Ghost Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

half a ton with all the things he’d packed. So he stepped across Honey one more time and took a bat from the wall to slip through his knot for a handle. Then he stood at the door, staring back at his dog.
    She slept in a ball, her head on her paws. One hind leg was crooked out behind her like a frog’s, but she had slept that way ever since Harold could remember. He watched her breathing, her eyelids just barely fluttering. And he smiled at her, aching to touch her again. “So long, old girl,” he said. “You be a good dog, you hear?” Then he turned the knob as slowly as possible, listening through it for sounds from his mother’s room. With a tiny click the latch sprang open.
    And Honey came awake.
    Her feet tangled in the blanket and scratched against the floor. Maybe the sight of the baseball bat made her young again; maybe it was just the open door and the sense of excitement that came through it with a faraway drumroll—faint as crickets—beating from the circus. But she bounded across the floor like a puppy and banged against Harold. And in her eagerness she barked.
    Across the hall, bedsprings squeaked.
    â€œHush!” said Harold. He blocked the door with his leg, and again she barked. “Oh, Honey,” he whispered. “You have to be quiet.”
    â€œWhat’s going on out there?” asked Walter Beesley from the bedroom.
    â€œNothing,” said Harold. He stood half in the doorway and half in his room, the pillowcase at his feet with the bat resting across it. Honey sniffed and whined, then raised her head.
    â€œDon’t bark,” whispered Harold.
    Her chin quivered. And he hit her.
    It was the first time he had ever hit her, and he heard her teeth knock together as his fingers slapped her nose. She reeled away as though he’d done it with a sledgehammer, slamming her head against the door. It rattled on its hinges, and she barked again, and yelped. And Mrs. Beesley, half asleep, said: “Get that fleabag back in bed!”
    Honey cowered on the floor, and Harold threw himself down beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He put his hand out to stroke her, but she cringed away, her eyes flickering shut, fearful he would hit her again.
    â€œOh, gosh,” he said. “Gosh, I was frightened, that’s all.” He stretched out on the floor, the same height as Honey. He threw an arm across her back; he pressed his cheek against her nose. “I’ve got to go,” he said in a whisper. “I’ve just
got
to go, and I can’t take you with me. I wish I could, you bet I do, but I can’t, you poor old thing.”
    Honey shuddered under his arm. She whimpered, almost like a baby.
    â€œOh, don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry because I’m going.”
    He stroked her in all the places she liked to be stroked. He told her he’d be back, that David would come and they’d I go out to Oregon. But he couldn’t help thinking he was seeing her for the last time.
    There was white and gray in her muzzle. Her eyes were clouded, crusty in the corners. There were pink warts on her paws that were spreading, month by month, across her back and shoulders. She lifted her head and gazed at him. And he blinked his eyes; he fussed with her blanket, pressing it around her, making a pillow of folds for her chin.
    â€œI love you, Honey,” he whispered. And once more he patted her. “You be a good dog, you hear?”
    Then he sniffed; he wiped his nose on his sleeve. “And don’t go touching my junk.”
    He didn’t look back. He went to the door and pushed the pillowcase out with his foot. He listened for a while to the sound of his mother breathing—almost snoring—in her bed. And he wished not that he could go and say goodbye but that he
wanted
to say goodbye.
    He closed his bedroom door. He padded down the stairs, through the living room,