Slap Your Sides by M. E. Kerr Read Free Book Online Page B

that you did.”
    â€œI get so angry sometimes. Not really at your dad. But at my brothers just being swooped up and sent to war,” she said.
    I didn’t point out that Danny Jr. hadn’t been swoopedup, that he’d volunteered when he was seventeen. Dean waited until he was draft age to enlist.
    If we were going to be friends, there were a lot of things I wouldn’t be pointing out and vice versa.
    I helped her get her arms into her coat sleeves.
    There was a light snow still falling outside the diner.
    â€œHappy 1943, Jubal.”
    I wanted to say that I hoped she’d be a big part of it.
    But “Yes” was all I could manage. And “Happy New Year, Daria.”

NINE
    W hen I got back to Pilgrim Lane, the police were just pulling away. There was a smear where the yellow stripe had been. My father smelled of turpentine.
    â€œWhere were you, Jubal? I was worried about you.”
    â€œI lassoed the guy, but he got away.”
    â€œWe saw the rope…and the paint can. The police took the paint can for evidence.”
    â€œWhat? Fingerprints or something?”
    â€œWell, they’ll likely ask at Hampton Hardware if anyone can remember someone buying that particular paint.”
    â€œOkay.” Daria told me it was an old can from her family’s cellar, so I felt relieved that probably nothing was going to be found out about who did it.
    â€œBut where were you, Jubal?” My father had on the heavy gray sweater Aunt Lizzie had given him for Christmas. He was looking down at me with a frown, the snow on his thick black hair.
    â€œI got winded chasing him,” I told him. “I went into the diner to see if anyone had seen him around. I got a Coke.”
    â€œWhat’d he look like? Was he a boy or a man?”
    â€œI couldn’t see his face. He had a stocking cap pulled down to his eyes, and he had a scarf around his neck. Ared scarf. He wasn’t a big guy. I’m taller.”
    I had never lied to my father before, and I was surprised that what I was telling him came from me easily and seemed like a game.
    My father shook his head. “I wish I knew who was doing it.”
    I would have liked to tell him that it was just Daria Daniel, no big deal, because once I knew it was her, I felt relieved. I didn’t figure her as much of an enemy, and she was only a girl, too. But I wasn’t sure how he’d take it: whether he’d tell Radio Dan and get Daria in trouble, or just walk around sadly the way he had last Sunday morning, as though someone had betrayed him. Neither thing was good.
    On the way home he told me that he and Hope, Abel, and Tommy had left Wride Them Cowboy early.
    â€œI should never have taken them there with me,” he said. “When your mother refused to go, I thought I ought to show up because I’m in Rotary with Dan. I’d just look in, I thought…. Someone spiked Abel’s punch. There must have been a lot of alcohol in it, because he’s been throwing up like a poisoned dog.”
    â€œJust Abel’s punch?”
    â€œWord’s around he’s not registering for the draft, that’s why.”
    â€œAre you sure that’s why?”
    â€œI’ve heard talk of it at Rotary, too…. But I can’t help feeling sorry for the boy. I never saw anyone vomit like that.”
    â€œYou know what, Dad? We ought to paint the store. Not the outside but inside. We ought to paint the walls white.”
    â€œWhat made you think of that suddenly?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou’re right. I don’t like the pale yellow. There’s a project for you and your pal Marty Allen in the new year.”
    â€œWhen I can get to it. Tommy and I have our hands full at the Harts’.”
    â€œAnd now you’re losing Abel.”
    â€œHe was never any help, Dad.”
    The Sweet Creek Savings Bank clock chimed, and Dad said, “This will be the first time we