Free The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson Page A

the little boy said to the man. “She’s twelve-and-a-half.”
    “Do you love your sister?” the man asked. The little boy stared, and the man came around the side of the seat and sat down next to the little boy. “Listen,” the man said, “shall I tell you about my little sister?”
    The mother, who had looked up anxiously when the man sat down next to her little boy, went peacefully back to her book.
    “Tell me about your sister,” the little boy said. “Was she a witch?”
    “Maybe,” the man said.
    The little boy laughed excitedly, and the man leaned back and puffed at his cigar. “Once upon a time,” he began, “I had a little sister, just like yours.” The little boy looked up at the man, nodding at every word. “My little sister,” the man went on, “was so pretty and so nice that I loved her more than anything else in the world. So shall I tell you what I did?”
    The little boy nodded more vehemently, and the mother lifted her eyes from her book and smiled, listening.
    “I bought her a rocking-horse and a doll and a million lollipops,” the man said, “and then I took her and I put my hands around her neck and I pinched her and I pinched her until she was dead.”
    The little boy gasped and the mother turned around, her smile fading. She opened her mouth, and then closed it again as the man went on, “And then I took and I cut her head off and I took her head—”
    “Did you cut her all in pieces?” the little boy asked breathlessly.
    “I cut off her head and her hands and her feet and her hair and her nose,” the man said, “and I hit her with a stick and I killed her.”
    “Wait a minute,” the mother said, but the baby fell over sideways just at that minute and by the time the mother had set her up again the man was going on.
    “And I took her head and I pulled out all her hair and—”
    “Your little sister ?” the little boy prompted eagerly.
    “My little sister,” the man said firmly. “And I put her head in a cage with a bear and the bear ate it all up.”
    “Ate her head all up?” the little boy asked.
    The mother put her book down and came across the aisle. She stood next to the man and said, “Just what do you think you’re doing?” The man looked up courteously and she said, “Get out of here.”
    “Did I frighten you?” the man said. He looked down at the little boy and nudged him with an elbow and he and the little boy laughed.
    “This man cut up his little sister,” the little boy said to his mother.
    “I can very easily call the conductor,” the mother said to the man.
    “The conductor will eat my mommy,” the little boy said. “We’ll chop her head off.”
    “And little sister’s head, too,” the man said. He stood up, and the mother stood back to let him get out of the seat. “Don’t ever come back in this car,” she said.
    “My mommy will eat you ,” the little boy said to the man.
    The man laughed, and the little boy laughed, and then the man said, “Excuse me,” to the mother and went past her out of the car. When the door had closed behind him the little boy said, “How much longer do we have to stay on this old train?”
    “Not much longer,” the mother said. She stood looking at the little boy, wanting to say something, and finally she said, “You sit still and be a good boy. You may have another lollipop.”
    The little boy climbed down eagerly and followed his mother back to her seat. She took a lollipop from a bag in her pocketbook and gave it to him. “What do you say?” she asked.
    “Thank you,” the little boy said. “Did that man really cut his little sister up in pieces?”
    “He was just teasing,” the mother said, and added urgently, “Just teasing .”
    “Prob’ly,” the little boy said. With his lollipop he went back to his own seat, and settled himself to look out the window again. “Prob’ly he was a witch.”

The Renegade
    I T WAS EIGHT-TWENTY in the morning. The twins were loitering over their