The Graduate by Charles Webb Read Free Book Online

of my life with these people.”

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    “Ben.”
    “Farmers,” Benjamin said. “Truck drivers. Ordinary people who don’t have big houses. Who don’t have swimming pools.”
    “Ben, you’re getting carried away.”
    “I’m not.”
    “Ben, you have a romantic idea of this.”
    “Real people, Dad. If you want the cliché, I am going out to spend the rest of my life with the real people of this world.”
    “Aren’t we real?” Mrs. Braddock said.
    “It’s trite to talk about it,” Benjamin said. “I know how I feel.”
    They finished breakfast quietly. When it was over, Mr. Braddock pulled a checkbook out of his pocket and began making out a check.
    “Dad, look.”
    “I want you to take this,” he said.
    “I don’t want it.”
    He signed it and tore it out of the book. “Here,” he said.
    “No.”
    “Take it.”
    “I won’t.”
    Mr. Braddock reached over to stuff it in the pocket of Benjamin’s coat. Benjamin removed it, read the amount, then returned it to his pocket.
    “Cash it if you have to,” his father said.
    “I won’t have to.”
    “All right. But Ben?”
    “What.”
    “I don’t know how long this is going to last. I have a feeling you’ll be back here before you think you will.”
    “I won’t.”
    “But if you feel you have to get out and rub elbows with the real people for a while, then...”

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    Benjamin stood. “Goodbye,” he said, holding out his hand.
    His father shook it. “Call collect if you get into any kind of trouble.”
    “Ben?” Mrs. Braddock said. “Do you think you might be back by Saturday?”
    “Mother.”
    “Because I invited the Robinsons over for dinner. It would be so much more fun if you were here.”

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Part II

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Chapter 3
    The trip lasted just less than three weeks. It was late one night when Benjamin returned and both his parents were asleep. He tried the front door and found it locked. Then he tried the kitchen door at the side of the house and the door at the rear but both were locked. He attempted opening several windows but most of them were covered with screens and the ones without screens were locked. Finally he walked back around to the front porch and banged on the door until a light was turned on in his parents’ bedroom. He waited till the light was turned on in the front hall. Then his father, wearing a bathrobe, pulled open the door.
    “Ben,” he said.
    Benjamin walked past him and into the house.
    “Well you’re back.”
    “I’m back,” Benjamin said. He walked to the foot of the stairs.
    “Hey,” Mr. Braddock said, grinning at him, “It looks like you’ve got a little beard started there.”
    “It comes off tomorrow.”
    “Well,” his father said. “How are you.”
    “Tired.”
    “You’re all tired out.”
    “That’s right.”
    “So how was the trip.”
    “Not too great,” Benjamin said. He began slowly climbing up the stairs.
    “Well Ben?”

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    Benjamin stopped and let his head sag down between his shoulders.
    “Dad,” he said, “I’m so tired I can’t think.”
    “Well can’t you tell me where you went?”
    Benjamin knelt down on the stairs, then lay down on his side. “North,”
    he said, closing his eyes.
    “How far north.”
    “I don’t know. Redding. One of those towns.”
    “Well that’s where the big fire is,” his father said. “You must have seen it.”
    Mrs. Braddock, wearing her bathrobe and pushing some hair out of her face, appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Ben?” she said. “Is that you?”
    “Hello Mother,” he said without opening his eyes.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well how was the trip.”
    “Mother, I have never been this tired in all my life.”
    “He got up to Redding, he thinks,” Mr. Braddock said. “One of those towns up there.”
    “Dad, I haven’t slept in several days. I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m about to drop over.”
    “You haven’t