It had been the longest day of Hely’s life. He’d had to clatter around the house by himself for hours: lonesome, nothing to do, trying to piece together exactly what had happened the night before and worrying that he was in for a terrible punishment when his parents returned—which indeed he was. He’d had to hand over all his birthday money to help pay for the damage (his parents had to pay for most of it); he’d had to write a letter of apology to the owner of the golf cart. He’d lost his TV privileges for what seemed like forever. But worst was his mother wondering aloud where he had learned to be a thief. “It’s not so much the liquor”—she must have said it to his father a thousand times—“as him stealing it.” His father made no such distinctions; he acted as if Hely had robbed a bank. For ages, he had hardly spoken to Hely except to say things like Pass The Salt, wouldn’t even look at him, and life at home had never gone back to quite the same way it was before. Typically, Todd—Mr. Musical Genius, first-chair clarinet in his Illinois junior-high band—had blamed everything on Hely, which had been the way throughout their childhoods whenever they saw each other, thankfully not often.
A celebrity guest had just said a bad word on the game show (some rhyming game, the contestants had to come up with the rhyming word that completed a riddle).… The host blipped it out, the bad word, with an obnoxious noise like a dog’s squeaky toy and wagged a finger at the celebrity guest, who clapped a hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes.…
Where the hell were his parents? Why didn’t they just come on home and get it over with?
He tried to stop thinking about the night before. The memory clouded and fouled the morning, like the after-taste of a bad dream; he tried to tell himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong, not really, hadn’t damaged property or hurt anyone or taken anything that didn’t belong to him. There was the snake—but they hadn’t really taken it; it was still under the house. And he’d set the other snakes loose but so what? It was Mississippi: snakes were crawling all over the place anyway; who was going to notice a few more? All he’d done was open a latch,
When he’d crept in the back door, red-faced and panting, he saw by the clock on the stove that it was still early, only nine. He could hear his parents watching television in the family room. Now, this morning, he wished he had stuck his head into the family room and said something to them, called out “Goodnight” from the stairs, anything; but he had not had the nerve to face them and had scurried cravenly to bed without a word to anyone.
He had no desire to see Harriet. Her very name made him think about things which he would rather not. The family room—tan rug, corduroy sofa, tennis trophies in a case behind the wet bar: all seemed alien, unsafe. Rigidly, as if some hostile observer were glowering at his back from the doorway, he stared at the carefree celebrities conferring over their riddle and tried to forget his troubles: no Harriet, no snakes, no punishment imminent from his dad. No big scary rednecks who had
A car pulled up in the driveway. Hely nearly screamed. But when he looked out the window, he saw it wasn’t the Ratliffs; it was only his dad. Quickly, spasmodically, he attempted to slouch down and spread out and generally arrange himself in a more casual posture, but he could not make himself comfortable, cringing in expectation of the slammed door, his father’s footsteps clipping fast down the hallway the way they always did when he was angry, and meant business.…
Hely—trembling with the effort—tried hard not to hold himself too stiffly; but he could not contain his curiosity and he sneaked a terrified glance to see that his father, with maddening leisure, was just climbing out of the car. He seemed unconcerned—even bored, though his expression was hard to read through the gray sunshades which were clipped over his glasses.
