gone. We found an extra coupon and—”
    “And,” Roy broke in, wanting to tell the important part himself, “since you weren’t there, I got your ride too.” He patted his dough men happily. He wished they wouldn’t keep rising. “Now, stay down,” he told them.
    “I went out,” Johnny said in a casual way.
    “On my ride I got on a giraffe,” Roy said, “and on your ride I got on an elephant.”
    Johnny remained at Retta’s side. He wanted her to ask him exactly where he had been because he was eager to tell her.
    She glanced around him. “Are those ready for the oven?” she asked Roy. “Have you now made every single one as dirty as possible?”
    “Want to know where I went?” Johnny asked.
    “They’re not dirty,” Roy said defensively. He gave each one an extra pat.
    “They are too. They’re gray.”
    “They’re supposed to be that color, aren’t you, you guys?” He leaned over them.
    Retta said, “If you start kissing them, nobody’s going to eat them.”
    “I wasn’t going to kiss them,” Roy lied.
    In the pause that followed, Johnny said, “In case anybody is interested in what I did this afternoon, I went to the park and helped a boy set off rockets.”
    Roy looked up. His mouth fell open. He could not bear it when Johnny or Retta did something without him.
    “And he also makes and flies model airplanes.”
    Roy’s mouth formed an O. He was suddenly so jealous of Johnny’s afternoon that as he straightened, he pressed down on one of his dough men, flattening it, and didn’t even notice.
    “He flies these airplanes with”—Johnny paused to give importance to his next words—“radio controls.” He now had both Retta’s and Roy’s attention. It was the most satisfying moment he had known in a long time.
    “And next time I go over there, he’s going to show me how to work the controls.”
    “Johnny,” Roy wailed. “Why didn’t you wait so I could come too?”
    Johnny shrugged. Smiling slightly, he turned and started for the door. Even his walk was new and important.
    Roy had been kneeling on the kitchen chair so that he could work more efficiently on his dough men. Now he scrambled to the floor. “You’ll let me go next time, won’t