Teetoncey by Theodore Taylor

Author:Theodore Taylor [Taylor, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

10

THE NEXT DAY Frank Scarborough and Kilbie Oden, who were twelve and thirteen, respectively, came by just to take a look. They stuck their heads in the door and got their look, but didn't say anything.

Ben watched Tee. She was on the couch. She didn't seem to know what to make of it.

Rachel said, "Come on in, boys."

Frank answered, "No, ma'am, Mis' O'Neal."

Ben was sure they did not want to be around a freak.

They pulled their heads back out. Frank was nice looking but Kilbie had bad skin. His mother daubed salve that contained sweet spirit of niter, and something else, on it. He was speckled white a lot of the time. But Kilbie was plagued with an unfortunate face, anyway. It looked like piecrust with a round nose jammed in the middle. His hair was reddish. But Ben had always said, "They're as good-a-boys as any."

Of the three of them, Kilbie, despite his looks, was the smartest, in Ben's opinion; including himself. He knew a lot about many things but he had his weaknesses, too. They had only "gotten" to Kilbie on one occasion, in Ben's memory, and it was over snakes.

It was around the time that Jabez Tillett took the three of them up the feeder ditch to Lake Mattamuskeet. Vines hung over that wine-colored ditch and snakes lay up in the vines. It was not a recommended trip for those who were skitterish.

That morning a few dropped into the boat and Jabez, Frank, and Ben were frantic with the oars trying to get them out. They hit each other as much as they did the snakes.

But Kilbie stayed calm and wisely just reached down to pick them up one by one and toss them over the side. They weren't "pizen," he said. He even laughed when Frank hit Ben in the mouth with an oar blade, drawing blood.

Two days later they got back at Kilbie. They made a cut in the rear wall of the Odens' outhouse and found a long, crooked stick. When Kilbie came out just past sunrise and sat down Ben guided the stick through the hole and up. He aimed perfectly. Just as he jabbed it, Frank hollered, "Snake!"

Kilbie came out of the door as if his tail was torched. He ran across the flats with his pants down around his ankles. They heard his yelling in Chicky, and Mrs. Oden inspected his bottom for an hour trying to find fang marks.

But it did prove to Ben and Frank that Kilbie wasn't always smart, and that under certain circumstances he was afraid of snakes.

Kilbie seemed to be involved in everything around the village. He and his older brother, Everett, were the ones who dressed up on the eve of January 6, old Christmas, in a cow's hide and head, to charge up and down the streets of Chicky, pretending to be Old Buck, which the British professor had said was a direct descendant of St George's dragon. Actually, Old Buck was a direct descendant of the wild bull of Trent Woods, which was really an ox, according to Kilbie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.