Man in the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

changed. It just wasn’t right for a grown man to act the way he did. What the heck did he see up there that we didn’t? I craned my neck, trying to look up too. The window screen pressed hard against my forehead, and I could only stretch it a tiny bit. I couldn’t see whatever it was that Mr. Lunas saw, but I was really aching to. Maybe tomorrow I’d ask him.
    When I woke up, the sky was hidden behind gray clouds. The air smelled as damp as the laundry that Mama had hung out on the line. The temperature must have been ten degrees cooler, which made Ricky’s grin almost as big as Mr. Lunas’s growing belly. He nudged me and said, “I bet Mama lets me go outside today.”
    Mama stood in her bedroom, ironing clothes. She had the radio tuned to the hillbilly station, and the music crackled each time the sky rumbled from the distant storm.
    Ricky put on his “Please, Mama?” face and looked at her with big eyes.
    “It’s cool outside today, Mama. You feel it?”
    Mama guided the iron over the pillowcase like we were invisible. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, even though a gusty wind caused her bedroom curtains to wave and flap. Ricky gave me a look and shrugged.
    Mama sighed. “Go on! I have to hurry and finish this ironing before it comes a storm. I don’t want to get electrocuted.”
    As we ran out of her room we heard her call, “But get yourselves back in here before the first drop falls, you hear me?”
    We scampered out like two rabbits racing for cabbage. We passed Mr. Lunas, sitting on the back porch. He’d gained so much weight that he filled the whole chair.
    “What’re you young ’uns up to today?”
    Ricky bounced and jumped like he’d been tied down for a month. “I get to play outside!” The word
outside
echoed through the brown pasture.
    “Good for you,” Mr. Lunas said. He tapped his foot and strummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Mama’s radio was turned too low for us to hear, so I couldn’t help wondering what kind of song was playing in his head.
    Ricky and I raced to the shade tree, Ricky tagging it first.
    “Beat ya,” he said, leaning forward, hands on hips.
    I rolled my eyes at him. “I let you win.”
    “Uh-unh,” he said, not buying it. He swallowed a deep breath, then let it out slow. “Janine, Daddy ain’t ever going to buy me a go-cart.”
    “I told you so, didn’t I?”
    “Yeah,” he said, looking sassy. “That’s why I’m gonna build one.”
    I swear that boy had mush for brains. “Bullcorn. You can’t build a go-cart. You don’t know how.”
    “Yes, I do,” he said, his skinny little body bouncing like a puppet.
    “And what are you going to make it out of?”
    Ricky didn’t say a word. He just looked at the old flatbed truck sitting in the pasture.
    “Why, that ain’t nothing but a bunch of junk!”
    “Right,” he said. “But I bet there’s enough junk piled there to put together a go-cart.”
    I shook my head. I didn’t know how he could possibly make a go-cart out of a heap of trash. “What are you going to use for a motor?”
    “It don’t need a motor, silly. We’ll glide down the hill out front, just like we used to do with that old cardboard box Daddy left in the barn.”
    I have to admit, that cardboard box was a lot of fun, even though it was a bumpy ride without much to hold on to. “Let’s go!”
    As soon as we started running, Buddy came loping behind. I was happy to see him. For a while there, I thought he’d become Mr. Lunas’s dog.
    The sky was getting darker, but we didn’t care. It only made the air cooler. I just knew God wouldn’t let it rain while we were on a mission to find go-cart pieces. We’d spent too many days inside. He had to know that.
    Ricky didn’t waste any time climbing onto the truck. A piece of wire caught in the toe of his sandals, but he jerked it off and threw it to the side. He dug into that trash, reaching in and flinging things off like there was gold buried underneath. “Here!” he