Finton Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

if you stays here.’ She don’t even look at me. Just rockin’ and singin’ ‘The Wabash Cannonball’.”
    â€œSounds like she’s in shock,” said the other one.
    â€œCouldn’t stay no longer, b’ys.” Tom spit a black glob onto the ground in front of Finton. While the boy was still gazing at the shiny dark stuff that came from his father’s insides, Tom stood up shakily.
    â€œYer not goin’ back in!” the first man said, wiping the blackened sweat from his brow.
    Tom stopped. Glared at the ground, absently rubbing a sore spot on his crown. “Are you goin’ to?”
    Silence. Tom spit again—not angrily, but as a sign of covenant. Without another word—although Finton thought of a few things he could have said to the cowardly men—Tom darted into the flaming building.
    Time stood still as he watched the front door. Presently, he felt a well-meaning hand on his shoulder, which turned out to belong to one of the cowardly men. Finton shrugged it off and dashed to the front step. As he peered through the smoke, the heat threatened to melt the flesh from his face. Finton shielded his head and stepped back.
    He observed no more, for one of the cowards stepped in front of him, inadvertently posing a barrier between the flames and the boy. The man, who was Mayor Munro, seemed to be considering his options. Lucky for His Worship, and for Finton, Tom Moon’s backside broke the spell as, swearing like a madman and pulling with all his strength, he partially emerged from the curtain of smoke.
    â€œCome on, Miss Bridie! There’s nudding in here for you now.”
    â€œMorgan!” she was sobbing. “My Morgan’s still in there!”
    â€œMorgan’s up at my place, Miss Bridie. She’s best kind. Now come on.” He jerked the rocking chair, in which the hysterical woman sat, onto the threshold. But they both came up solid in the door frame as she refused to be dragged any farther.
    â€œS’me home, Tom! I can’t leave me ’ome!” Clinging one-handed to her blue ceramic rosary beads, she grasped both sides of the door frame. The sight of those beads was paralyzing; except in his vision, Finton had never actually seen them before. Meanwhile, Tom Moon kept tugging at Miss Bridie’s chair and swearing at her.
    â€œI wants to go back home!” Bridie leaped from the chair and scampered inside the house, clutching her long, grey hair, rosary beads dangling from one hand.
    â€œJesus!” Tom spit on the porch once more. “You’re askin’ to get the two of us killed.” He hauled the rocking chair outside on the porch and flung it aside.
    Finton lurched forward and grabbed his father’s belt above the left hip. “Don’t go in again, Dad!”
    Tom didn’t hear him, though, and Finton got dragged a few feet before he fell aside. He wondered what sort of moral code reasoned that the life of a suicidal hag was worth a man leaving his family without a provider. Regardless of the reason, he left his youngest boy lying on the porch of a burning building. It was the closest to an apocalypse Finton assumed he would ever come: the flames, the heat, the smoke, the hordes, and the abandonment. This time his father returned in mere seconds, carrying Miss Bridie in his arms. He fell across the porch with her and pinned her to the ground as she flailed in her bare feet, crying out for her daughter.

The Girl in the Pink Coat

    At the breakfast table, everyone talked about last night’s fire, but Finton ate quickly. Upon finishing, he mumbled gratitude to his mother, grabbed his bookbag, burst out of the house, leaped over the steps, and ran down the lane. Right about now, she would be emerging through her own front door and on her way to the red schoolhouse at the top of the hill. Rubbing his invisible power ring, he called on Green Lantern to help him fly at the speed of light,