Family

Chapter 15

Later that night, after dinner, we were reading in the den. I had my magazine, and e'eryone else had their fairy tales. Sam had his dictionary next to him incase he got a word he don't know. Pa was reading the newspaper. We all jus' sitting 'round the room, in silence.

I watch Pa read the newspaper. He's very focused on what he sees. His eyes stay on the page as he reads. The moving with smoothness. With no shown worries of the news. But then he turn the page and his eyes get wide. He look scared. He look like something happened. He read with his eyes real wide. Looking at it with fear of what is on the page.

When he finish reading, he stood fast. Walked to the secretary desk in the room and found the scissors. Then, he cut out the page from the rest o' the newspaper. Pa walked to the middle o' the hallway and pulled a door from the ceiling and a ladder fell down. He carried the page up to the attic.

I looked at Mack and noticed he saw it too. He looked at me. He look curious o' what was up there.

It took a few minutes and Pa came back down, and he ain't got a newspaper in his hand. Mack and I look at each other again, and immediately looked back at our magazines and books and continued reading.

⋯

The next day, Mack and I work in the barn. We quiet while we work. Doing each task like we do e'eryday. Nothing different. But it feel different. It feel like their something tough in the air. Something that is stuck in this barn, e'en though the doors were open. There's something happening but we ain't got a clue what it is yet.

After we finish working, we sit on the hay bails in silence.

"Where did Pa take that paper last night," Mack ask, breaking the quiet, tense air. Once he say this, it feel like what was heavy and stuck in the air flew out with the wind.

"I ain't got a clue, Mack," I told him.

"I wanna find out." He always wants to find out e'erything he don't know. He don't need to know e'erything. But at the same time I wanna know too. Pa ain't e'er done anything like that in front o' us 'fore. I wanna go in the attic. But I scare of what we gonna find too.

"I don't think it's a good idea, Mack. I think we should stay out of it. What if Pa find us up there and he get mad?"

"What if we do it at night, Annie. Think 'bout it at least. Don't ya wanna know what we could find?"

I can tell him I do, cause I don't know what I wanna do just yet. I ain't gonna say yes just yet.