Virginia Hamilton by Justice, Her Brothers: The Justice Cycle (Book One) Read Free Book Online Page A

to serve him one. He drummed his fingers on the table and smoothly told Justice, “Now you may begin.”
    Grinning like an idiot, she thought to herself.
    Thomas wolfed down a third of his sandwich in one huge, disgraceful bite. He eyed Justice with a steady smirk.
    There were times when Justice wished he liked her better. But right now she hoped the sandwich would poison him.
    Tear him in the gut and flatten him out on the floor.
    Until her stomach began to hurt with a deep, cold feeling. Something tore at her insides with slithers of ice. She felt death-weak and knew suddenly that she was about to lose consciousness. But even before she could panic, she had seen a fleeting look of caution come into Thomas’ eyes. Quickly, she took up the sandwich and, for strength, hurriedly ate it.

3
    I T WAS THE HOUR past suppertime and the neighborhood seemed deserted. The thorny osage hedgerow, twisted by hard weather, spread early-evening shade across half the Douglass field. The trees bordered the length of the west property line; near them, Justice, Thomas and Levi stood in separate pools of dappled sun. Occasionally, there was a wind sigh through the treetops, which made a sound of crowds ohing and ahing from a great distance away. Every now and then, Justice would feel a hot downdraft of air. It caused her tangled, sticky curls to spring up around her ears.
    Thomas wore his favorite hat, a purple toque with a large pink ostrich feather stuck in the band. The feather fluttered in princely style, as fragile as a puffball. He appeared feverishly eager, yet confident behind a set of huge copper kettledrums.
    Levi observed his brother, whom he called Tom-Tom, so much a reflection of himself, and his sister, Ticey, trying her best to keep up with the both of them.
    Why must she be so excitable? And why couldn’t she find girls her age to be friends with? Poor Ticey. It wasn’t that she couldn’t find any, it was that he and Tom-Tom couldn’t keep her away from what they were doing or planning to do. And he supposed it was normal for younger ones to tag after older brothers and sisters.
    Levi caught a warm stir of air full in the face. He would have liked to be in the cottonwood tree on the east boundary. He could hear a breeze high up in the brittle osage branches. It might be cooler over in the cottonwood. Yet he remained where he was. Patient and ever alert, he waited for Tom-Tom to tell him, all of them, what was to be.
    Behind their field was a high wood fence with a gate in it. The fence separated the field from their backyard. The yard was overgrown on one side with planted beds of flowers—sweet peas, gladioli, hollyhocks, roses—and stubborn, blooming weeds which made that whole side a place wildly beautiful. On the other side of the yard, away from sundown and shade, grew a large, neat vegetable garden. Here Mr. and Mrs. Douglass often spent time when they came home in the afternoon. Hoeing rows of beans, tomatoes and cucumbers was for them a sure way to relax.
    Now, after supper, they were on the far side of their white house with black trim, away from the enclosed yard and the open field. Over there was a screened-in porch facing north. It overlooked the front lawn of snowball bushes, evergreen and fruit trees. The Douglasses delighted in sitting on the porch, talking, having tea, after the dishes were washed and put away. And it was not unusual for them to doze a bit there on the porch glider.
    Thomas and Levi, with Justice, delighted in the field. In the whole neighborhood, no family had as much open space as they. The acre and a half of field planted years ago in Kentucky bluegrass was kept mowed to an inch of springy turf by Thomas and Levi, taking turns struggling with their rattling gasoline mower. Endlessly, they talked over whose turn it was to mow this time; finally, they divided the field in quarters—one quarter, Thomas; one quarter, Levi—until the whole field was mowed.
    The field had naturally become