Read Online Walk Me Home by Catherine Ryan Hyde - Free Book Online Page B

problem with this.”
    “We didn’t take anything,” Carly says, half sobbing. “We each have an egg in our hand, but we’ll put them back.”
    “Yes you will.”
    Both girls set their eggs carefully on the straw.
    “So there’s no harm done,” Carly says. “Right?”
    “Let’s do us some supposin’. Shall we? Supposin’ I aim this here shotgun at a place right between your eyes and squeeze off a shot.And supposin’ I ain’t so good with this gun, except I am and don’t you doubt it, but we’re just supposin’. And I let the kick raise the shot and all them pieces of buckshot sail clean over your head. No harm done, right? You call the police, but I say I didn’t do a thing wrong. ’Cause there’s no harm done. Right?”
    Carly only swallows hard. Doesn’t speak.
    “Answer!” Delores barks.
    Jen sobs harder.
    “No, ma’am. It’d still be attempted murder. But trying to steal eggs isn’t as bad as trying to murder.”
    “Never said it was. But it ain’t as good as respect and honest behavior, neither. And nothin’ to your credit that you didn’t get clean away. That’s my good ears alone. None of your own doin’.”
    Jen pipes up for the first time, at least voluntarily. “Carly is real honest,” she says. “She keeps a book with anything we took in it and how much it costs and the address to send the money to as soon as we can.”
    “That a fact?” Delores says. “And where was you gonna send my egg money? What’s my address?”
    By the time the old woman finishes these questions, Jen has deflated into a squat. But the old woman keeps speaking to a spot above her head. She never lowers her gaze to where Jen is hovering now.
    Something breaks through in Carly’s mind. Things makes sense now. Delores Watakobie can’t see. Or can’t see much.
    Carly raises her arms, slowly, silently, and waves them around in big sweeping arcs above her head.
    “Uh-huh,” Delores says. “That’s what I thought. Plus, bet you ruined my chicken wire patch. Didn’t you? Bet you bent it or tore it off to get through, ’cause there ain’t no other place to get through. And now the coyotes’ll come ’n get my hens, at least till I can get Alvin or Virginia to come patch it up for me, and I could lose halfmy hens before the sunrise. And another thing, little missy. I may not see so good, but I can see good enough to see you wavin’ your arms around like a dang fool.”
    Carly sinks to the hard-packed dirt floor. Thinking, It’s over. She doesn’t know exactly what “It’s over” will look like in this case. But she knows it’s true.
    “What’re you gonna do with us?” she asks the old woman.
    “What do you think I should do with you?”
    “Let us go?”
    “Not on the list.”
    “What’s on the list?”
    “Keep you here till morning and then turn you over to the tribal police, or keep you here a few days and make you work it off.”
    “We’ll work!” Jen shouts. Hopefully.
    “Make that a week.”
    “A week!” Carly says bitterly. “That’s too long. We didn’t do enough harm to be here working for a week!”
    “Take it or leave it,” Delores Watakobie says.

PART TWO

    Seems So Long Ago

TULARE
    December 17
    Jen walked into Carly’s bedroom with a history textbook, pushed a pile of Carly’s clothes off the corner chair and onto the rug, and plunked herself down. It was a thing out of place and then some.
    Carly glared for a time, thinking that would be enough. But Jen never bothered to look up.
    Carly cleared her throat with exaggerated volume.
    Nothing.
    “Excuse me…”
    Jen looked up, but not all the way. Not enough to actually break eye contact with the text of her book and transfer that contact to Carly. “Yeah?”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Reading.”
    “Why in my room?”
    “Teddy’s putting up the Christmas lights.”
    “And that’s supposed to explain it how?”
    “Right outside my bedroom window.”
    “So?”
    “So…it’s