The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle Read Free Book Online Page A

about pork chops. Heroines of mystery novels are never mentioned eating a dinner of pork chops just before something terrible is about to happen.
    Being a little nervy hadn’t blunted my appetite, and I was gnawing on my chop bone when we heard a car coming up the hill to the campgrounds very fast. It whizzed by us—it must have been going seventy-five miles an hour on that narrow, winding road—zoomed all the way around the campgrounds, and went by us again. As it passed something was flung out of the window and shattered against the side of our station wagon with a sound like an explosion. We all stood up. I thought it was a bomb.
    Daddy started towards our car. He moved with such quickness and decision that he was half way there before the rest of us had untangled ourselves from the picnic table and started to follow him. I still had my pork chop bone in my hand and was trembling like an aspen.
    â€œIt was just a Coke bottle,” Daddy said, his voice very quiet and matter-of-fact. But it wasn’t his regular, at home voice. It was his Dr. Austin voice, the kind of voice he uses when patients get hysterical, or some kind of emergency comes up that has to be handled quickly and without fuss.
    We could still hear the car zooming on around the road that circled the campgrounds. I knew it was coming by us again, and no matter how calm Daddy was, I was very frightened. There was a dent in the fender where the Coke bottle had hit it, dark stains of Coke splashes, and broken glass all over.

    Daddy said, sharply, “Everybody get back to the picnic table. Quickly. Sit there and eat as though nothing had happened.”
    I knew the car would come by again, and they might throw something else. This time it might hit one of us instead of the station wagon. We scurried up the side of the hill to the picnic table. Mother put her arm around Rob and pretended to eat salad. John said, “Those dumb hoods,” and drank some milk.
    â€œHow do you know it was hoods?” I asked.
    John sounded disgusted. “Who else?”
    Now we could hear the car coming closer, and I could feel everything about my body tightening up.
    Daddy said, “Just ignore them.”
    This time the car didn’t whizz on by and they didn’t throw anything. The car stopped with a great squealing skid and jamming on of brakes. It was a shabby-looking jalopy, and inside it was a gang of boys. John was right, as usual, but that didn’t make me any happier. The left front door opened and the boy behind the steering wheel got out. He had on black tapered pants and a black leather jacket.
    Daddy got up from the picnic table, speaking in low command. “Stay where you are. You, too, John.”
    I looked at Mother, sitting very still, her arm around Rob. I knew she was frightened because she was as motionless as a statue. I looked at Daddy walking unhurriedly down towards the boy.
    Before Daddy said anything the boy snarled, and he sounded more like an animal than a human boy, “Ah believe you have one of our Cokes. We’d like it back.”
    Daddy is used to giving orders and he is used to being obeyed. He spoke very quietly, but his words were as cold and
sharp as ice. “Get in your car and get out of this campgrounds. At once. If we have any further trouble from you I shall report you to the police.”
    â€œYea-uh?” the boy said. “Un-hunh?” His voice had a southern drawl, but it wasn’t soft and it wasn’t pretty. “Just you try, mistah. We’ll go when we feel like it.”
    â€œYou will go now,” Daddy said, still very quiet.
    â€œYea-uh? Now just tell me why?”
    Daddy spoke as though he were talking to Suzy and Rob when they were being disobedient. “Because I say so.”
    The boy moved slowly, insolently towards Daddy. I remembered a TV show about delinquents where a boy had deliberately tweaked a man’s nose in order to humiliate him, and the man