The Pinballs Read Online Free PDF

some boy liked my twin, then I could pretend to be her and say all kinds of crazy things. It would really be fun to have a twin. She could take tests for me and—” She looked back over her shoulder. “Come on , Harvey.” She liked an audience. She always did better when people were watching her. “This may be your one and only chance to see me sew and I’m not kidding. Come on.”
    â€œAll right, what did I do wrong now?” Carlie asked, holding out the halter.
    â€œLet’s see.” Mrs. Mason put down her own sewing. “Well, you took a dart on this side and you didn’t take one over here. That’s why it doesn’t fit.” Mrs. Mason began to take out Carlie’s seam.
    Carlie watched Mrs. Mason rather than what she was doing. After a moment she said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
    â€œNo, go ahead.”
    â€œWell, why didn’t you have children of your own, that’s what I’m wondering, instead of taking in strays?”
    â€œI don’t think of you as strays, Carlie.” Mrs. Mason smiled. She put a pin into the cloth and then lowered it to her lap. “I did want children of my own—lots of them. My sister Helen has four children, Liz has five, but as it turned out, I couldn’t have any.” She picked up the cloth. “Now, Carlie, see, I’ve pinned the dart for you. Sew along this line.”
    â€œBut why didn’t you adopt a child?”
    â€œWell, that’s what we were going to do. We even had our papers in. Only while we were waiting—this was a long time ago—they asked us to be foster parents. I didn’t want to at first, but—”
    â€œWhy not? I’m curious.”
    â€œWell, I knew I would come to love the child and I knew the child would leave, and I didn’t think I could stand it. I wanted, you know, a child of my OWN, capital letters, who would never leave. Only nobody has that, Carlie.” She straightened. “Anyway, it’s worked out, Carlie, not the way I thought when I was your age, not the way I planned, but it has worked out.” She smiled. “Now sew your halter.”

10
    Thomas J sat beside Mr. Mason on the front seat of the car, sliding a little on the plastic covers every time the car went around a curve. He had never visited anyone in a hospital before, and he had a dread about it.
    â€œWhy don’t you take them some candy?” Carlie had suggested. “That’s what I’d want if I was in the hospital.”
    â€œThey don’t believe in candy,” Thomas J had answered.
    Carlie had stared at him like he didn’t have good sense. “Don’t believe in candy! How can they not believe in candy? There’s Mounds, Mr. Goodbars, Hershey’s, Sweetarts, Jujubes. I mean, I can understand how they wouldn’t believe in ghosts or something, but candy! How can anybody not believe in candy?”
    â€œThey just don’t. They don’t believe in soda pop. They don’t believe in chewing gum.”
    â€œWhoo, they are nuts .” She had paused, then grinned. “Or don’t they believe in them either?”
    As Thomas J sat there beside Mr. Mason he wished he did have a box of candy on his lap. One of those big silver-wrapped boxes of candy he’d seen in drugstores with a bow and a plastic rose on top. It would make it all easier.
    â€œHere’s something for you,” he would say. And they, who had never believed in candy, would be overcome. It would be like people who didn’t believe in heaven suddenly finding themselves floating upward.
    They got to the hospital and walked slowly down the green halls. It was an ugly green to Thomas J, nothing like the greens of nature. Suddenly Thomas J remembered the garden. He remembered the twins working, feeling the tomatoes, pulling off dead leaves, lifting their heads to the sun.
    He stumbled in the hall. “It’ll be all