Raymond Bradbury: Farewell Summer

"Here's you, Charlie." Lightning cracked.

"Yeah!"

"Here's you, Willie." Thunder boomed.

"Yeah!"

"And you, Tom."

"That's too small and plain," Tom protested. "Can't I be king?"

"Shut up or you're the queen."

"I'm shut," said Tom.

Douglas finished the list and the boys clustered round, their faces shining with sweat, eager for the next lightning bolt to let loose its electric shower. Distant thunder cleared its throat.

"Listen!" cried Doug. "We've almost got it made. The town's almost ours. We got all the chess pieces, so the old men can't shove us around. Can anyone do better?"

Nobody could and admitted it, happily.

"Just one thing," said Tom. "How'd you work that lightning, Doug?"

"Shut up and listen," said Douglas, aggrieved that central intelligence had almost been wormed away from him.

"The thing is, one way or another, I got the lightning to knock the bellybuttons off the old sailors and Civil War vets on the lawn. They're all home now, dying like flies. Flies."

"Only one thing wrong," said Charlie. "The chess pieces are ours right now, sure. But-I'd give anything for a good hot dog."

At which moment lightning struck a tree right outside the attic window. The boys dropped flat.

"Doug! Heck! Make it stop!"

Eyes shut, Douglas shouted, "I can't! I take it back. I lied!"

Dimly satisfied, the storm went away, grumbling.

As if announcing the arrival of someone or something important, a final distant strike of lightning and a rumble of thunder caused the boys to look toward the stairwell, leading down to the second floor of the house.

Far below, someone cleared his throat.

Douglas pricked his ears, moved to the stairwell, and intuitively called down.

"Seems to be," a voice said from the bottom of the stairs. "You boys are not very good at covering your tracks. You left footprints in the grass all the way across town. I followed along, asking questions along the way, getting directions, and here I am."

Doug swallowed hard and said again: "Grandpa?"

"There seems to be a small commotion back in town," said Grandpa, far below, out of sight.

"Something like that," said Grandpa's voice.

"You coming up?"

"No," said Grandpa. "But I have a feeling you're coming down. I want you to come see me for a visit and we're gonna have a little talk. And then you've got to run an errand because something has been purloined."

"Purloined?"

"Mr. Poe used that word. If need be, you can go back and check the story and refresh your memory."

"Purloined," said Douglas. "Oh, yeah."

"Whatever was purloined-and right now I'm not quite sure what it was," said Grandpa, far away, "-but whatever it was, I think, son, that it should be returned to where it belongs. There are rumors that the town sheriff has been called, so I think you should hop to it."

Douglas backed off and stared at his companions, who had heard the voice from below and were now frozen, not knowing what to do.

"You got nothing more to say?" called Grandpa from down below. "Well, maybe not here. I'm gonna get going; you know where to find me. I'll expect you there soon."

"Yeah, yes, sir."

Doug and the boys were silent as they listened to Grandpa's footsteps echo throughout the haunted house, along the hall, down the stairs, out onto the porch. And then, nothing.

Douglas turned and Tom held up the burlap sack.

"You need this, Doug?" he whispered.

"Gimme."

Doug grabbed the gunnysack and scraped all the chess pieces up and dropped them, one by one, into the sack. There went Pete and Tom and Bo and all the

Doug shook the gunnysack; it made a dry rattling sound like old men's bones.

And with a last backward glance at his army, Doug started down.

GRANDPA'S LIBRARY WAS A FINE DARK PLACE bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore.

Here it was that Grandpa sat in place with now this book and now that in his lap and his gold specs on his nose, welcoming visitors who came to stay for a moment and lingered for an hour.

Even Grandmother paused here, after some burdensome time, as an aging animal seeks the watering place to be refreshed. And Grandfather was always here to offer cups of good clear Walden Pond, or shout down the deep well of Shakespeare and listen, with satisfaction, for echoes.

Here the lion and the hartebeest lay together, here the jackass became unicorn, here on Saturday noon an elderly man could be found underneath a not too imaginary bough, eating bread in the guise of sandwiches and pulling briefly at a jug of cellar wine.

Douglas stood on the edge of it all, waiting.

"Step forward, Douglas," said Grandfather.

Douglas stepped forward, holding the gunnysack in one hand behind his back.

"Got anything to say, Douglas?"

"No, sir."

"Nothing at all about anything?"

"No, sir."

"What you been up to today, son?"

"Nothing."

"A busy nothing or a nothing nothing?"

"A nothing nothing, I guess."

"Douglas." Grandpa paused to polish his gold-rimmed specs. "They say that confession is good for the soul."

"They do say that."

"And they must mean it or they wouldn't say it."

"I guess so."

"Know it, Douglas, know it. Got anything to confess?"

"About what?" said Douglas, keeping the gunnysack behind him.

"That's what I'm trying to find out. You going to help?"

"Maybe you could give me a hint, sir."

"All right. Seems there was flood tide down at the City Hall courthouse today. I hear a tidal wave of boys inundated the grass. You know any of them?"

"No, sir."

"Any of them know you?"

"If I don't know them, how could they know me, sir?"

"Is that all you got to say?"

"Right now? Yes, sir."

Grandpa shook his head. "Doug, I told you, I know about the purloineds. And I'm sorry you think you can't tell me about them. But I remember being your age, and getting caught red-handed at doing something I knew I shouldn't do, but I did anyway. Yes, I remember." Grandpa's eyes twinkled behind his specs. "Well, I think I'm holding you up, boy. I think you got somewhere to go."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, try to hurry it up. The rain's still coming down, lightning all over town, and the town square is empty. If you run and let the lightning strike, maybe you'll do a fast job of what you should be doing. Does that sound reasonable, Doug?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well then, get to it."

Douglas started to back away.

"Don't back off, son," said Grandpa. "I'm not royalty. Just turn around and skedaddle."

"Skedaddle. Was that originally French, Grampa?"

"Hell." The old man reached for a book. "When you get back, let's look it up!"

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, DOUG WOKE TO THAT terrible boredom that only sleep ensures.

It was then, listening to Tom's chuffing breath, deep in an ice-floe summer hibernation, that Doug lifted his arms and wiggled his fingers, like a tuning fork; a gentle vibration ensued. He felt his soul move through an immense timberland.

His feet, shoeless, drifted to the floor and he leaned south to pick up the gentle radio waves of his uncle, down the block. Did he hear the elephant sound of Tantor summoning an ape-boy? Or, half through the night, had Grandpa, next door, fallen in a grave of slumber, dead to the world, gold specs on his nose, with Edgar Allan Poe shelved to his right and the Civil War dead, truly dead, to his left, waiting in his sleep, it seemed, for Doug to arrive?

So, striking his hands together and wiggling his fingers, Doug made one final vibration of his literary tuning fork and moved with quiet intuition toward his grandparents' house.