Samurai Summer Read Online Free

of the dorm.”
    “But this time you didn’t wake up until you were down here? Is that what you’re trying to say?” She smiled again. “Or are you still asleep, Tommy?”
    “I’m awake,” I said and looked around. “I woke up in here.”
    “I see.”
    She didn’t believe me, of course. She took a step forward. Her vampire face darkened when she moved out of the moonlight.
    I felt my sword beneath my pajama top.
    “What were you doing over by the cabinet?” she asked.
    “What cabinet?” I turned back toward the cabinet instinctively.
    “I’m sure you know what’s in there,” she said.
    I didn’t answer. The cabinet was no secret here at the camp.
    “Then you also know that you only get candy at certain times,” she said.
    “It’s… mine,” I said.
    “What did you say?” She took another step closer. I wasabout to put up my arm to protect myself. I knew that she could hit you. “Repeat that.”
    “It’s my candy,” I said.
    “Who said it wasn’t?”
    “I haven’t gotten any of it.”
    “What? Any of
what
?”
    “My bag of Twist.”
    “What is he talking about?” said Matron seeming to speak to somebody else.
    “My mother brought me a bag of Twist.”
    “So?”
    “I haven’t had a single piece of it.”
    “What are you saying, Tommy? Are you standing there accusing us of stealing your bag of Twist?”
    “I haven’t had a single piece of it,” I said again.
    “I’ve never heard the like,” said Matron. “Are you implying that we would steal from children?”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” said Matron as she took another step forward. “Out of my way!”
    I jumped aside before she could put her hands on me. She stuck her hand down into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a key.
    “We’ll just see about this,” she said, and she unlocked the cabinet door. It creaked as she opened it. She bentforward. “You can’t see anything in here.”
    Matron walked over to one of the tables and turned on a lamp. When she went back to the cabinet, she looked even more horrible than before. The shadows made her look twice as tall and twice as fat.
    She rummaged around among all the things inside there. I didn’t want to look. There was the sound of rustling papers.
    “Ha!” said Matron straightening up and peering down at me. “There’s no bag of Twist in here!”
    That’s because you took it
, I thought. But I didn’t dare say it.
    “How do you explain that, Tommy?”
    “I know my mother had it with her,” I said.
    “Then maybe we should call your mother and check with her.”
    “We don’t have a telephone,” I said.
    It was true. We’d never had one. Everybody had started getting telephones that year, but not us. They cost money.
    “Maybe we should go there and ask her?”
    “She’s not home.”
    “Admit that you made the whole thing up, Tommy!”
    There was no point in answering. There was no justice in this place—not at this camp. There was never any justice for children.
    “Can I go now?” I asked.
    “You mean continue walking in your sleep?” She laughed. “Can you find your way back up the stairs?”
    I started to leave.
    Quickly, she grabbed my shoulder. It hurt. I tried to twist free. Matron wasn’t laughing anymore.
    “I’m starting to get tired of you, Tommy,” she said.
    When I’d broken free of her grasp, she took hold of me again. With her other hand she twisted my ear. It hurt so much I thought she had twisted it clear off. It hurt all the way out to the ends of my hair. It hurt inside my head.
    “Maybe we should send you home.” She let go of my ear. “You don’t seem to like it here anyway.”
    “I… like it here,” I said as I tried to feel if my ear was still there.
    I had to say that I liked it here. Not just because she was in the process of twisting my ear off, but because I had a plan. Only without the camp there was no plan.
    “Really? You like it here? That’s news to me.”
    I