Spirit Eyes by Lynn Hones Read Free Book Online Page A

they fell onto the ground and rolled around laughing.
    Pearl, who’d been leading the pack, looked over to the baseball diamond and froze.
    Her friends noticed and stopped, too.
    One of them called to her. “Pearl, what are you looking at?”
    “Do you guys see that man?”
    They all stood erect, swiping the hair out their eyes as the wind blew it. They shook their heads until one of them questioned her. “Where?”
    “There.” Her index finger pointed to a specific spot. “In the baseball field.”
    “No,” they answered in unison.
    “I see an old man. He’s telling us to come over. He’s pointing and then moving his hand like this.” She put her palm face up and raised it toward her.
    “What’s he wearing? Is he a baseball player?” the girl closest to her, Rachel, asked.
    “No, he’s not. He’s wearing a black suit and a white shirt.” She squinted her eyes, even though with her new glasses she really didn’t need to. “He’s got on a black tie and a black hat. He’s smiling. He seems really nice.”
    “I don’t want to go over by him,” Rachel said.
    “Me either,” the other girls conceded. One by one, they backed away and then ran toward their teacher.
    Pearl, in a state of full alert, continued to stare at the strange man.
    Come here , he told her, using his mind. I have a secret, but you can’t tell anyone .
    “I can’t. I have to go,” she yelled out. She stared for only a moment more, and then raced after her friends.
     
    “Mrs. King, there’s a man over there. Pearl saw him and he wanted us to go to him,” Rachel yelled out.
    “Where?”
    Pearl came up and heard her friends telling the teacher about the man and chimed in. “By the baseball diamond. The other girls didn’t see him, though, so I think he’s one of my people.”
    Mrs. King, obviously upset, cast a strange gaze Pearl’s way.
    Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
    “None of you other children saw this man?”
    “No, ma’am,” they sang out in harmony.
    “Is he still there, Pearl?”
    She turned her head and stared over to where he had stood. “No.”
    “Then, maybe it’s time for you to stop making things up.”
    Pearl’s cheeks burned red and she lowered her head. A strange sensation whirled around her throat and she swallowed hard to stop it. It continued to grow, and unused to such powerful emotion, she realized she needed to cry.
    Mrs. King glanced at the field and, assured no man stood there, told the children to run along.
    “And Pearl. It’s wrong to lie.”
    She fought the sensation much too long. She turned from Mrs. King and let hot tears fall.
     
    * * * *
     
    Later that evening, after the dinner dishes had been cleared and homework was underway, the telephone rang. Ruth took a sip of coffee, swallowed and answered.
    “Hello.”
    “Hello, Mrs. Adler? This is Rachel Townsend’s mother, Eve. She’s a friend of Pearls from school.”
    It took a moment, but Ruth quickly placed Rachel’s face. “Yes, hi, how are you?”
    “I’m fine. I just have a quick question about something that happened with the kids at school today.”
    “Oh?”
    “I’m concerned about—well, did Pearl tell you she saw a man near the playground this afternoon?”
    “No, actually she didn’t.”
    “I just want to make sure she didn’t see a pedophile or something. I talked with Mrs. King and she told me all about it.”
    “Oh, boy.”
    “What?” Mrs. Townsend asked.
    “I didn’t want this to get out and really wish Mrs. King would have discussed this with me first.”
    “Please, Mrs. Adler…”
    “Call me Ruth.”
    “Ruth, the problem is that my Rachel is a very sensitive child. Now, with Pearl telling tall tales about men in the field, why, I’m never going to get her to school.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You have to know the stories of that area. It’s told that before the school was built, that part of town held bars and such. Rumor has it that during the early 1950’s a man was killed in the