Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

‘And you can teach him a lesson. You’ll tussle with him, scare him real bad—show him what tough animals there are on the land he wants. Then he’ll go away and hunt somewheres else.’ The hawk thought that sounded like a fine idea. So he let the bobcat turn him into a rabbit, and he hopped back to the land and waited in a patch of grass. Sure enough, his brother’s shadow passed by soon, and then he heard a swoop and saw the claws held out. So he filled himself with being mad and jumped up and practically bit all the tail feathers off his brother. The hawk just flapped up and rolled over on the ground, blinking and gawking with his beak wide. ‘Rabbit,’ he said, ‘that’s not natural. Rabbits don’t act that way.’
    â€œâ€˜Round here they do,’ the hawk-rabbit said. ‘This is a tough old land, and all the animals here know the tricks of escaping from bad birds like you.’ This scared the brother hawk, and he flew away as best he could and never came back again. The hawk-rabbit hopped to the rockpile and stood up before the bobcat, saying, ‘It worked real fine. I thank you. Now turn me back, and I’ll go hunt my land.’ But the bobcat only grinned and reached out with a paw and broke the rabbit’s neck. Then he ate him, and said, ‘Now the land’s mine and no hawks can take away the easy game.’ And that’s how the greed of two hawks turned their land over to a bobcat.”
    The old woman looked at me with wide baked-chestnut eyes and smiled. “You’ve got it,” she said. “Just like your uncle. Hasn’t he got it Jack?” The old man nodded and took his pipe from his mouth. “He’s got it fine. He’ll make a good one.”
    â€œNow, boy, why did you make up that story?”
    I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “i don’t know,” I said. “It just came up.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do with the story?”
    I didn’t have an answer for that question, either.
    â€œGot any other stories in you?”
    I considered, then said, “Think so.”
    A car drove up outside, and Mom called my name. The old woman stood and straightened her dress. “Follow me,” she said. “Go out the back door, walk around the house. Return home with them. Tomorrow, go to school like you’re supposed to do. Next Saturday, come back, and we’ll talk some more.”
    â€œSon? You in there?”
    I walked out the back and came around to the front of the house. Mom and Auntie Danser waited in the station wagon. “You aren’t allowed out here. Were you in that house?” Mom asked. I shook my head.
    My great aunt looked at me with her glassed-in flat eyes and lifted the corners of her lips a little. “Margie,” she said, “go have a look in the windows.”
    Mom got out of the car and walked up the porch to peer through the dusty panes. “It’s empty, Sybil.”
    â€œEmpty, boy, right?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t inside.”
    â€œI could hear you, boy,” she said. “Last night. Talking in your sleep. Rabbits and hawks don’t behave that way. You know it, and I know it. So it ain’t no good thinking about them that way, is it?”
    â€œI don’t remember talking in my sleep,” I said.
    â€œMargie, let’s go home. This boy needs some pamphlets read into him.”
    Mom got into the car and looked back at me before starting the engine. “You ever skip school again, I’ll strap you black and blue. It’s real embarrassing having the school call, and not knowing where you are. Hear me?”
    I nodded.
    Everything was quiet that week. I went to school and tried not to dream at night and did everything boys are supposed to do. But I didn’t feel like a boy. I felt something big inside, and no amount of Billy Grahams and Zondervans read