Hippie House Read Free Page A

good-looking.”
    â€œYes, he was,” I agreed.
    When they dropped me off, the lights were out in the farmhouse and nobody was at home.
    â€œBetter turn on some lights,” Uncle Pat cheerfully advised me.
    It seemed so casual a remark in a world inhabited by murderers—until I realized that Uncle Pat had not seen what Megan and I had seen.
    â€œI will.” The words just barely escaped from the back of my throat.
    Megan scrambled into the cab as Uncle Pat waved a big hand and they drove off.
    We did not lock our doors when we went out, and I never yelled hello when I entered the house. Except at that moment. There was no answer. Armed with Halley, I took Uncle Pat’s advice and walked stealthily through the house, flicking on every light in every room. Further hoping to chase away images of long knives and men leaping from dark corners while I waited for someone to return home, I sat down to work on Eric’s vest at my sewing machine.
    â€œIs there some reason you want the roosters up?” Eric, who had wandered in from the Hippie House, innocently asked.
    Guiding a seam at full speed through the machine, I jumped. My foot came down hard on the pedal at the same time as I jerked my hand. The needle drove through the cuticle at the edge of my index finger. Shocked, and with my finger still pinned to the machine, I tried to tug it out. Realizing what I had done, I let out a howl. Eric quickly turned the wheel to set me free. Taking my hand, he studied the hole the needle had left clear through to the other side.
    â€œCool,” he announced.
    â€œIt is not cool,” I said, pulling my hand back. And for some reason, at that moment, his failure to sympathize unleashed the fear I had managed to keep in check over the last two hours. “And don’t you ever sneak up on me again!” After whacking a surprised Eric, I began to cry.
    In late August, the mounting traffic up and down the asphalt lane separating the pond from the farmhouse became a concern. Eric and the members of his band and friends of the members of the band would follow the lane up past the barn and park next to the tractor shed. From there they would walk down through the airfield, past the duck house and into the woods to the Hippie House. As the summerprogressed, the band was joined by musicians from outside of Pike Creek who had heard The Rectifiers at the drop-in center and come to jam. Then there were the friends of these musicians, driving over the heated asphalt, scattering our flock of domestic geese. One carload of visitors, swerving to avoid my father’s prized pair of white Chinese geese, left a rut in Mom’s rose garden.
    This rut was their final error.
    There was one reason Mom went outside. Once a day, after donning a broad-brimmed hat, she would pocket pruning shears and clip down the lane to tend to her beloved rose garden, which tumbled against the stone retaining wall. It was these daily trips, in fact, that had prompted my father to pave our lane. A luxury and expense that most farmers would consider extravagant, paving the lane had been a worthwhile investment in my father’s mind. It helped tame the mud and dust my mother so detested. It had been another attempt to help civilize her life on the farm.
    Until the rut in the rose garden, Dad’s annoyance had given rise to only a few pointed warnings. But now the growing traffic could no longer be ignored. Dad approached the topic after
The Ed Sullivan Show
one Sunday night, using the moment to also voice his concern about the type of people visiting the Hippie House. Some of them, he suggested, appeared far too old to be in school. What were they doing hanging around with seventeen-year-olds when they should be making something out of their lives?
    Eric didn’t know. Anyway, what was he supposed to do? Embarrass himself and his friends and everybody else by telling them to get lost?
    Dad shook his head. “I’m not asking