Free The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle Page A

well from the time they were in short pants, and he wasn’t in the least like any of John’s friends, who never have anything to do with me anyhow, except to insult me in a friendly sort of way, or dance with me at school dances. I didn’t think Zachary’d get on very well with the kids in Thornhill, but I was beginning to realize that Thornhill isn’t the whole world. It used to be, for me.
    Mother and Daddy had the lantern on between them, and were reading, Mother a paperback book, Daddy a medical magazine. I rolled over and sighed heavily. Mother looked at me over the book. “Still awake, Vicky?”
    â€œUm hm. What’re you reading?”
    â€œ Anna Karenina . I haven’t read it since I was about your age.”
    â€œWould I like it?” I peered down over the tail gate.
    â€œI remember enjoying it very much, but I obviously didn’t get a lot of it. I think you might wait a couple of years.”
    Suzy gave a kind of mutter, and Mother said, “We’d better not talk any more or we’ll wake Suzy and Rob. Good-night, honey.”

    Mother and Daddy turned out their light before I went to sleep, but right after that I drifted off, still thinking about Zachary, and if I was going to see him in the morning, maybe, and then I was deep dark asleep.
    CRASH!
    I was so sound asleep that I was still half in the middle of some dream, and I thought it was an atom bomb, I guess because of Zachary’s stinky old song. Then I realized that Daddy and John were out of the tent with the lantern and Mother was standing in the door. I heard Zachary’s voice, kind of cross.
    Daddy and John came back.
    â€œWhat was it?” I squeaked, sure the hoods had managed to sneak back in the park, locked gates or no.
    Mother said, “Shh. Suzy and Rob are still asleep.”
    â€œIt had nothing to do with those boys.” Daddy said firmly in a low voice. “It was only the ice box. Evidently a coon or something knocked it off the bench onto the ground. I looked all around, but I couldn’t see anything. So I put the ice box up on the table, right in the center. It ought to be okay now.” We had the box of food in the front seat of the car, but had left the cooking things, and the ice box, which shuts tight, out by the table, so they’d be more convenient in the morning. “Go to sleep, Vicky.”
    I looked at my watch, and it was around midnight. I snuggled down in my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
    CRASH!
    I opened my eyes and struggled to wake up. John was crawling out of his sleeping bag, and Daddy was just going out of the tent with the lantern. This time I was pretty sure it was the ice box again, so I wasn’t so scared. I heard Zachary’s father sounding
sort of disagreeable, and Zachary saying, “For cripes sakes, Pop.” I looked at my watch and it was almost two. “I bet it’s the bear,” I said to Mother, “the bear I saw when I went to brush my teeth.”
    Daddy stuck his head through the tent door. “It’s the ice box again. All the way down from the table and onto the ground. It must be a coon.”
    â€œIt’s a pretty heavy ice box,” Mother said. “Vicky thinks it’s a bear.”
    Daddy pooh-poohed that, put the ice box in the front of the car, and we all went to sleep again.
    I slept so soundly that I didn’t hear anybody getting up in the morning, and Mother let me sleep until breakfast was ready. When I emerged Daddy came to me, grinning. “Look at this, Vicky.” He showed me a large paw mark on the tent, more paw marks on the table and bench and on the ice box, and a big dent in the ice box. “We measured the paw prints,” he said, “just for future reference, and they’re exactly the size of Suzy’s hand. I hate to admit it but I think you were right. It may have been a bear after all.”
    I looked over at Zachary’s fancy tent, but there