Read The Summer I Learned to Fly for Free Online

cigarette .
    He sat down next to me. He smelled both sweet and sharp, like something I knew but couldn’t quite place.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”
    “No.” I took Hum off my shoulder and held him in my lap. “It’s just … she’s supposed to be here. Working late.”
    “Well, adults can’t always be counted on to do what they say they’re going to do.” He picked at the hole in the knee of his jeans. “At least not in my experience.”
    Already I was having a longer conversation with this boy than I’d had with any boy my age since the days of Aaron Finklestein. I was guessing he was my age, or maybe a little bit older.
    “How’d you get that cut on your cheek?” I asked. “It wasn’t …” I looked down at Hum in my lap.
    “No, no, of course not.” He reached up to his face. “This is nothing. Just me being clumsy. Your rat”—he reached over and tickled Hum under his chin—“is a gentle soul.”
    I couldn’t stop stroking Hum’s head. Only an hour or so had passed between when I noticed him gone and finding him in this alley, but that was enough to make me particularly appreciate the feel of his fur between my fingers.
    Emmett held out another orange scrap and Hum took it greedily.
    “Tell me that’s not cheese,” I said.
    “I could tell you that, but then I’d be lying.”
    “Please don’t feed him cheese. I know everyone thinks that’s what rats eat, but cheese is bad for rats.”
    “It’s not bad for your rat.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “Well, cheese is bad for some rats, just like cheese is bad for some people. But he tolerates it fine. See?” He fed him another piece. This time I noticed a green fleck in the orange, which I recognized as coming from the wedge of Cotswold I’d left in the alley at closing.
    “Just because he’s eating it doesn’t mean it’s good for him,” I said.
    “Yes it does. Rats are careful about what they eat. I know they get a bad rap for eating everything, you know, like Templeton in Charlotte’s Web ?”
    Of course I knew; it was my favorite book. And I’d seen the movie more times than I could count.
    “But actually,” he continued, “they won’t eat anything that makes them sick. They’ll try a bite, give it time, and if they feel fine they’ll eat more. I gave Hum his first bit of cheese an hour ago.” He handed him another piece. “And he keeps coming back for more.”
    “How do you know all this?” I asked.
    “Just because I don’t know anything about cars doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about rats.”
    We sat in silence for a while, something I wasn’t able to do with my friends who were girls. I had no idea if he knew what he was talking about, but I knew I liked hearing him talk.
    It was getting dark. I needed to get home so I could beat Mom back. She’d return to collect her car, and she hadn’tdone that yet, so I had at least a little bit of time left. I didn’t feel much like leaving, but I stood up and started to lure Hum back into his cage.
    “So, what are you doing hanging around back here, anyway?” It should have been the first thing I asked him.
    He looked at me like I’d said “What color is the sky?” or “What is two plus two?”
    “The food,” he said. “It’s delicious.”
    He walked me to my bike in front of the shop and watched as I put on my reflector vest.
    “You can never be too careful.” He smiled at me. “It’s a dangerous world out there.”
    “See you around,” I said as I rode away.
    “Yeah, see you around, Robin,” he called.

the tin man
    “His body was all done living.”
    That’s what Mom used to say. It must have been something she read in a book. Or something a psychologist told her to tell a young child who sought some explanation for the sudden disappearance of her father. When I pushed Mom for more information about what part of his body was all done living , she told me it was his heart. It just stopped