Nursery Tale by T. M. Wright Read Free Book Online

was short, fair-skinned, and fair-haired, with the kind of "thoughtful good looks" which, later in his life (his father maintained) only a few, especially sensitive women would find appealing. And he was extremely bright. His mother often wished that IQ testing hadn't fallen into general disuse. She was sure that her son's score would really be something to brag about. She was that kind of woman.
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    "'R ound the end of September, sometime," Sam Wentis said.
    Timmy Meade didn't understand. "What's around the end of September, Sam?"
    Sam Wentis put his open hand against the trunk of a tree. "That's when fall starts. I just remembered." He noticed the long thorns spaced randomly on the tree. "Hey, Timmy, looka this!" He took his hand away and fingered one of the thorns, fascinated. "Jees—you could really get speared by one of these things." He pushed his finger deliberately into the tip of the thorn and watched, still fascinated, as a small bead of blood formed. "Jees, these things could kill ya."
    "That was a dumb thing to do," Timmy Meade said. "How do you know it's not poisonous? You could be rolling around on the ground there in a couple minutes." He nodded meaningfully at the ground. "Then you could be dead ! Shit damn! That was dumb! Dumbest thing I've seen you do all week! Why do you do things like that?"
    Sam Wentis said nothing. He brought his finger slowly to his mouth and licked the blood off. Then, abruptly, he turned and started walking north. Timmy Meade lowered his head; Jees, not again!? He looked up. "Sam," he called, "I didn't mean nothin'. Really." But Sam Wentis kept walking; he quickened his pace a little. Timmy Meade stayed where he was; he had decided, at that moment, that his friend's temper wasn't going to get the best of him this time. It seemed like every day he had to apologize to him for saying one thing or another. Yesterday, it had been the thing with the garbage cans ("Sam, why would you wanta go pokin' around in someone else's garbage? You could catch a disease." . . . "I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't mean nothin'."). And the day before that it had been the thing with the puppy ("Sam, don't do that, can't you see yer hurtin' him?" . . . "I'm sorry, Sam."), because Sam couldn't seem to understand that some of the things he did made no sense at all. Or that they were stupid and cruel things.
    "I'm not going to apologize this time, Sam," Timmy Meade called. "I don't think I need to, 'cuz if you just think about it a little, Sam, you'll know you did a dumb thing!" He paused. And realized, on the instant, that Sam had vanished. A nervous smile played along his lips. "Sam?" He looked quickly to his right, his left. Then at the spot where Sam had last been. "Sam, you hidin' behind a tree?" He paused very briefly. "You behind a tree or somethin', Sam?" From far to his left to the west—he heard the crack of a rifle. He turned his head toward the sound; the phrase hunting season passed through his mind and made him grimace. He turned his head back, focused on the spot where Sam had been. And saw him standing, facing him, smiling an odd, crooked kind of smile. "Shit damn!" Sam Wentis said, and he looked very pleased, as if he had just won some great victory. "Shit damn!" he repeated.
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    Clyde Watkins and Manny Kent. Townies
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    C lyde Watkins called, "What'd you shoot at, Manny?"
    Manny Kent ("Manny" was short for "Manfred," which he despised) looked up from the deer spoor. "Damn buck," he called back. "Didn'tcha see it? Great big damned buck, Clyde. Mighta got him, too, weren't the sun in my eyes."
    Clyde walked over to him, very careful of how he carried his rifle (the year before, Clyde's Uncle Winston had accidentally shot himself in the chin. Miraculously, he had survived but, Clyde thought now, he'd never again be much to look at). "I didn't see a thing, Manny. You got X-ray vision or somethin'?"
    "Naw, I ain't got X-ray vision. Yer just blind, Clyde." He laughed. "Blind's a bat in a