Snow White and the Giants Read Online Free PDF

have been noticed on a night

which was not completely dark. The odd thing about it was, it didn't

seem to have a source. There was nothing but the glow. I walked through

it, stood in the middle of it, looked in all directions, and there was

nothing but a faint blue radiance.

I ran back to the fence, climbed it and hurried back to the house.

Sheila was in the bedroom, in a shortie nightdress (in this extraordinary

summer, most people wore less than that at night), about to go to bed. We

had left a very important discussion hanging in the air. But this was

something I had to share with somebody, and Sheila was my wife.

"Sheila," I said breathlessly, "I want you to come and look at something

outside."

"Where? Not in the garden, for heaven's sake?"

"In the copse."

She laughed in protest. "Like this?"

"It'll cool you down. And no one can see."

On the point of protesting further, she saw I was deadly serious and

realized it would probably be quicker in the end to humor me than to

argue with me. She put on shoes and we went down the garden.

I was afraid it was going to be like those frustrating incidents in

detective stories where the hero takes the cops to the murder apartment,

only to find the body's gone, the signs of a struggle have been removed,

and even the bloodstains have vanished.

However, as I helped Sheila over the fence she saw the glow and suddenly

became reluctant to go further because she thought there was something

instead of because she thought there wasn't.

"What is it?" she whispered, making no move forward.

"I don't know. YoU do see it?"

"Of course I see it. But what is it?"

After a moment or two she came further into the copse with me, and

together we tried all the things I had already tried alone -- looking

among the branches for the source of the light, at the sky through the

leaves, at the still river beyond, under the bushes.

Sheila's reaction was exactly the opposite of mine. The less I understood

the glow, the more I wanted to find out about it. More practically,

perhaps, Sheila satisfied herself that it was a mystery and was then

quite prepared to give up.

"Well, we've looked," she said reasonably. "There's nothing else to

see. Whatever it is, it's staying put. Let's go to bed and look in

the morning."

And that's what we did. I wasn't sorry, though, that I'd made Sheila

come and look. I wasn't imagining things. There was a radiance in the

wood with no source.

Later, Sheila wanted to talk about something, but it wasn't the radiance.

"I did hurt her, Val," she said, watching me. "I'm bigger than she is

and a lot stronger. I thought, well, after all, she's a naughty kid and

she needs a lesson. I meant to beat her up and I thought it was going

to be fun, like that time when . . . "

She stopped, and although I had followed her thought I said nothing. She

was thinking of that other time when I had thrown Jota all over the

place, fighting mad, hardly knowing what I was doing, and Sheila had

watched and been quite happy about it, because it was me who was doing

the throwing and Jota who was being thrown, and because of what had

happened before that.

But Dina wasn't quite the same.

"It didn't work?" I said.

"No."

"I didn't think it would."

"Well . . . don't you mind? Was I terribly wrong to . . . to do what

I did?"

"I don't know. I don't suppose so. When any kid's on the wrong track you

talk to him, try to persuade him; and I guess if you don't try giving

him a good hiding you're missing a bet . . . But you can't beat sense

into Dina."

"But you don't mind?" Sheita insisted.

"I don't see that it's anything to do with me," I said.

When we got to bed, more friendly toward each other than for a long

time, I thought it would be a good idea to do something about it. But

nothing happened, and Sheila made no move, merely saying "Good night"

in a tone which seemed to contain finality. So a chance was lost, like

a thousand others.

Chapter Three

Before