Night Swimmers by Betsy Byars Read Free Book Online Page B

it critically from another angle. “Is it getting purple on this side or is that my imagination?”
    “It is purple.”
    “Maybe I can wear some real dark hose.”
    Brendelle lowered her foot and her pants leg. “‘Have a nice day, ma’am.’ Bang!” She re-created the incident, imitating the carry-out boy perfectly. “And the bag of groceries wasn’t any bigger than that.” She sighed. “The only reason he wanted to help me was because behind me was a woman with great big bags of flour and potatoes, and he didn’t want to help her.” She straightened. “Hey, where are the boys? I want to see them.”
    “I don’t know where they are.”
    “They’ll be here for supper, won’t they?”
    “I guess.”
    “Why, Retta, I thought you ran herd on those boys. I thought you knew where they were every minute of every day.”
    “I used to. They got a new friend, though, and I never know where they are now.”
    “Well, that’s nice—the boys having a new friend. All three of you ought to get out more.”
    “His name is Arthur.” Retta made the name sound as ugly as possible.
    “I used to know an Arthur,” Brendelle remembered. “Arthur Lee Gribble.”
    “I hope he was better than this Arthur.”
    “Well, he wasn’t. He asked me out one time and I didn’t want to go because he was bald and in those days I went for looks. Well, he wasn’t real bald,” she conceded, “but he had to part his hair low on the side and comb it over the top of his head to hide his bald spot, and the least little wind would ruin it.”
    Brendelle shifted as if trying to get comfortable on the wooden steps. “Anyway I didn’t want to go out with him but finally I ran out of excuses and said, ‘Oh, all right. Pick me up at eight o’clock.’ I got all dressed up and I sat and waited and, would you believe it, he never showed up?”
    “But if you didn’t want to go out with him, why wouldn’t you be glad he didn’t show?”
    “Because it don’t work that way. No matter how much you don’t want to go out with them, you want them to want to go out with you.”
    “I wouldn’t.”
    “Later I saw Arthur Lee Gribble on the street and he goes, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ and I go, ‘No, I never forget a bald head.’” She straightened. “Hey, this Arthur—the boys’ new friend—he’s not nice?”
    “I don’t know. He spied on us once, I know that,” Retta said.
    “Spied on you?”
    “Yes, while we were swimming.”
    “Where was you swimming at?”
    Retta looked up at the pale summer sky. “Oh, nowhere,” she said casually.
    “Come on, I’d really like to know. I mean, if you got friends with a private swimming pool, don’t keep it to yourself.”
    “I don’t have any friends with a swimming pool.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    Shorty Anderson opened the door behind them. He was dressed in his red cowboy suit with white satin cactus plants on the yoke. “Is this girl talk,” he asked, “or can anybody jump in?”
    “I was just telling Retta that I used to go for looks in a man,” Brendelle said, grinning slyly, “but now I just go out with any old ugly thing that asks me.”
    “I’ll pass the word along,” he said, “if I run into any old ugly things.” He nudged her in the back with his knee, and she got to her feet. She stretched.
    “I—” She broke off as she saw Roy coming onto the porch. “Well, look who’s here. Come here, Roy, I haven’t hugged you in two weeks.”
    Roy came willingly. He loved to be hugged. Brendelle was the best hugger he had ever known because she put a lot of extras into her hugs. She swayed and patted him and scrubbed his hair and pretended to spank him. Then, just when he thought she was through, she would say, “One more time!” and start all over again.
    “And where’s Johnny?” she said. “I want to hug him too.” She glanced over her shoulder at Shorty. “Way I’m acting, a person would think I’m half starved for masculine