Tex by S. E. Hinton Read Free Book Online

awake?” I whispered. I couldn’t tell. I was so scared I couldn’t move.
    â€œYou’re awake now. Come on. You know you’re awake.” Mason was right there beside me, talking in an easy voice, like he was quieting a spooked horse. He never gets mad at me when I sleep-walk.
    He hadn’t been touching me, but now he reached over and gently pried my hand off the doorknob. “Come on, you’re still drunk, that’s all.”
    â€œWas I hollerin’?” I had a vague memory of somebody yelling.
    â€œA little bit, not much, come on back to bed.”
    I let him steer me back to the bedroom. Waking up from that nightmare always leaves me so scared I’m almost paralyzed.
    â€œYou ever remember what you’re dreaming when you do that?” Mason wasn’t asleep like I thought. “I always find you at the front door. Lots of times you don’t even wake up, I just lead you back here and you go back to bed.”
    â€œYeah, I remember,” I whispered. I was still shaky. “You know that fight Mom and Pop had, just before she died, when she ended up walking out in the snow? I dream about that.”
    â€œGeez, Texas, you couldn’t remember that! You weren’t three years old.”
    â€œWell, I remember it, anyway. Sort of. The yelling, everybody seemed so tall, and when she walked out I was trying to stop her, go after her, but I couldn’t reach the doorknob.”
    â€œI can’t believe you remember all that.”
    I was quiet. I did remember it. Not real clearly, but I did remember some. But it always seemed to me that she died right after that, that she never came back, even though I knew she was home a couple of days before going to the hospital, and she lived for a couple of more days there.
    I remember crying a lot at that time, too.
    â€œSorry I woke you up,” I said.
    â€œIn the daytime you aren’t afraid of anything,” Mason said.
    That wasn’t completely true. There were people who go places and people who stay, and Mason was going. I was afraid of that.

3
    Mason was yelling “Okay, okay, I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” and as I woke up I realized somebody was knocking on the door.
    My head was pounding. It was like the insides had swollen so much they were pushing on my skull. My eyes hurt real bad. I never noticed the bedroom light being so bright and glaring before. I rolled over to push my face into my pillow, and my stomach couldn’t keep up with the rest of my body. For a second I thought I was going to barf.
    I must have the flu, I thought vaguely. Man, I was sick.
    The bedroom door was wide open and the front door wasn’t much on the other side of it, and I heard Mason say, “What do you want?” He has a blunt, rough way of talking that irritates a lot of people, but he sounded even sharper than usual.
    â€œBob and Johnny came home drunk last night, and I’d like to know why.”
    It was Cole Collins! I got up quick, with some crazy idea of hiding in the closet, but the room spun around so wild I ended up on the floor instead. I slid under the bed, and lay there gripping the floorboards with my fingernails. The cold floor felt real good against my hot face. Cole Collins!
    â€œThey were drinking, I imagine.” Mason sounded real calm.
    â€œI know Bob. He’s not the kind of kid to do something like that, and he certainly would never let Johnny drink.” Cole sounded impatient.
    â€œWell,” Mason said, measuring out his words like he was scared he was going to drop one, “if Bob wouldn’t drink and wouldn’t let Johnny, it sure is strange they came home drunk, isn’t it?”
    Dear God, I prayed, don’t let them get into a fight. Cole Collins was six-four and must have weighed two hundred pounds.
    â€œSo somebody got them drunk. And I’d like to know who.”
    â€œIt wasn’t me.” Mason bit off each word.