Fabulous Creature

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Book: Read Fabulous Creature for Free Online
Authors: Zilpha Keatley Snyder
restrooms; where it occurred to him to wonder if his use of the men’s room would be officially entered in the major’s Facilities Use Records.
    On the courts, the only other person waiting for a partner was a ten-year-old boy, which wasn’t too unfortunate, since James was so rusty. He even managed to win the second game. Then the little kid and a couple of other players went home to lunch. The one remaining player on the courts strolled towards James, bouncing a ball on his racket. He was tall, good-looking, blond and probably a year or two older than James—and suddenly James knew where he’d seen him before. He hadn’t really observed him too carefully at the time—his mind, and eyes, having been on other things—but he was fairly sure that the guy was one of the jogging Jarretts. The one who was probably Diane’s brother.
    “Hi. Want to play a game?” The invitation was given in a tone of voice that indicated complete indifference, one way or the other.
    “Sure,” James said. “I’m pretty rusty though. You’ll probably annihilate me.”
    The blond kid shrugged and headed for the far court. “My name is Mike,” he said over his shoulder. “Mike Jarrett.”
    “I’m James Fielding.”
    Nothing more was said for some time except for game calls and a few four letter comments on faults and misses. Mike was, as James had expected, much the better player; but after the first few games James was able to give him enough competition to make things interesting. Like his sister, Mike had a sleekly sturdy build and moved with smooth control, but he played a lazy and not particularly aggressive game, as if he didn’t really care about the outcome. Even when he faulted, you got the feeling that his muttered expletives were more for form’s sake than for any real anger at himself for messing up. After the third set he said he’d better be getting home.
    “Me too,” James said, gathering up his equipment. As they left the court together and strolled across the bivouac area, he asked, “Do you spend much time here, at The Camp?”
    “Yeah, quite a bit. Most of the summer and during vacations in the skiing season. And last year my dad took us out of school for a week during the hunting season, and we came up here.”
    “Does your dad commute to work or does he have the summer off?”
    “Well, you might say he commutes. His offices are in Sacramento, and during the summer he’s usually only here on weekends. He and my uncle have a plane and they fly up on Fridays and spend the weekend. Sometimes the rest of the family flies back with him, but usually we stay at The Camp during the summer. How about you? You visiting someone here? I mean, you’re not a regular resident are you?”
    James explained about the Willowby pass. Then he started describing his visit to T.J.’s office, being amusingly satirical about Lieutenant Carnaby’s shorts and about how T.J. probably waited until no one was around and then put a couple of the fighting fish in together and thought brave macho thoughts about moments-of-truth and death-in-the-afternoon, while they chewed the fins off each other. Some of it Mike didn’t seem to get, but he did grin a few times. When they got to the beginning of Gettysburg Road, James turned up it, too. When Mike looked at him inquiringly, he explained about the footpath from the end of Gettysburg to Anzio, and how it was one of the routes he sometimes took on his way home. At the driveway to number seventeen, when Mike started saying good-by, James said, “Do you suppose I could get a glass of water? I’m dying of thirst.”
    “Sure,” Mike said. “Come on up to the house.” As they turned up the long drive, James felt his heart shift into high gear, which, of course, was not a good sign. It probably meant that his brain was, as usual, getting ready to go into atrophy. It was really discouraging, since he’d almost been able to convince himself that it wouldn’t happen again. Not with

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