Read Online City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tad Williams
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a good liar, but with a little practice she was getting better.
She wasn't a bad girl, really, although once her fish died because she forgot to feed him for a bunch of days. She didn't think of herself as a liar either, but sometimes it was just . . . easier not to tell. So when her mother asked her where she was going, she smiled and said, "Portia has Otterland. It's new and it's just like you're really swimming except you can breathe and there's an Otter King and an Otter Queen. . . ."
Her mother waved a hand to halt the explanation. "That sounds sweet, darling. Don't stay at Portia's too long-Daddy's going to be home for dinner. For once."
Christabel grinned. Daddy worked too much-Mommy always said so. He had an important job as Base Security Supervisor. Christabel didn't know exactly what it meant. He was sort of a policeman, except with the army. But he didn't wear a uniform like the army men in the movies.
"Can we have ice cream?"
"If you come home in time to help me shell the peas, then we'll have ice cream."
" 'Kay." Christabel trotted out. As the door resealed behind her with its familiar sucking sound, she laughed. Some noises were just funny.
She knew that the Base was different from the kind of towns that people lived in on net shows, or even in other parts of North Carolina, but she didn't know why. It had streets and trees and a park and a school-two schools, really, since there was a school for grown-up army men and army women as well as one for kids like Christabel whose parents lived on the Base. Daddies and mommies went off to work in normal clothes, drove cars, mowed their lawns, had each other over for dinners and parties and barbecues. The Base did have a few things that most towns didn't have-a double row of electric fences all the way around it to keep out the crowdy hammock city beyond the trees, and three different little houses called checkpoints that all the cars coming in had to drive past-but that didn't seem like enough to make it a Base instead of just a normal place to live. The other kids at school had lived on Bases all their lives, just like her, so they didn't get it either.
She turned left on Windicott Lane. If she had really been going to Portia's, she would have turned right, so she was glad the street corner was out of sight of her house, just in case her mother was watching. It was strange telling Mom she was going one place and then going somewhere else. It was bad, she knew, but not really bad, and it was very exciting. She felt all trembly and new every time she did it, like a shiver-legged baby colt she had seen on the net.
From Windicott she turned onto Stillwell. She skipped for a while, being careful not to step on any of the sidewalk cracks, then turned onto Redland. The houses here were definitely smaller than hers. Some of them looked a little sad. The grass was short on the lawns like everywhere else on the Base, but it looked like it was that way because it didn't have the strength to grow any higher. Some of the lawns had bare spots, and lots of the houses were dusty and a bit faded. She wondered why the people living in them didn't just wash them off or paint them so they'd look like new. When she had her own house someday, she would paint it a different color every week.
She thought about different colors of houses all the way down Redland, then skipped again as she crossed the footbridge over the creek-she like the ka-thump, ka-thump sound it made-and hurried down Beekman Court where the trees were very thick. Even though Mister Sellars' house was very close to the fence that marked the outskirts of the Base, you could hardly tell, because the trees and hedges blocked the view.
That had been the first thing that attracted her to the house, of course-the trees. There were sycamores in the backyard of her parents' house, and a papery-barked birch tree by the front window, but Mister Sellars' house was absolutely surrounded by trees, so many of them that you
She wasn't a bad girl, really, although once her fish died because she forgot to feed him for a bunch of days. She didn't think of herself as a liar either, but sometimes it was just . . . easier not to tell. So when her mother asked her where she was going, she smiled and said, "Portia has Otterland. It's new and it's just like you're really swimming except you can breathe and there's an Otter King and an Otter Queen. . . ."
Her mother waved a hand to halt the explanation. "That sounds sweet, darling. Don't stay at Portia's too long-Daddy's going to be home for dinner. For once."
Christabel grinned. Daddy worked too much-Mommy always said so. He had an important job as Base Security Supervisor. Christabel didn't know exactly what it meant. He was sort of a policeman, except with the army. But he didn't wear a uniform like the army men in the movies.
"Can we have ice cream?"
"If you come home in time to help me shell the peas, then we'll have ice cream."
" 'Kay." Christabel trotted out. As the door resealed behind her with its familiar sucking sound, she laughed. Some noises were just funny.
She knew that the Base was different from the kind of towns that people lived in on net shows, or even in other parts of North Carolina, but she didn't know why. It had streets and trees and a park and a school-two schools, really, since there was a school for grown-up army men and army women as well as one for kids like Christabel whose parents lived on the Base. Daddies and mommies went off to work in normal clothes, drove cars, mowed their lawns, had each other over for dinners and parties and barbecues. The Base did have a few things that most towns didn't have-a double row of electric fences all the way around it to keep out the crowdy hammock city beyond the trees, and three different little houses called checkpoints that all the cars coming in had to drive past-but that didn't seem like enough to make it a Base instead of just a normal place to live. The other kids at school had lived on Bases all their lives, just like her, so they didn't get it either.
She turned left on Windicott Lane. If she had really been going to Portia's, she would have turned right, so she was glad the street corner was out of sight of her house, just in case her mother was watching. It was strange telling Mom she was going one place and then going somewhere else. It was bad, she knew, but not really bad, and it was very exciting. She felt all trembly and new every time she did it, like a shiver-legged baby colt she had seen on the net.
From Windicott she turned onto Stillwell. She skipped for a while, being careful not to step on any of the sidewalk cracks, then turned onto Redland. The houses here were definitely smaller than hers. Some of them looked a little sad. The grass was short on the lawns like everywhere else on the Base, but it looked like it was that way because it didn't have the strength to grow any higher. Some of the lawns had bare spots, and lots of the houses were dusty and a bit faded. She wondered why the people living in them didn't just wash them off or paint them so they'd look like new. When she had her own house someday, she would paint it a different color every week.
She thought about different colors of houses all the way down Redland, then skipped again as she crossed the footbridge over the creek-she like the ka-thump, ka-thump sound it made-and hurried down Beekman Court where the trees were very thick. Even though Mister Sellars' house was very close to the fence that marked the outskirts of the Base, you could hardly tell, because the trees and hedges blocked the view.
That had been the first thing that attracted her to the house, of course-the trees. There were sycamores in the backyard of her parents' house, and a papery-barked birch tree by the front window, but Mister Sellars' house was absolutely surrounded by trees, so many of them that you
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