Searching for Candlestick Park Read Online Free PDF

and let Mama fuss over me. She might even bring my dinner on a tray.
    But Mama would also tell me that I could not go to San Francisco to live with Dad. No way. No time. No how.
    And Aunt May would look at my bruised leg and say God was punishing me for stealing.
    I mounted the bike and started pedaling. Every time I pushed my right foot down, pain climbed my leg. I tried to push harder with my left foot and go easy on the right. It hurt like crazy, but my other option was to sit on the curb all night.
    I left the industrial area, and saw apartments and houses.
    When I came to a small park, I decided to spend the night there. I had hoped to get farther, but my leg hurt badly and Foxey had started yowling again, and the park looked as safe a spot as I was likely to find. There was a children’s play area, with swings and slides, several picnic tables, and a rest room, which I needed to use.
    The park was empty, which suited me just fine. I wasn’t exactly sure what Mama would do when she found my note, but she might call the police and report me missing. My description might be on the evening news, and Buzz and Cissy might nail MISSING posters, with my picture, on all the telephone poles.
    I may not be the child genius of the world, but I could figure out that the fewer people who noticed me, the less likely it would be that one of them would turn me in.
    The woman who had stopped to help me when I fell off the bike would recognize my picture if she saw it on television. The clerk in the hotel might, too. And the two Amtrak conductors. Already four people couldidentify me, and this was only my first night away from home. I would have to be more careful.
    I put Foxey’s box on a picnic table, and opened the lid. He raised his head cautiously, sniffing the air while I tied the rope on his harness. He stepped out of the box and sat on the picnic table for a couple of minutes, looking all around. Then he stretched, first his front legs and then his back legs.
    I watched carefully, still worried that he might have been injured in the bike accident. He jumped from the table to the bench to the ground and examined the underside of the bench. I decided he was okay, and turned my attention to food.
    I ate an apple, two slices of bread, and a piece of cheese. I gave Foxey some cheese, too, I offered him a bite of bread and he surprised me by eating it. I wished I had a cold glass of milk.
    Foxey began to explore. I let him go where he wanted and I followed, holding the rope. He walked slowly, stopping often to check behind him.
    Once he ate a big bite of grass. I had seen him do that at home, too. I guess cats need salad, the same as people do. Mama always told me to eat my greens.
    Mounds of dirt, where moles had tunneled to the surface, dotted the park’s grassy area. Foxey approached a molehill cautiously, and sniffed the dirt. Then he began to dig, pushing the fresh dirt away with both paws.
    I thought he smelled the mole and was trying to getit. I clutched the rope, ready to pull him away if a mole jumped out. Moles have razor-sharp claws, and I didn’t want a slashed cat on my hands.
    Foxey dug faster and faster, and then stepped forward and squatted over the hole. I laughed, hoping the moles either had an umbrella or were in a different part of their tunnel. When he finished, Foxey carefully scratched the dirt back into place and continued his walk.
    After awhile, Foxey quit walking and just sat, so I carried him back to the picnic table. “If you’re going to sit still,” I told him, “you can do it where I have a place to write.”
    Foxey lay in the grass and I got out the small notebook that I had found in Aunt May’s purse. The first page was a grocery list, which I tore out. The rest of the pages were blank. I wrote: SPENCER’S DEBTS . On the next page I wrote:
    1. Aunt May $14
    one small notebook
one stamped envelope
bread, apples, cheese, graham crackers
rope, knife, soap, flashlight
maps
    2. Unknown boy: