Read Online The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle - Free Book Online

How about you?”
    â€œI told you. I got kicked out of Hotchkiss, so I told my parents I wanted to camp on the way home.”
    â€œThey do anything you ask?”
    â€œI have them pretty well under my thumb.”
    â€œDid they mind your getting kicked out of school?” That wasn’t a polite question, but I’d asked it before I realized it.
    â€œWasn’t much they could do about it after it’d happened,” Zachary said. “Let’s go this way.”
    â€œIt’s out of the campgrounds.”
    â€œSo what?”
    Now this may sound funny, but going for a walk with Zachary Grey was really what you might call my first date. I mean, I don’t count school dances and stuff. I’ve known all those kids since they were in diapers, practically. Anyhow, going to dances in a station wagon full of other kids isn’t a date. And I didn’t want to foul this one up. Zachary had said he thought I was seventeen. I didn’t want to act like a kid Suzy’s age. But one reason Daddy and Mother say yes to most things, is that when they give a limitation, like staying within the campgrounds, they know I’ll stick to it. But somehow I didn’t want to explain all this to Zachary. It wasn’t just that I thought he’d think me parent-ridden; I didn’t think he’d even understand what I was talking about. So I said, “I don’t want to go that way. I want to go this way.”
    â€œScared?”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œThe old man.”

    Then I had an inspiration. “No,” I said. “Of you.”
    That seemed to please him, and we kept on walking within the campgrounds. We could see down to the two campfires, ours and the Greys, ours down to nothing but a glow, theirs still burning brightly. I tried surreptitiously to look at Zachary so he wouldn’t know I was looking. He was really very handsome, not in the least like John, but in a narrow, hawk-like sort of way. His brows and eyes were very dark, like his hair; his lashes were almost as long as Suzy’s, which is spectacular on a boy, his face very pale. And yet he wasn’t a bit sissy. I mean he was strictly terrific as far as looks went.
    He led me to the picnic table at an empty campsite. “Let’s sit.” I noticed that he seemed a little out of breath. We sat with our backs to the table, and he leaned back, his elbows on the table, his legs stretched out, while dark fell quickly, coming much faster than it does at home. “Tell me about yourself,” he demanded.
    â€œI’d rather hear about you. Why did you want to go on a camping trip?”
    He grinned. “I don’t look the type, do I?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    â€œThat’s one reason. I like to play against type.”
    â€œWhy else?”
    â€œThe old man thinks it’s wholesome, though he’d rather do it up brown with a guide and stuff. Also my old lady hates it.”
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œFor a few weeks it’s kind of fun. It’s as interesting a way to get home as any.”
    â€œAll this equipment just to get home?”

    â€œWhy not? We might use it again next summer. Unless Pop sees something new in an ad. Then he’ll junk this and buy that. Next month I think we’ll fly up to Alaska, but we’ll stay at hotels there and charter a small plane to sightsee with.”
    â€œMoney,” I asked dryly, “is not a problem?”
    â€œThe old man’s loaded. Spend it now, is my motto. You don’t have a pocket in your shroud.” He began to whistle, the same gay, pretty tune I’d heard him whistling before.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    He sang,

    â€œThey’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain,
There’s hurricanes in Florida,
And Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate