The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF

was wearing a baseball cap and, beneath the bill, a black patch covered one eye.

CHAPTER FOUR

    How good it was to see him, Peggy thought as she settled into the sane routine of her father's retirement. His wholesome normalcy was like a tonic after the frenetic pace of New York.
    Val was thrilled to see them, and delighted by the chance to show off his latest whiz-bangs. One was a goofy contraption that puffed steam and flashed whirling lights and deposited five pennies into a slot over a spout that then dispensed a glass of cherry Kool-aid.
    Sam couldn't get enough of it. He kept asking to go back out to the garage and try it again. But, over dinner that first night, Peggy scolded her dad for using up Florida's energy resources for no good reason but silliness.
    Val Potter was delighted. "What do you mean, no good reason? You call a five-cent glass of Kool-aid no good reason?"
    This reminded Sam, and he asked to be excused.
    "Can I, Granddad? Can I go back out to the garage?"
    Peggy scowled. "But, Sam, you haven't finished your milk, and you'll miss dessert."
    "There's watermelon," Val Potter said, fixing his grandson with one smiling eye.
    "I'll just be a second," Sam promised.
    "More likely one hundred and thirty-two seconds," Val Potter said, "which is how long she takes to run a cycle." He laughed uproariously. " No good reason."
    Peggy calculated whether she could ask what she wanted in that much time, and concluded she could. She wanted Sam out of the room when she raised the subject—and she was too tense about it to wait until the boy went to bed.
    "All right," she said. "But when you come back, milk first. No watermelon until you finish every last drop."
    They watched Sam skip through the kitchen to the garage door, his hand out to make contact with almost everything he passed.
    "And don't put your sticky hands all over Granddad's nice, clean walls!" Peggy called after  him, and then, turning to her father and pointing to her own eye, she lowered her voice.
    "What happened, Pop?"
    "Aw, hell, I didn't want to worry you two," Val Potter said.
    "All right, but what happened?"
    "Metal shaving. Should have had my goggles on. Didn't."
    "You were horsing around in your workshop?" Hal said.
    Val Potter nodded, then went back to eating. "It's nothing. Forget it."
    "But how serious is it?" Hal persisted. "I mean, will you always wear that patch?"
    "My dogfighting days are over," Val Potter laughed, pushing his plate away from him and smiling like a boy caught at something infamously off-bounds.
    Peggy got up and put her arms around her father's neck. He hugged her and tried to get her to sit down again. "It's no big deal, kitten," he said gruffly. "Let's just skip the melodrama and get that watermelon on the table."
    "In a minute," Peggy said, standing over her father and looking down at him with deep concern in her eyes. "Just tell me how long ago it happened."
    "Why, just the other day. I figured there was no sense calling you about it, since you'd be here so  soon anyway. Besides, it isn't important enough to deserve a long distance phone call."
    It was a warm night and the house was hot anyway from the dinner cooking. But Peggy's thoughts fixated on Sam's notebook, and she was chilled to the marrow.
    Val Potter stood staring at his daughter, totally nonplussed by the stricken look that had washed across her face. "I told you, Pegs, there's nothing to worry about."
    ***
    It wasn't conclusive. But it was enough to start her thinking. Sam couldn't have known about the eye. Yet it could have been a wild coincidence, a boy on his way to visit his grandfather and he happens to have pirates on his mind.
    Then she thought about the drawing of the moving van waiting at the curb to cart their belongings away. Was that a coincidence too? Yet what else could explain it? Nothing, she told herself sternly. Absolutely nothing. It wasn't like her to be this high-strung, and the sooner she got back to normal, the better.
    But that