Read Online Sleeping Beauty by Judith Michael - Free Book Online

you could take a nap and wake up and wash your face and change your clothes and have a snack and they’d still be working on the same algebra problem or reading the same paragraph they were on when you went to sleep. And then there was my party, and you know all about that.”
    â€œEveryone praising you to the skies.”
    â€œAs long as I don’t bother them,” Anne said flatly. “That’s what they like best about me.”
    Vince shrugged. “Well, why not? You don’t need diapers anymore, you can hold your own fork, you can cross the street alone. They’re giving you room and board and making sure you get an education. What more do you want from them?”
    â€œI guess . . . nothing,” Anne replied, her voice low.
    He ran a finger along her arm. “You don’t need them, little girl; you have me.” He gave her arm a quick squeeze, and slid out of bed.
    â€œNext Tuesday,” he said when he was dressed. He took the enamel Raggedy Ann pin from its box and ran his thumb over it. “Wear it to dinner on Sunday.” He opened the door and looked carefully down the long length of the hall, dimly lit by sconces between five other widely spaced bedroom doors receding into the shadows. He always left after midnight, when he knew the house would be sleeping, but still he stood there motionless, looking, listening, before taking a few long strides to the door that opened onto a stairway leading down to the side entrance of the house. Without looking back at Anne, he pulled the door quietly shut, and was gone.
    Anne sat unmoving, cross-legged on her bed, letting the silence wash her clean. It was getting harder to shut her mind to what she was doing. A few months earlier, around Christmas, when the family’s houses were warm and fragrant with holiday decorations and baking pies, she’d found herself having good feelings about Vince, brief flashes that shot through her without warning. It wasn’t that he’d suddenly done anything special, it was just the season. Whenever she turned on the radio or television she heard the sweet sounds of Christmas carols; trees and streets and stores were strung with long rows of tiny white lights, like a fairyland; and it seemed that people smiled more and were nicer to each other. There was just a lot of love around. And Anne didn’t want to be left out; she wanted to be happy, like everybody else.
    So suddenly, in the midst of whatever she was doing, when she thought of Vince, she would remember something nice he’d said, and how sweet his smile was, and how, some of the time, he really acted like a friend. She hated what she had to do with him, but at least he paid attention to her. He still talked a lot about love, and she thought that was pretty stupid, because she knew it was just talk that made him feel good, for some reason or other, but he also asked her about herself and wanted to know about her life, and he was mostly the only one who did. Marian did, but she didn’t listen as well as Vince; she always seemed to be thinking about something else. And Charles asked her about school and sports and even about whether girls and boys were dating at fourteen, but as soon as Anne mentioned problems or worries about school or dating, he’d get uncomfortable and find an excuse to leave the room. He just didn’t know what to do with somebody’s fears.
    But Vince listened; Vince wanted to see her twice a week; Vince told her she had a good mind and a good body and he told her she was pretty. And a lot of the time, especially at Christmas, that made the other things they did together fade a little bit, like the horizon of the lake that blended into the sky on misty days and you could almost think it wasn’t really there. So, for a couple of weeks in December, Anne had some nice thoughts about Vince, and she could feel she was really part of the season.
    But six months after her fourteenth