Shiloh Season Read Free Page A

Howard, but I'll be home tomorrow, okay?" As though he understands a single word. I'm thinking that maybe he understands something's going to be different, even though he don't know what.
    The bus comes then around the bend, and Shiloh barks and backs away. He don't much care for the big yellow monster that gobbles us up weekday mornings, and spits us out again each afternoon.
    After I get on and the bus turns around, I always go to the back window and look out. See Shiloh trotting up the driveway, tail between his legs. He stops every so often and looks back, then goes a few steps more.
    And I'm thinking that much as I like David Howard, much as I like going to his house, I sure don't like the thought of me being gone a whole night, Shiloh at home without me, and Judd Travers maybe out there in the dark.
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    Three
    Kids are always wild at school on Fridays. Restless to get the weekend started-go poking along the bank of
    Middle Island Creek, maybe-borrow someone's rowboat and row out to an island, if the water's deep enough. Could wade across, if it isn't.
    Funny, but as long as I can remember, Ma's called it "the river." Dad told us, soon as she laid eyes on it after he married her and brought her here, she says, "That's no creek to me; it's wide as a river." So we kids forget sometimes and call it "the river," too.
    On the bus going home, Michael Sholt's got another story about Judd Travers getting in a fight down in Bens Run a couple nights back, but I don't hear the end of it, 'cause I get off with David Howard, and Dara Lynn rides the rest of the way without me.
    I always feel a little strange at David Howard's. It's a big house, for one thing-all kinds of rooms in it. A whole
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    room just for David. Another room for his father's books and computer. Even a room for plants! I told Ma about that once and she said if it was her house, she'd put some of those plants outside where they belong and make more room for people.
    Meals are fancier at David Howard's, too. The food doesn't taste any better than it does at home, but Mrs. Howard has placemats under all the plates and cloth napkins rolled up in plastic rings. The way I eat at David Howard's, I watch what everybody else does before I start in.
    His folks are nice, though. His dad works for the Tyler Star-News, and talks to me a lot about basketball, even though I like baseball better. He always forgets. Asks me about the New York Knicks when it's the White Sox I got my eye on.
    Mrs. Howard's a teacher, and she can't help herself: she sees something wrong, she corrects it.
    "Shiloh don't like to see me climb on the bus each morning," I say at dinner, about the time she's passing out the dessert.
    "He doesn't, Marty?" she says. "He doesn't like to see you climb on the bus?"
    "No, he don't," I answer, my eyes on the chocolate pie, and then David giggles and I know I goofed again.
    After dinner, David and me go outside and play kick-the-can with some other kids till after dark, and when we come in, Mr. Howard teaches me some moves on a chessboard. After that we eat some more and watch a video, Homeward Bound. Then we take turns in the shower and have to mop up the floor.
    That night I'm lying on the top bunk in David's room and I can't believe I'm homesick. Thinking about my
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    family, what they had for supper, whether or not the telephone rang, and who answered. What crazy thing Grandma Preston done this time, and whether Shiloh's watching the door, waiting for me to come home.
    I'm thinking Ma will give him extra love tonight. She don't know this, but once-when Shiloh was healing his hurt leg-I woke real early in the morning from where I sleep on our couch, and across the room I saw my ma in the rocking chair. She had Shiloh on her lap, and was rocking and singing to that dog like he was a baby. I figure Ma's just getting herself ready for the day Becky, Dara Lynn, and me are grown and gone.
    Haven't heard a peep from David Howard for a while down on that bottom bunk,