Summer of Night Read Online Free Page B

across the street from his house, and looked back at the black clouds piled up behind Old Central. It was humid and the air felt still and quiet the way it did before tornado warnings, but he could tell by looking that the storm front was almost past. A band of blue sky was visible above the trees to the south. As the group watched a breeze came up, the leaves stirred on the trees ringing the block, and the summer scent of new-mown grass and blossoms and foliage filled the air. "Look," said Dale.
    "Isn't that Cordie Cooke?" asked Mike. "Yeah." The short figure stood alone outside the north entrance to the school, her arms folded, foot tapping. She looked dumpier and sillier than ever in the oversized house-dress that almost dragged the gravel. Two of the smallest Cooke boys, the twins, who were in first grade, stood behind her, their bib overalls sagging. The Cookes lived far enough out of town to have the school bus take them home, but no bus went out toward the grain elevator and dump, so she and her three brothers walked out the railroad tracks. Now she was screaming something at the building.
    Dr. Roon appeared at the door and shooed her away with a flick of his pink hand. White blurs in the tall windows above may have been the faces of teachers looking out. Mr. Van Syke's face floated behind the principal's in the dark doorway.
    Roon called something else, turned his back, and closed the tall door. Cordie Cooke bent down, grabbed a rock from the gravel drive, and heaved it at the school. The rock bounced off the window of the main door.
    "Jeez," breathed Kevin.
    The door slammed open and Van Syke emerged just as Cordie grabbed her two little brothers by the hand and took off down the drive and then down Depot Street toward the train tracks. She moved very fast for a fat girl. One of her kid brothers tripped as they crossed Third Avenue but Cordie just dragged him through the air until his feet found pavement again. Van Syke ran to the edge of the schoolground and stopped, his long fingers groping at air.
    "Jeez," Kevin said again.
    "Come on," said Dale. "Let's get out of here. My mom said she'd have lemonade for all of us after school."
    With a whoop and a holler the band of boys left the school-grounds, loped under the elms, bounded across the crowned asphalt of Depot Street, and ran toward freedom and summer.

THREE
    Few events in a human being's life-at least a male human being's life-are as free, as exuberant, as infinitely expansive and filled with potential as the first day of summer when one is an eleven-year-old boy. The summer lies ahead like a great banquet and the days are filled with rich, slow time in which to enjoy each course.
    Awakening on that first delicious morning of summer, Dale Stewart had lain for a moment in that brief twilight of consciousness, already savoring the difference even before realizing what it was: no alarm clock or mother's shout to rouse him and his brother, Lawrence, no gray, cold fog pressing at the windows and no grayer, colder school awaiting them at eight-thirty, no loud chorus of adult voices telling them what to do, what workbook pages to turn to, what thoughts to think. No, this morning there were the sound of birds, the rich, warm air of summer coming through screens, the sound of a lawnmower down the street as some early-rising retired person began the daily yard chores, and-already visible through the curtains-the rich, warm benediction of sunlight falling across Dale's and Lawrence's beds as if the barrier of the gray school year had been raised and color had been allowed to return to the world.
    Dale had rolled to one side and seen his brother's eyes open and staring above the glass-black eyes of his teddy bear. Then Lawrence had grinned that overbite-joyous grin of his, and the two boys were up, throwing their pajamas off in a rush, tugging on jeans and t-shirts waiting on nearby chairs, pulling on clean white socks and less-than-clean sneakers, and then were out,