How High the Moon by Sandra Kring

Author:Sandra Kring [Kring, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-90758-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Charlie looked like a bird that just hit a window, too stunned to make a sound. He didn’t cry, and he didn’t answer. He just lay there. Still. His eyes round and staring.

“I’ll call an ambulance!” Brenda said.

That’s when Charlie got un-stunned. “Nooooooo!” he cried, his eyes suddenly gushing like a dog-chewed garden hose. “I don’t like ambolances! No!” Charlie squirmed and wiggled to get up, but Johnny was holding him down at the shoulder.

“You drive him, Johnny,” I said. “His ma went off to heaven in an ambulance. So you’re not going to get him in one unless you clunk him over the head.”

“We shouldn’t be moving him,” Brenda said, which was probably true, because now that Charlie was up all the way, he was bent in half, holding his hip and crying, “Ow, ow.”

Johnny picked Charlie up like he was light as a pillow and looked at the still-running Perkins truck, the door hanging open and junk all over the bench seat. Dumbo Doug was right behind him, “I wasn’t even going fast!”

“My car!” Brenda said.

Her Thunderbird was parked close to the furniture store, so Johnny ran Charlie to it, telling him over and over in a voice gentle as a lullaby, “You’re gonna be okay, Charlie. You’re gonna be fine.”

Brenda handed Johnny the keys (probably because she was shaking so bad she would have ran over ten kids if she drove), and he put Charlie into the car, scooting him to the middle of the seat and telling him to watch his feet so he didn’t bump the shifter. Brenda’s car only had a front seat, so Brenda took my hand and ran me to the passenger side. She climbed in and patted her lap.

Johnny was backing up when Mrs. Bloom hopped out the furniture store door and yelled, “What’s going on? Brenda, where are you going?” The top was down on Brenda’s convertible, so hearing her wasn’t hard—but then we probably would have heard her if we’d been in an army tank, as loud as she was bellering. Brenda looked back with worry on her face.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Mel’s heading over to her. He’ll explain.”

Johnny wove down the streets, using the horn to keep people from crossing. Not that I saw anybody. I couldn’t see nothing but a Sunday school picture of Jesus on a rock, kids all around, one colored to look like Charlie—shirt and pants made fatter with a navy-blue crayon colored past the lines, brown speckles on his face, red spots on his head—so Mrs. Fry would know which one was him.

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