The Cider House Rules by John Irving Read Free Book Online Page A

massive hands of the Winkles, wouldn’t be dangerous for Homer. He felt less sure that Homer would want to stay with these people, to actually be adopted by them. He hardly worried that the Winkles’ craziness would bother the boy, and it wouldn’t have. What boy is troubled by perpetual adventure? What Wilbur Larch suspected was that the Winkles would bore Homer to tears, if not to death. A camping trip in the State Forest—white water now and then, a moose or two—might give the boy an idea of whether or not he could stand Grant and Billy forever.
    “And if you have a good time in the woods,” Grant Winkle told Homer cheerfully, “then we’ll take you out on the ocean!” They probably ride whales, Homer imagined. They tease sharks, Dr. Larch thought.
    But Dr. Larch wanted Homer to try it, and Homer Wells was willing—he would try anything for St. Larch.
    “Nothing dangerous,” Larch said sternly to the Winkles.
    “Oh, no, cross our hearts!” cried Billy; Grant crossed his, too.
    Dr. Larch knew there was only one road that ran through the northern State Forest. It was built by, and remained the property of, the Ramses Paper Company. They were not allowed to cut the trees in the State Forest, but they could drive their equipment through it en route to the trees that were theirs. Only this—that Homer was going anywhere near where the Ramses Paper Company was operating—troubled Dr. Larch.
    Homer was surprised at how little room there was in the cab of the homemade safari vehicle that the Winkles drove. The equipment it carried was impressive: the canoe, the tent, the fishing gear, the cooking miscellany, the guns. But there was little room for the driver and the passengers. In the cab, Homer sat on Billy’s lap; it was a big lap but strangely uncomfortable because of the hardness of her thighs. Homer had felt a woman’s lap only once before, during St. Cloud’s annual three-legged race.
    Once a year the boys’ and girls’ divisions amused the town with this race. It was a fund-raiser for the orphanage, so everyone endured it. The last two years Homer had won the race—only because his partner, the oldest girl in the girls’ division, was strong enough to pick him up and run with him in her arms across the finish line. The idea was that a boy and a girl of comparable age fastened his left leg to her right; they then hopped toward the finish line, on each of their free legs, dragging the miserable so-called third leg between them. The big girl from the girls’ division hadn’t needed to drag Homer—she cheated, she just carried him. But last year she had fallen at the finish line, pulling Homer into her lap. By mistake, trying to get out of her lap, he’d put his hand on her breast and she’d sharply pinched what the private school boy in Waterville had called his pecker.
    Her name was Melony, which was, like several of the orphans’ names in the girls’ division, a typographical error. Melony’s name had been, officially, Melody—but the girls’ division secretary was a terrible typist. The mistyping was a fortunate mistake, actually, because there was nothing melodious about the girl. She was about sixteen (no one really knew her exact age), and there was in the fullness of her breasts and in the roundness of her bottom very much the suggestion of melons.
    In the long ride north, Homer worried that Billy Winkle might pinch his pecker, too. He watched the houses disappear, and the farm animals; other cars and trucks were gone from the roads. Soon it was just a road, a single road—most often, it ran alongside water; the water ran fast. Ahead of them—for hours, it seemed—loomed a mountain that had snow on the top, although it was July. The mountain had an Indian name.
    “That’s where we’re going, Homer!” Grant Winkle told the boy. “Just under all that snow, there’s a lake.”
    “The moose are crazy about the lake,” Billy told Homer, “and you’ll be crazy about the lake,