Missing in Action Read Free Page A

over seventy.
    Grandpa stepped to his desk and opened a drawer. “Everyone’s wearing these wristwatches now. A salesman gave me one to try out, but I never remember to look at the thing. I always reach for my chain to pull my pocket watch out. I finally just stuck this thing in here. Do you want it?”
    Grandpa wound it and set the time, and then handed it to Jay. It was silver, with a leather band. He watched the second hand sweep past silver dots instead of numbers. It looked nice, but he didn’t want to wear it when he was playing ball. He took it, though, and he told Grandpa, “Thanks.”
    â€œSo did you have fun with those boys tonight?”
    â€œSure.”
    He didn’t tell about the ball that had hit him, but his throat still hurt when he swallowed.
    â€œDo you think you’re going to like living down here with us?”
    â€œIt should be all right.”
    â€œYou’ll get so you’ll like everything after a while. It’s just a little different from what you’re used to.”
    He nodded.
    â€œWell, if I were you, I’d go in and take a bath—so you won’t be so hot when you go to bed.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI don’t mean you have to. I was just thinking that might be what you’d want to do.”
    â€œOkay.”
    After he walked out, he wished he’d said more. He liked Grandpa all right. He just didn’t know what to say to him. And he didn’t want him asking so many questions, the way he did sometimes. About Salt Lake and his dad and everything.
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    He played ball the next few nights, but he didn’t talk much with anyone. Even when the boys played in teams and he had to wait for his turn at bat, most of the boys didn’t say much to him. He never had been able to think of much to talk about. But Gordy never stopped talking.
    He and Gordy were sitting next to each other on the grass one night when Gordy poked him with his elbowand said, “Hey, Chief, you ever seen a naked girl?”
    Jay shook his head.
    â€œWe did. Me and Lew. We snuck up on some girls skinny-dipping down at the canal. We watched ’em for a while, and then we started hollering that we could see ’em, and they about drowned trying to stay under the water. But it didn’t matter. They didn’t have much of anything anyway.”
    Jay didn’t know what to say.
    â€œI seen my sister once too, just by accident. Now that I know what a girl’s supposed to look like, I know it ain’t like those flat-chested girls we seen down at the canal.”
    â€œWhat about Elaine Gleed?” Lew asked. “She’s not so flat.”
    â€œWhat are you looking at her for? She likes me.”
    â€œYou’re the only one who thinks so.”
    â€œYeah. Me and her. We’re the only two.” Gordy turned back to him. “Hey, you wanna go out to the desert with us in the morning? Me and Lew and some other guys are going out real early before it gets hot.”
    â€œI can’t,” he said. “I’ve got to work for my grandpa, at his farm.”
    â€œIs that what you’ve been doing every day?”
    â€œNo. Tomorrow’s my first day.”
    â€œYou must be starting up to cut hay.”
    â€œIt’s already cut.”
    â€œThen you’ll be raking, and after that, hauling. Most of us do some of that. That’s why we’re going in the morning—before our dads get us busy doing the same thing.”
    Actually, he had done next to nothing since he’d been in Delta—except wait to head over to the ballpark late in the day. His mom had taken a job already, at D. Stevens department store, and Grandma was the only one home all day. He talked to Grandma sometimes. She liked to gab a little too much, but she laughed a lot. And sometimes he could think of things to tell her. But mostly he had read old comic books that some of his uncles had