Creatures of Habit Read Online Free PDF Page A

Danny whispered, his voice still deep. “How are we gonna catch a snipe with you making all this noise?”
    â€œYou talked,” she whispered. “I wasn’t talking.”
    â€œYou were moving. Moved your feet and moved your hand.”
    She knew the expression on his face as if they were standing in broad daylight, his blue eyes glaring, the sharp bone of his jaw clenched so that the pale purple vein in his cheekcould be traced as easily as if it had been put there with a ballpoint pen.
    â€œYou let your hand off the bag and messed up the hole. Snipe ain’t coming unless it sees a big dark hole.”
    â€œY ES SIR ,” U NCLE T IM with the fat red face had said. “I myself bagged five big snipe one night. Nobody else ever bagged five.” Instead of standing behind their uncle and making faces, Danny had sat on the floor right by his feet, laughing and slapping his leg. Caroline wasn’t sure if Danny was pulling a trick or really liking Uncle Tim, and he wouldn’t even give her a sign to let her know. He said that he didn’t think he ought to have to eat at any children’s table with her; he wanted to do what the men were doing.
    â€œWhat’s a snipe anyways?” Caroline asked and waited, her face going warm while they all laughed.
    â€œShe don’t know nothing,” Danny said. “She hasn’t even been to school. She doesn’t even know what a snipe is.” He rolled on his back and laughed his deep laugh. “Tell her, Uncle Tim. Tell her what a snipe is.”
    â€œAll right.” Uncle Tim stared hard at Danny and then looked around the room. “A snipe, Miss Caroline, since you’re the only one here that don’t know, is a great bigbrown bird. Well, it’s so big you don’t even want to call it a bird. It’s more like an animal with great big wings.”
    â€œYeah,” Danny said and turned to her, nodding with each word, his face flushed and short bangs cowlicked.
    N OW SHE LONGED for the yellow lamplight of the living room, the warm kitchen where her mother and the other women talked and handed plates back and forth over soapy water that filled the sink. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered and ran her hand through her hair just like she had seen Danny do earlier. She waited for him to respond, but he kept his vow of silence and simply pressed down on the toe of her shoe with his foot.
    â€œI said Jesus Christ, oh Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.”
    â€œCall on somebody you know,” he whispered harshly, another thing he had learned at school.
    â€œM OON LOOKS RIGHT for sniping tonight,” Uncle Tim had said and Caroline went to peek out the window at the thin sliver of a moon just above the trees. It was the fairy-tale moon, or so she’d always heard, never heard of a snipe moon, but there it was, thin, white, and waiting. It sent a chill over her scalp.
    â€œCan’t snipe alone,” their father said, and Caroline froze, part of her wanting so bad to go; it was the same part of her that wanted to be in the first grade and have a book sack to carry. But then there was that other side, the school dungeon and Mrs. Hopper’s nighttime teeth and a big brown animal like a rhinoceros with wings.
    â€œGo with me, Dad,” Danny said. “Let’s me and you and Uncle Tim and Randy all go.”
    â€œJust the men, huh?” the girlfriend asked and came to stand beside Caroline. “Girls can bag a snipe as good as a man. Right?”
    Caroline nodded with her, this grown-up girl, so grown that she carried a purse and put stuff on her eyelids. She had unbraided her hair and now it waved like a princess’s almost to her waist.
    â€œShe’s too young to go,” Danny said and pointed at Caroline. “Leave her out of it.”
    â€œCan’t be done,” Uncle Tim said and lit a cigar. “You see, you can’t hold both sides of the bag when the snipe