Free The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson Page B

cereal, and Mrs. Walpole, with one eye on the clock and the other on the kitchen window past which the school bus would come in a matter of minutes, felt the unreasonable irritation that comes with being late on a school morning, the wading-through-molasses feeling of trying to hurry children.
    “You’ll have to walk,” she said ominously, for perhaps the third time. “The bus won’t wait.”
    “I’m hurrying,” Judy said. She regarded her full glass of milk smugly. “I’m closer to through than Jack.”
    Jack pushed his glass across the table and they measured meticulously, precisely. “No,” he said. “Look how much more you have than me.”
    “It doesn’t matter ,” Mrs. Walpole said, “it doesn’t matter . Jack, eat your cereal.”
    “She didn’t have any more than me to start with,” Jack said. “Did she have any more than me, Mom?”
    The alarm clock had not gone off at seven as it should. Mrs. Walpole heard the sound of the shower upstairs and calculated rapidly; the coffee was slower than usual this morning, the boiled eggs a shade too soft. She had only had time to pour herself a glass of fruit juice and no time to drink it. Someone— Judy or Jack or Mr. Walpole—was going to be late.
    “ Judy ,” Mrs. Walpole said mechanically, “ Jack .”
    Judy’s hair was not accurately braided. Jack would get off without his handkerchief. Mr. Walpole would certainly be irritable.
    The yellow-and-red bulk of the school bus filled the road outside the kitchen window, and Judy and Jack streaked for the door, cereal uneaten, books most likely forgotten. Mrs. Walpole followed them to the kitchen door, calling, “Jack, your milk money; come straight home at noon.” She watched them climb into the school bus and then went briskly to work clearing their dishes from the table and setting a place for Mr. Walpole. She would have to have breakfast herself later, in the breathing-spell that came after nine o’clock. That meant her wash would be late getting on the line, and if it rained that afternoon, as it certainly might, nothing would be dry. Mrs. Walpole made an effort, and said, “Good morning, dear,” as her husband came into the kitchen. He said, “Morning,” without glancing up and Mrs. Walpole, her mind full of unfinished sentences that began, “Don’t you think other people ever have any feelings or—” started patiently to set his breakfast before him. The soft-boiled eggs in their dish, the toast, the coffee. Mr. Walpole devoted himself to his paper, and Mrs. Walpole, who wanted desperately also to say, “I don’t suppose you notice that I haven’t had a chance to eat—” set the dishes down as softly as she could.
    Everything was going smoothly, although half-an-hour late, when the telephone rang. The Walpoles were on a party line, and Mrs. Walpole usually let the phone ring her number twice before concluding that it was really their number; this morning, before nine o’clock, with Mr. Walpole not half-through his breakfast, it was an unbearable intrusion, and Mrs. Walpole went reluctantly to answer it. “Hello,” she said forbiddingly.
    “Mrs. Walpole,” the voice said, and Mrs. Walpole said, “Yes?” The voice—it was a woman—said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but this is—” and gave an unrecognizable name. Mrs. Walpole said, “Yes?” again. She could hear Mr. Walpole taking the coffeepot off the stove to pour himself a second cup.
    “Do you have a dog? Brown-and-black hound?” the voice continued. With the word dog Mrs. Walpole, in the second before she answered, “Yes,” comprehended the innumerable aspects of owning a dog in the country (six dollars for spaying, the rude barking late at night, the watchful security of the dark shape sleeping on the rug beside the double-decker beds in the twins’ room, the inevitability of a dog in the house, as important as a stove, or a front porch, or a subscription to the local paper; more, and above any of these things,