Read The Moon by Night for Free Online

the fire, and afterwards Mother and I washed the dishes while Suzy and Rob got ready for bed. Then John and I took our turn. When we walked through the campgrounds to the lavatories there were lights in almost all the trailer windows, and they looked warm and cozy. I hadn’t realized that people in trailers would have lights, while people in tents wouldn’t. This camp had mostly trailers, and there weren’t many children.
    After I’d brushed my teeth I tried to look at myself in the mirror by flashlight, to see if I’d changed any in the exciting past couple of days. I wasn’t exactly looking for grey hairs, but I thought that I might look a little older, more sophisticated, if not a raving beauty. But the flashlight made me look sort of weird,
and the mirror in the camp bathroom was one of those wavy ones that distort you, anyhow, so I stuck the end of the flashlight in my mouth, puffed out my cheeks, looked at my ghoulish reflection, and decided to scare Suzy and Rob when we got to bed.
    Just as I got back to the tent it started to rain again. “Perfect timing if ever I saw it,” Mother said.
    Suzy and I climbed into our sleeping bags on the tail gate of the station wagon, with our heads towards the tent. Rob and John got into their bags, and Mother and Daddy into theirs, which was two sleeping bags zippered together to make one big one. It took less room in the tent, which was important, and also gave Mother and Daddy more room to stretch than would an ordinary sleeping bag.
    Mother adjusted the lantern, pulled a book out of her wooden box, and said, “What with John’s and Vicky’s homework it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do any family reading at bedtime, and this will probably be our last chance in a while. Would you like something?”
    John grinned. “You and Rob would be shattered if we didn’t. Sure, Mother. What’ve you got?”
    â€œI thought A Connecticut Yankee might be fun for a start,” Mother said, and we all settled down to the first chapter.
    It made me feel younger. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to feel younger or older. All I knew was that at almost fifteen it’s very difficult to be satisfied with the age you are, because you aren’t really any age. I mean, you get fascinated with boys, but it isn’t really time yet. It’s too early to think about marrying and babies and stuff like that, though lots of the kids at Regional who weren’t going on to college were thinking about it, and there
were even a couple of marriages in John’s grade. But I wasn’t ready, that’s for sure, and I guess I’m not very good with boys, yet. Suzy can giggle and look cute and when she gets into high school she’ll have dozens of boys asking her for each dance. This past year I’d always ended up with an invitation, but people weren’t exactly falling over themselves trying to date me. Suzy says it’s because I’m too serious about things, and she’s probably right. I laugh a lot, because we always seem to in our family, but I don’t think my sense of humor is my strong point.
    After Mother had finished reading she said, and I thought there was a double kind of questioning in her voice, “How about prayers?”
    When we were little we always used to love bedtime, when Mother would read to us, and then we’d all say prayers together. But when John got into high school and had more and more homework piled up on him, he dropped out. This year I went over to the regional high school, too, and started staying up later to study, so I didn’t go up with the others, either. Suzy and Maggy didn’t have to turn their lights out till an hour after Rob, but they kept on with the reading and everything. And it wasn’t just that. Our grandfather is a minister and I love him more than anyone in the world except Mother and Daddy and Uncle Douglas, but all of a