The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars

The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars

Author:Betsy Byars [Betsy Byars]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571310340
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-03-21T16:00:00+00:00


Eleven

Tragedy Begins

One time Petie Burkis and I made up a TV show called ‘This is your Bad Moment’. And on this show contestants would come out on the stage, and the audience would get to see the contestant in a bad moment. Like if Petie Burkis was a contestant he would come out on the stage and there would be an enormous table absolutely covered with every kind of pizza in the world. Petie loved pizza and he would just stand there looking at this steaming table and while he was deciding what kind of pizza to go for first, a little door would open and a hundred monkeys would come tumbling out, jump up on the table, and start romping all over the pizzas. Petie would leap forward, trying to save at least one, but he would be too late, and then the announcer’s voice would say, ‘Petie Burkis, this is your bad moment.’ And the camera would come in close so everyone could see the sorrowful look on Petie’s face as he watched the monkeys stomping on the pizzas.

Well, that night when Hazeline came out on the porch where I was sitting and said, ‘Get on your bathing suit and let’s take a swim,’ I thought about that TV show. I could even hear the announcer’s deep voice saying, ‘Tommy, this is your bad moment.’

‘What?’ I said quickly.

‘I said, let’s take a swim. Didn’t you bring your bathing suit?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, get on some old shorts then. Aren’t you roasting?’

‘I’m not so awfully hot.’

‘Oh, come on.’

She got up and I followed her into the house and put on my bathing suit. I did not want to go swimming at all, but I went down and sat on the steps.

‘Well, let’s go,’ Hazeline called from the corner of the house.

I looked up and she was standing there with two black inner tubes. In all my life I never saw a more welcome sight.

We went down to the pond and got in the inner tubes and just floated around. Hazeline kept saying, ‘Don’t splash me now. Don’t splash,’ until finally I got brave and did splash her a little, and then we just floated around some more.

I could have stayed in that inner tube for hours. I could have gone to sleep in that inner tube. It started getting dark and the stars came out, and I felt like that inner tube with me in it was the centre of the whole universe. I thought that if someone on another planet was looking at Earth through a tremendously powerful telescope, the first thing this person would see would be me and that black inner tube floating in the pond.

‘There’s Mikey,’ Hazeline screamed suddenly. She always seemed surprised to see him, even though he had come over every single night since I had arrived. ‘I’ve got on the awfullest bathing suit. Come on, let’s get out and go around back before he sees us.’

We got out as quickly as we could, but of course he saw us and came running over.



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