The Year the Swallows Came Early Read Online Free PDF Page B

fingers wide. “You gotta forgive, boy,” he told him, “otherwise you keep that with you, like one of those houses they put sandbags around to keep the floodwaters out. Nothin’ comes in, but nothin’ goes out either.”
    Frankie looked up at Mr. Tom. He didn’t answer him, but I could tell there was something he wanted to say by the way his eyes looked all serious.
    â€œYou don’t wanna be stuck,” Mr. Tom said. “It’s only a matter of pride.” He let out a long sigh. Then he said, “I’ve seen this before. Sailors I served with who’d rather stay angry than forgive. And all that personal suffering that comes from built-up anger. It makes no sense, but they’d rather suffer.”
    Then he took off his knit cap and his yellow coat and started moving his hands in small circles slowly in the air around Frankie.
    He started at the top of his shoulders, and made his way to the bottom of Frankie’s legs, butwithout touching him. His eyes were closed tight, like he was feeling for the anger that must have been coming off Frankie that very moment.
    And when he came to the bottom of Frankie’s tennis shoes, he shook his hands out three times. Like a person does who has no towel to dry them after a good washing.
    Then he picked up his guitar with his coat and cap and walked up the hill without looking back, like it never even happened.

WHAT FRANKIE DID WHEN HE TOOK THE DINGHY OUT
    I told Frankie that taking Luis’s dinghy out at this time of day was a bad idea. I said, “The fog is still coming in. It’s practically dark. Luis will wonder where you are.” Things like that.
    But Frankie kept walking real fast toward the end of the dock, ignoring me, and then stepped into the blue dinghy Luis kept tied up there.
    â€œWhere are you going anyway?” I said as I caught up to him, noticing that people were bringing their boats in for the day.
    At the sound of my voice, Marisol and Felixlooked up from Marisol’s drawing.
    Frankie reached back to pull the starter cord on the engine. “Can you throw me the line?” he asked, with his arm stretched out to catch it.
    I waited for him to answer my question. Puffs of smoke rose from behind the engine while the smell of gasoline looped around us.
    Finally he said, “I’m just going for a ride.” He extended his arm out farther then, like he was saying, Okay, now will you throw me the line? I told you what you wanted to know.
    â€œYou’re going for a ride? Out there?” Felix asked as he walked up to us. He looked into the distance. His hands and knees were covered in light-blue chalk dust.
    â€œYeah,” Frankie told him.
    â€œMaybe I’ll come too,” I heard myself say. I untied the rope from the pier post and tossed it to him. Even though I wanted to get home and talk to Mama more than anything, I didn’t want to leave Frankie alone. I knew he’d never actually tell me what was wrong, but if I looked closeenough, I could see it sometimes. I could see it by the way he’d squint into the air, looking at nothing—which meant he did not agree with what someone said. Or by the way he’d turn and walk away in the middle of a conversation. You knew he was real upset then. I figured him getting into the boat and wanting to leave had to do with what Mr. Tom had said.
    Frankie shrugged. “Fine,” he told me, slowly backing the boat away from the dock. “You coming or not?”
    I glanced out at the fog skimming the top of the sea.
    â€œCan I come too?” Felix asked.
    â€œNo, you cannot go with them out there in this weather, Felix Cruz,” Marisol said as she stomped toward us and ushered her brother away in a hurry. Like we were common criminals on a crime spree, and before long Felix would be spraying things with hose water and taking boat rides in the fog just because he’d associated with us.
    The dinghy inched