Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page A

pint chock-full with “chocolate on top, yes!” He gave the money, received the chill, icy pack, and rubbing it across his brow and cheek, laughing, thumped barefootedly homeward. Behind him the lights of the lonely little store blinked out and there was only a street light shimmering on the corner, and the whole city seemed to be going to sleep.
    Opening the screen door, he found Mom still ironing. She looked hot and irritated but she smiled just the same.
    â€œWhen will Dad be home from lodge meeting?” he asked.
    â€œAbout eleven or eleven-thirty,” Mother replied. She took the ice cream to the kitchen, divided it. Giving him his special portion of chocolate, she dished out some for herself and the rest was put away, “for Douglas and your father when they come.”
    They sat enjoying the ice cream, wrapped at the core of the deep quiet summer night. His mother and himself and the night all around their small house on the small street. He licked each spoonful of ice cream thoroughly before digging for another, and Mom put her ironing board away and the hot iron in its open case cooling, and she sat in the armchair by the phonograph, eating her dessert and saying, “My land, it was a hot day today. Earth soaks up all the heat and lets it out at night. It’ll be soggy sleeping.”
    They both sat listening to the night, pressed down by every window and door and complete silence because the radio needed a new battery, and they had played all the Knickerbocker Quartet records and Al Jolson and Two Black Crows records to exhaustion; so Tom just sat on the hardwood floor and looked out into the dark dark dark, pressing his nose against the screen until the flesh of its tip was molded into small dark squares.
    â€œI wonder where Doug is? It’s almost nine-thirty.”
    â€œHe’ll be here,” Tom said, knowing very well that Douglas would be.
    He followed Mom out to wash the dishes. Each sound, each rattle of spoon or dish was amplified in the baked evening. Silently they went to the living room, removed the couch cushions and, together, yanked it open and extended it down into the double bed it secretly was. Mother made the bed, punching pillows neatly to flump them up for their heads. Then, as he was unbuttoning his shirt, she said, “Wait awhile, Tom.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I say so.”
    â€œYou look funny, Mom.”
    Mom sat down a moment, then stood up, went to the door and called. He listened to her calling and calling, “Douglas, Douglas, oh Doug! Douglasssssss!” over and over. Her calling floated out into the summer warm dark and never came back. The echoes paid no attention.
    Douglas. Douglas. Douglas.
    Douglas!
    And as he sat on the floor, a coldness that was not ice cream and not winter, and not part of summer’s heat, went through Tom. He noticed Mom’s eyes sliding, blinking; the way she stood undecided and was nervous. All of these things.
    She opened the screen door. Stepping out into the night, she walked down the steps and down the front sidewalk under the lilac bush. He listened to her moving feet.
    She called again.
    Silence.
    She called twice more. Tom sat in the room. Any moment now, Douglas would answer from down the long long narrow street, “All right, Mom! All right, Mother! Hey!”
    But he didn’t answer. And for two minutes Tom sat looking at the made-up bed, the silent radio, the silent phonograph, at the chandelier with the crystal bobbins gleaming quietly, at the rug with the scarlet and purple curlicues on it. He stubbed his toe on the bed purposely to see if it hurt. It did.
    Whining, the screen door opened and Mother said, “Come on, Tom. We’ll take a walk.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œJust down the block. Come on.”
    He took her hand. Together they walked down St. James Street. Underfoot the concrete was still warm, and the crickets were sounding louder against the darkening