The Summer of Riley Read Online Free PDF Page B

off. There was that awful window. If only I hadn’t opened it.
    It was while I was tying my laces that I had a great idea. I opened my keeper box and took out my most recent bank statement, the kind I get once a month. I’ve been putting birthday money and chore money in the Monk’s Hill Savings and Loan for ages, and the statement said I had $348.75. What if …?
    I folded the statement small and put it in the pocket of my jeans.
    At the bend of the stairs I slowed, then stopped as I heard the angry voices.
    “Just think it through,” Dad was saying in that unfriendly way he has sometimes with Mom. I’ve noticed Dad and Mom talk to each other nicer when I’m around. It’s a kind of playacting. But when it’s just them, it’s totally different.
    “You shouldn’t be encouraging him on this,” Dad was saying. “An appeal isn’t going to work. And even if it did, what then? You’d get the dog and you’d havethe same problem all over again. This is just something William has to accept.”
    “He’s had to accept too much lately,” Mom said. “And hope is good.”
    “Not false hope,” Dad said in his snooty way.
    I heard her draw in a deep breath. “No, not false hope. I’ve had plenty of that myself.”
    I knew she was talking about Dad at the beginning, and how she’d hoped they’d get back together.
    And now, with Phoebe, I guess neither of us even had false hope.
    “How long do you think they’ll keep the dog before …?” Mom was asking Dad.
    “Five days,” Dad said. “I asked them.”
    I held tight to the banister. Five days! I had to get Peachie to stop this.
    I called her first from Mom’s bedroom phone so they wouldn’t hear.
    “Peachie? This is William. May I come over and talk to you?”
    There was a pause on the other end. I could hear
Jeopardy
on her TV. “If you’re coming to ask me to drop those charges, William, you’re wasting your time. I’m sorry. I did what I had to do.”
    “May I come anyway?”
    Another pause.
    “They broke Roger Maris’s record for the most home runs in a single season,” the
Jeopardy
guy was saying.
    I knew the question. Peachie would, too. She loves baseball.
    The silence stretched and stretched.
    “All right,” she said at last. “But don’t expect too much of me.”
    “I won’t.” Which, of course, was a lie.
    “I called Peachie,” I told Mom. “And it’s okay for me to go.”
    It was just the time between day and dark.
    A big, empty logging truck blasted its horn as it roared by on its way home.
    I smoothed my hair the way Dad does and rang Peachie’s doorbell.
    “It’s open. Come on in, William,” Peachie called.
    She switched off the TV and we sat together on her couch. There are so many horse pictures and framed awards and blue ribbons hanging on her living room wall that you can hardly see the faded flowered wallpaper. There’s a picture of her and Woodie with the Sultan in between them. There’s a huge oilpainting of the Sultan—just his head. He was looking right at us as we sat, with his long shy face and soft eyes, a wreath of flowers around his neck. Peachie had told me once that it was painted from a photo of him after he won at Del Mar. The Sultan didn’t look stuck on himself at all. Anybody would love that horse.
    I asked about him.
    “He’s all right. Nervous. If your dog had gotten into the barn with him today, I’d have a dead horse out there.”
    “Peachie,” I began. My voice was so gravelly I had to stop and give a little cough. “Peachie, I’m awfully sorry about what Riley did. But I want to tell you honestly, and I’m not just saying this because Riley is my dog … I mean was …” I needed another small cough before I could go on. “I don’t think Riley wanted to hurt the Sultan.” I held one of her couch cushions against my stomach to help me stop shaking. It was a needlepoint pillow, and I glanced down at it and quickly put it back on the couch beside me. In red and blue stitches it said,