Creatures of Habit Read Online Free PDF Page B

took another step and then squatted, feet apart, pants around her knees and held forward. Now she couldn’t go. Something was tickling around her legs. She heard another rustling sound from in the woods, closer and closer.
    â€œI talked to her the day you put me in front of the firingsquad, too,” she whispered, expecting him to tell her to shut up, but he was listening now. “She was right there in our yard and I never even heard her walk up. She’s the one untied me.”
    His silence scared her and she hurriedly—without going —pulled up and zipped her pants, relieved to take her side of the bag and feel him there beside her.
    â€œShe said, ‘Oh my poor darling,’ not mean at all.”
    â€œShe ain’t a witch,” he whispered now. “I lied about all that.”
    She nodded.
    â€œAnd I lied about first grade, nothing happens in first grade. Bunch of babies learn to say letters and crap.”
    â€œReally?” She turned now and stared at him, angry for the joke but so relieved she wanted to scream and dance.
    â€œBut now I know something real that’s bad,” he said. “I swear to God.”
    â€œTell me,” she whispered not really wanting to hear; she was hoping her dad would come running down the path but there was nothing beyond the darkness.
    â€œYou gotta cross your heart and hope to die,” he said. “If you tell it I’ll kill you myself.”
    â€œI won’t tell.”
    â€œPromise? Swear to God?”
    That was something else he’d learned at school and their mother had told him not to say it. Now he was waiting for her to say it.
    â€œSwear to God.”
    â€œSwear to God,” she whispered and waited.
    â€œMama is about to make us leave.” He stared straight ahead. “I heard her tell Mrs. Hopper that as soon as school starts and you ain’t scared anymore that she’s gonna take us and move across town, maybe even to a new town. But that all depends on how we’re doing in school and how Dad is doing all by himself. She told Mrs. Hopper that she had had all she could take. She said she does not love him at all. She said the only good thing he ever did was have us.”
    Then, before Danny could say more, there was a rustling down on the path, a sudden sound like giant wings rushing forward. It seemed the sound was getting louder, closer, the trees closing in.
    â€œShit, here it comes,” Danny whispered.
    Caroline froze to the sounds, unable to move, closer and closer, a rush of big brown wings, a head the size of a bear.
    â€œSnipe!” Danny called, his voice cracking with fear.
    It was coming; it was coming, racing up from the woods on its big long legs to jump in the bag, there, over there, out of the woods and right in the path. She straightened too fastand peed in her shorts. A warm stream ran down her leg and into her sneaker but she was too afraid to care. The snipe ducked back into the woods and it was quiet again; Danny was breathing hard.
    â€œI wet my . . .”
    â€œShhhh!”
    There was silence and they waited again. Caroline moved closer to Danny. Now she couldn’t even run down the path to their house because the snipe was out there, just there and waiting to catch her and spread his big brown wings and fly away.
    â€œYou stink,” Danny whispered. “Snipe ain’t coming because you stink.”
    But his voice had lost all anger now, and she knew he was scared, too. “I couldn’t help it.”
    She was about to tell him that he was nothing but a baby, too, when up from the bushes sprang a snipe as big as a man. Caroline jumped toward Danny, getting tangled in the sack and pulling both of them to the ground.
    â€œDaddy!” Caroline screamed as loud as she could, screaming and crying as a dim beam of light moved from side to side on the path and finally stopped on Danny’s pale face.
    â€œCan’t catch a snipe that