Read Online The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole - Free Book Online

make her expression out to be. When she opened her lips they were still half closed and almost stuck to each other they were so dry. At first she had been pulling at my collar, but now she was leaning on my shoulders with all her weight. Her big bony body was almost bent in half. "Get the doctor, go get him right away. Damn you, hurry!" I ran out of the room and heard Mrs. Watkins fall on the floor moaning. Never before in my life did I run as fast. The doctor was over on Main Street three blocks away. I ran through people's backyards and got caught in clotheslines and frightened little children who were playing in the mud. When I told the doctor, he kited over to the school. I was hot and tired and walked back slowly. Some kids in the neighborhood saw the doctor running over to the school and followed him. When I got back there, they had almost more people around than in the whole town. The ones in my class were laughing and making jokes about Mrs. Watkins, but I didn't feel like making jokes. I felt sick. Some asked me if I had done it, and I just didn't say anything.
    When I got to the empty room, they were just putting Mrs. Watkins on a stretcher. She moaned all the while and really screamed when they gave the final lift. I stood there and looked at her and felt sorry to see anyone who was so powerful suddenly be so weak and afraid. She saw me and motioned for me to come near the stretcher. When I got near, I saw the scared look in her face wasn't all from pain. She grabbed ahold of my head and whispered in my ear.
    "Don't ever dare to tell anyone a word about this. You can get into plenty trouble if you do. Understand?" Her fingernails were digging into the flesh at the back of my neck. Her breath was hot and had the same bad smell. "Never a word to anyone."
    I nodded, half out of relief, and wondered why Mrs. Watkins had told me to be quiet. I thought I'd have to beg her to have mercy on me. I was a lot older when I learned what the State Board of Education would have done to her if I ever opened my mouth. When I think of how grateful I was then, it makes me laugh.
    After they took Mrs. Watkins out, I got my copybook and Aunt Mae's flower and left. A few people were still hanging around the school talking about the accident, which was now made out to be that Mrs. Watkins just tripped over a chair. The town people would have believed anything Mrs. Watkins said -- that is, almost everyone except the newspaper editor, who was a pretty smart man from some college up east. When he wrote about the accident in a sort of suspicious way, there was talk that Mr. Watkins was going to get up a petition against him. It never came around, though, because I guess Mr. Watkins realized the newspaper was the only way he could put himself before the town people.
    Some old ladies stopped me and told me what a fine lad I was to run for the doctor and show such concern for Mrs. Watkins' welfare. The news about me was all over town by the time I got to Main Street. People who recognized me stopped and patted me on the head and kept me so long that it was dark by the time I got to the foot of the hill.
    Then I remembered about Poppa and got to thinking about him and if he came home. The early stars were out. The moon was near the top of the hill as I looked up, and it was full and bright. It made the path and the leaves look silver, something like the early snow. Some night birds were already singing way up in the pines. One went che-woot, che-woot, che-woot in a long-drawn-out way that sounded like a dying person. I could hear that song ring out all over the hills as the other birds picked it up. Two or three flew across the moon going to meet some others in the tall pines on the north side of the valley. I wished I could fly and follow those birds and be two hundred feet above the hills and see into the next valley where I'd never been. Then I'd look back on the town from on top of the Renning smokestack. I'd look over the new town, too, and