Read Online Calling Home by Michael Cadnum - Free Book Online

away?”
    â€œHe just ran away. Who knows why? People do things for strange reasons.”
    One of the alligators shifted his muscular, broad head. Then he stopped, and held the new position for a long time.
    â€œI hope he’s all right,” she said.
    â€œI hope so, too,” I murmured, feeling terrible about lying to Lani.
    I wanted to tell her everything.

9
    We sat on the lawn watching the light break and form on the surface of Lake Merritt. A duck waddled to the edge of the lake and shook himself. Then he was suddenly on the water, sailing forth into the white, broken fragments of sunlight. He reached the place where the broken light was brightest, and vanished, covered over by the glare that eyes could not stand to look into.
    Angela slipped off her shoes. She wiggled her toes and leaned forward and said to them, “I decided you were so rude because you’re under a lot of pressure.”
    â€œI’m not under any pressure.”
    â€œI think you are.” She looked at me, then massaged her toes with both hands. “I think you are under some kind of stress.”
    â€œI’m just bored. Everything is so tedious.”
    â€œYou’re always bored. There’s something different.”
    I snorted.
    â€œAnyway, I forgive you for snapping at me.”
    â€œI was irritated because you say things and don’t even think what they mean, like saying that you hope that your parents’ plane crashes. What an evil thing to say.”
    She stiffened, then stretched, and was plainly not going to be drawn into an argument, and I understood that she felt good about forgiving me. It gave her power over me, and I disliked her for her understanding, but accepted it because it was the easiest thing to do. I made up my mind, though, that I would try to be meaner to people in the future; it’s so much more fair than to forgive them.
    â€œI was just talking. Anyway, there’s no such thing as evil. Just people and things they do. You know that.”
    I leaned back on the lawn and covered my eyes from the afternoon sun. Lake Merritt is surrounded by buildings and streets, a lake in the middle of life. It’s ugly when you get up close to it and see the scum-black rocks and algae-greasy beer cans, and when you get farther away, you see how gray and building-colored the lake is, even on a bright day, and how unlike a real lake it is, one that is surrounded by farms or mountains, and that people can stoop down to and touch and drink from. I didn’t want to see the lake anymore, and I didn’t want the light to needle my eyes, so I lay there and listened to the whir and moan of traffic.
    â€œBut there is something wrong with you. There’s something in your eyes. I can see it. Anyone who really knows you can see it.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous.”
    â€œNo, it’s not. There’s something the matter with you.”
    I listened to the city grumbling around me. A truck growled its gears and coughed a huge, phlegmy rumble as it took some load of something across the edge of everything I could hear and, gradually, diminished. I could hear Angela’s silence, too, as she sensed the things about me she imagined herself able to sense.
    â€œYes,” I said, finally. “There is something wrong with me.”
    â€œWhat?” she breathed.
    â€œI find it very difficult to talk about. It’s not the sort of thing I can share.”
    â€œYou can share it with me,” she said, hungry for it. And she cared, too, concern making her voice syrupy and smooth, as she leaned closer to me and murmured, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
    â€œI can’t get it out of my mind. It eats away at me, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy father asked me to come live with him.”
    â€œWhy did he do that?”
    â€œWhy not? He’s my father.”
    â€œYou don’t want to, do you? It would be awful