Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine Read Free Book Online Page B

Broadway was too busy, so I went the other way, toward Amsterdam Avenue.
    I stood on the HHB side of Amsterdam and 136th Street. Across Amsterdam was a concrete wall, hiding who-knew-what. I crossed and walked along 136th Street next to the wall. No one was out here with me.
    The concrete wall ended halfway down the block, and I found out what was behind it: a huge stadium, with rows and rows of empty seats. I waved to the seats. I took a bow. Orphan escapes from Hated Home for Boys. Hurrah! I bowed again.
    Across the next street—Convent Avenue—was a vacant lot with brown weeds up to my waist and no sidewalk. I pushed through to the next avenue, Saint Nicholas Terrace, where a woodsy park sloped down steeply in front of me. Beyond it, streetlights and lighted windows twinkled.
    Papa would not want me to go into that park. He wouldn’t want me to be out here at all. He’d want me and Gideon to be sharing our old couch, with Ida in the next room. And he’d like to be there too, alive. I swallowed. He wasn’t getting anything he wanted.
    I climbed over a low wall and stepped into the park. The wind ruffled the leaves that were still on the trees. Dead leaves crackled under my feet. When I got Papa’s carving back, I could build a place to live in here. As I walked, I looked for good hideouts. I saw an outcropping of rock. There might be a cave. I’d be a hermit. I’d set traps for mice and squirrels, and I’d roast them over the fire I made. I’d get a chisel from somewhere and teach myself to make carvings like Papa did. I’d live in the park by day, but at night I’d roam. I’d break into the HHB and set the elevens free. We’d live together like Robin Hood and his merry band.
    The street was now only a few yards away. A car’s headlamps flashed by. I hid behind a tree. Another car went by, and another. There was a lot of traffic here. Somebody might see me and call the police. Somebody might kidnap me.
    Voices called out. I heard the tinkle of a piano.
    I crept to a shoulder-high boulder and ducked behind it. Another car drove by. And another. This one stopped.
    Had someone seen me?
    A car door slammed. “Come back at three, Robert,” a man’s voice said.
    I peeked around the boulder. A redheaded man leaned into the window of a chauffeured Pierce-Arrow. A lady waited for him, standing under the streetlight. I wished I could get a close-up look at the car, but it drove away. The man and the lady were all dressed up. The lady’s hat, which was shaped like an upside-down fishbowl, came down so low it covered her eyebrows. The man took her arm, and they went into the apartment building on the corner.
    Four cars were parked at the curb. One of them was a Peerless. I couldn’t believe it—a Peerless. I had to go look at it.
    No one was on the street. The piano started up again, coming from the building on the corner. I heard laughter. I stepped out and ran across the street.

Chapter 9
    T HE CAR GLEAMED , without a speck of dirt or mud. I peered through the driver’s window. The dashboard was mahogany. Papa wouldn’t believe it. It must have weighed a ton and cost a fortune. The speedometer went up to eighty miles an hour. I wondered what it would feel like to go that fast. There was an altimeter, so if you drove up a mountain you’d know how high you were. The gauges were edged in silver. It had an automatic starter—all the classy cars did.
    There was more mahogany around the windows, and a mahogany rail to hang on to, and a—
    I heard footsteps and men’s voices. I crouched behind the car. Somebody wailed. No, not somebody—some thing. It was the strangest sound I ever heard. It seemed to be laughing.
    I peeked over the hood. A colored man playing a trumpet—a laughing trumpet—was walking backwards around the corner at the far end of the block. Another colored man was following him, clapping out a