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As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams. He is a graduate of the R. His hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket tightened spasmodically. She had done everything to him except to criticise him — this she had not done — it seemed to him only because it might have sullied the utter indifference she manifested and sincerely felt toward him. Series Mosquito Advertising series 1 of 3. She took him in her roadster to a picnic supper, and after supper she disappeared, likewise in her roadster, with another man.
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Series Samurai kids series 7 of 6. Series Redwall series 22 books. Series Series of unfortunate events series 2 of Series Out of this world series 13 of Series Out of this world series 16 of Books by Title Books by Author. When he loses everything he loves in a tragic fire and the modern world finally catches up with him, Alfie embarks on a mission to change everything by finally trusting Aidan and Roxy enough to share his story, and enlisting their help to find a way to, eventually, make sure he will eventually die. Milla is covered with radioactive waste and her hazard suit is running out of air.
Otto is in the darkest depths of the ocean, where something hungry is circling. Ten dangerous situations, ten brave kids and thirty minutes to escape. During each full forty minute count down, the dangerous situations play out right down to the last crucial moment. Find out who will live and who will die. Can Jazz and Phoenix save their friend's father and themselves from some very dangerous people?
Vanishing, The Jazz always wanted to be a detective, and now she has no choice! Her best friend Anika has been kidnapped over a 20 year old mystery. Can the annoying school rebel help her link the clues, within the first 48 hours? Fifty minutes to escape. A Tale of Fontania series Any two titles read from this series can be included as official Challenge books; up to five more titles can be included as your personal choice books. Or, you can search for a series name or the individual titles by using the Search function on the top left hand corner of the screen.
But if no one can fix their starship, they won't be playing anytime soon. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The A classic story of slavery and a runaway boy's exploits. Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunken father until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. When Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escape down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. They face trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed bandits and the long arm of the law. Through it all, the friends stick together. Adventures of Scarygirl, The Abandoned on a remote peninsula, Scarygirl is rescued by Blister, a large friendly octopus.
Blister and Scarygirl become best friends. But no one knows where Scarygirl came from, or who she really is, and her dreams are full of strange and disturbing visions. One fateful night, they witness a murder and the boys swear never to reveal their secret. They run away to be pirates and search for hidden treasure. But, Tom gets trapped in a cave with the murderer. After-room, The Benjamin and Janie are trying to live a safe, normal life in America. But, they have the power to prevent nuclear disaster and sinister forces are circling. The advice of a mysterious, unscrupulous magician propels them into danger and towards the land of the dead.
When their friend, Jin Lo, washes up on a remote island and finds herself on the trail of a deadly threat in China, they must somehow reach her to help. But things have changed. Nomad's secret is out. Her peers know she is a Witness; a sorcerer with the rare ability to read others' magic. This causes ripples at HQ, especially when it means that Steel, the most popular cadet in her class, is no longer the centre of attention. But there are greater threats than new rivals. When the cadets are sent to New Zealand to investigate a top-secret case, they find themselves in more danger than they bargained for.
With no one to trust and time running out, it's a race to stop the Inductors before they have enough power to destroy HELIX for good. Eleventh hour, The Spies. Natalie Palladino was a normal fifteen-year-old, at a normal school, about to face a normal maths test. No one can know that sorcery exists. And no one can know that Nomad is a Witness, with a dangerous magical gift.
The Inductors are hunting her. If they find her, they will kill her. The problem is, Nomad hasn't mastered her powers. She can't levitate, fight or wield magic like her fellow recruits. If she's the only hope to stop a sorcerous bomb being detonated, the world is in trouble. The eleventh hour is coming. Airman Conor Broekhart was born to fly. In an age when many dreamed of flying, it became his destiny. When a cruel and cunning betrayal destroys his family, Conor must win the race for flight to save his family and right a terrible wrong.
Alchemyst, The Sophie and Josh Newman find their lives intertwined with Nicholas Flamel and the powerful book he protects, the Book of Abraham the Mage, that enables the holder to save or destroy the world. Alex Rider graphic novels series Any two titles read from this series can be included as official Challenge books; up to five more titles can be included as your personal choice books.
Alex Rider series Any two titles read from this series can be included as official Challenge books; up to five more titles can be included as your personal choice books. Alice's adventures in Wonderland On an ordinary summer's afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange, fantasy world, with even stranger characters, Alice finds herself growing more and more curious by the minute. Alien rescue Scott, Rudy and AJ think helping a bunch of trapped aliens is cool - until the aliens start fighting. Aliens, ghosts and vanishings: Did a UFO drag a family's car off the road in the middle of the outback?
How did rocks rain from the sky in WA? And what became of the prime minister who went into the surf and was never seen again? Explore the strangest tales, most incredible encounters and creepiest urban legends in Australia's history. Read about the investigations and weigh up the facts, do you believe the official explanations for these weird and wonderful events? All fall down Christobel, fourteen and heiress to a fortune, is bored and lonely until she decides to dress as a boy and rescue her servant's son who has been kidnapped.
It becomes a dangerous game set in the crime and disease-ridden slums of The Rocks. Allegiant The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered - fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she's known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories. His mates are going to be so jealous.
Going up is awesome, but when disaster strikes, Spencer will need to be nothing short of amazing. Amber amulet, The Twelve-year-old Liam McKenzie patrols his suburban neighbourhood as the Masked Avenger - a superhero with powers so potent not even he can fully comprehend their extent. Along with his sidekick, Richie the Powerbeagle, he protects the people of Franklin Street from chaos, mayhem, evil and low tyre pressure - but can he save them from sadness? Anaconda ambush Sam Fox is on a field trip with his uncle in the Amazon when he's swept over a waterfall into an underground lake and discovers a fortune in gold.
But, there's an enormous anaconda lurking in the cave and the snake is just the first obstacle Sam will have to overcome if he's to get out of the Amazon alive. Ancient starship, The When an ancient starship has been discovered in the Egyptian desert, Amelia's dad is whisked away to help. Meanwhile, the first human guests have arrived at the hotel and they're turning out to be the strangest visitors yet.
Are the spaceship and the odd guests connected? Amelia and Charlie may be the only ones who can solve this puzzle Angel creek There are only two things that Jelly likes about the new house on Rosemary Street, the old apricot tree and the creek over the back fence. One night, Jelly and her cousins spot something in the creek's dark waters. At first, they think it's a bird but it's a baby angel with a broken wing.
Jelly decides to keep it. But, she soon discovers that you can't just take something from where it belongs and expect that it won't be missed. Anila's journey Menace and mystery lie in wait for Anila Tandy who secures a job drawing birds for an English naturalist, travelling on a river boat up the Ganges River.
Anila will use this journey to search for her father, missing for years and presumed dead. Anila must test herself in the man's world of India, in the late s. Apothecary, The In , after her parents are identified as communists, Janie must move from Los Angeles to the safety of London. The war has ended but it's a tense time, and Janie is uncomfortable at her new school. She notices Benjamin, a curiously defiant boy, who dreams of becoming a spy. When his father, an apothecary, is kidnapped, Benjamin and Janie are embroiled in a plot involving real espionage and nuclear threats.
Apprentices, The It's two years since Janie Scott last saw Benjamin Burrows, the mysterious apothecary's defiant son who stole her heart. Benjamin has been experimenting with a new formula, allowing him to communicate with Janie across the globe. When a mystery threatens them all, Janie, Benjamin and their friend, Pip, are thrown into a desperate chase around the world to find one another, while trying to unravel the mystery. Ariki and the giant shark Ariki is not like the other children on Turtle Island.
She belongs heart and soul to the sea, where she plays all day with the dolphins and turtles. One day, a giant shark appears and the fishermen are too afraid to go out. Without fish the people will starve - and only Ariki can save the day! Art fraud detective The security guard at the Town Hall Gallery has a big problem.
Some of the priceless masterpieces have been stolen and replaced with cunning forgeries. The guard needs your sharp eyes and patience to identify the fake paintings. Ash princess Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was murdered before her eyes. On that day, the Kaiser took Theodosia's family, her land, and her name. Theo was crowned Ash Princess - a title of shame to bear in her new life as a prisoner. For ten years Theo has been a captive in her own palace. She's endured the relentless abuse and ridicule of the Kaiser and his court.
She is powerless, surviving in her new world only by burying the girl she was deep inside. Then, one night the Kaiser forces her to do the unthinkable. With blood on her hands and all hope of reclaiming her throne lost, she realizes that surviving is no longer enough. But she does have a weapon: And power isn't always won on the battlefield. Asterix series Any two titles read from this series can be included as official Challenge books; up to five more titles can be included as your personal choice books. Asterix versus Caesar When the chief's niece, Panacea, is captured by the Romans with her fiance, Tragicomix, the Gaulish warriors Asterix and Obelix join the Roman legion in order to find them.
Austere academy, The The Baudelaire orphans are sent to a terrible boarding school where they meet the Quagmire triplets and watch their backs for Count Olaf. Bad beginning, The After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits to outsmart a distant relative who is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune. A story of misery. Barney and the secret of the whales Barney Bean is keen to make his fortune and he hears a secret. He bowed formally, dusting his knees with a thatched straw hat.
Simultaneously he smiled, half shutting his faded blue eyes and displaying white and beautifully symmetrical teeth. For a moment she laughed uncontrollably. Jim Powell laughed, politely and appreciatively, with her. His body-servant, deep in the throes of colored adolescence, alone preserved a dignified gravity.
At this reference to the finer customs of his native soil the boy Hugo put his hands behind his back and looked darkly and superciliously down the lawn. The tourist waved his hand with a careless gesture as if to indicate the Adirondacks, the Thousand Islands, Newport — but he said:. But I been to Atlanta lots of times. Powell by a circular motion of his finger sped Hugo on the designated mission.
Then he seated himself gingerly in a rocking-chair and began revolving his thatched straw hat rapidly in his hands. I got some money because my aunt she was using it to keep her in a sanitarium and she died. And as Hugo retired he confided to Amanthis: When the sandwiches arrived Mr. He was unaccustomed to white servants and obviously expected an introduction. She shook her head. Powell noted with embarrassed enthusiasm the particular yellowness of her yellow hair.
Color — one hundred percent spontaneous — in the daytime anyhow. To be a New York society girl you have to have a long nose and projecting teeth and dress like the actresses did three years ago. Jim began to tap his foot rhythmically on the porch and in a moment Amanthis discovered that she was unconsciously doing the same thing.
This intense discussion was now interrupted by Hugo who appeared on the steps bearing a hammer and a handful of nails. We may be kin to each other, you see, and us Powells ought to stick together. They were now almost at the gate and the tourist pointed to the two depressing sectors of his automobile. Jim looked at her uncertainly. Such a pretty girl should certainly control the habit of shaking all over upon no provocation at all. Amanthis watched while they placed the upper half of the car upon the lower half and nailed it severely into place.
Powell took the wheel and his body-servant climbed in beside him. Convey my respects to your father. Then with a groan and a rattle Mr. Powell of southern Georgia with his own car and his own body-servant and his own ambitions and his own private cloud of dust continued on north for the summer. She thought she would never see him again. She lay in her hammock, slim and beautiful, opened her left eye slightly to see June come in and then closed it and retired contentedly back into her dreams. But one day when the midsummer vines had climbed the precarious sides of the red swing in the lawn, Mr.
Jim Powell of Tarleton, Georgia, came vibrating back into her life. They sat on the wide porch as before. But before we got there she made me stop and she got out. Mighty proud lot of people they got up in New York. I got an idea. Further than this he would say nothing. His manner conveyed that she was going to be suspended over a perfect pool of gaiety and violently immersed, to an accompaniment of: Shall I let in a little more excitement, mamm? Three days later a young man wearing a straw hat that might have been cut from the thatched roof of an English cottage rang the doorbell of the enormous and astounding Madison Harlan house at Southampton.
He asked the butler if there were any people in the house between the ages of sixteen and twenty. He was informed that Miss Genevieve Harlan and Mr. Ronald Harlan answered that description and thereupon he handed in a most peculiar card and requested in fetching Georgian that it be brought to their attention.
As a result he was closeted for almost an hour with Mr. It happened to be that of the Clifton Garneaus. Here, as if by magic, the same audience was granted him. He went on — it was a hot day, and men who could not afford to do so were carrying their coats on the public highway, but Jim, a native of southernmost Georgia, was as fresh and cool at the last house as at the first. He visited ten houses that day. Anyone following him in his course might have taken him to be some curiously gifted book-agent with a much sought-after volume as his stock in trade.
There was something in his unexpected demand for the adolescent members of the family which made hardened butlers lose their critical acumen. As he left each house a close observer might have seen that fascinated eyes followed him to the door and excited voices whispered something which hinted at a future meeting.
The second day he visited twelve houses. Southampton has grown enormously — he might have kept on his round for a week and never seen the same butler twice — but it was only the palatial, the amazing houses which intrigued him. On the third day he did a thing that many people have been told to do and few have done — he hired a hall. Perhaps the sixteen-to-twenty-year-old people in the enormous houses had told him to.
It was now abandoned — Mr. Snorkey had given up and gone away and died. We will now skip three weeks during which time we may assume that the project which had to do with hiring a hall and visiting the two dozen largest houses in Southampton got under way. The day to which we will skip was the July day on which Mr. James Powell sent a wire to Miss Amanthis Powell saying that if she still aspired to the gaiety of the highest society she should set out for Southampton by the earliest possible train. He himself would meet her at the station. Jim was no longer a man of leisure, so when she failed to arrive at the time her wire had promised he grew restless.
He supposed she was coming on a later train, turned to go back to his — his project — and met her entering the station from the street side. She was quite different from the indolent Amanthis of the porch hammock, he thought. Yes, she would do very well. He was one of my fares. He forgot her, I guess. And he was right worried. What does she do? In my course no lady would be taught to raise a guitar against anybody. My grandfather was a dice. I protect pocketbook as well as person. I teach lots of things. Why, there was one girl she came to me and said she wanted to learn to snap her fingers.
She said she never could snap her fingers since she was little. I gave her two lessons and now Wham! I got it fixed up that you come from very high-tone people down in New Jersey. They were now at the south end of the village and Amanthis saw a row of cars parked in front of a two-story building.
The cars were all low, long, rakish and of a brilliant hue. Then Amanthis was ascending a narrow stairs to the second story. Here, painted on a door from which came the sounds of music and laughter were the words:. Amanthis found herself in a long, bright room, populated with girls and men of about her own age. The scene presented itself to her at first as a sort of animated afternoon tea but after a moment she began to see, here and there, a motive and a pattern to the proceedings. The students were scattered into groups, sitting, kneeling, standing, but all rapaciously intent on the subjects which engrossed them.
From six young ladies gathered in a ring around some indistinguishable objects came a medley of cries and exclamations — plaintive, pleading, supplicating, exhorting, imploring and lamenting — their voices serving as tenor to an undertone of mysterious clatters. Next to this group, four young men were surrounding an adolescent black, who proved to be none other than Mr. The young men were roaring at Hugo apparently unrelated phrases, expressing a wide gamut of emotion. Now their voices rose to a sort of clamor, now they spoke softly and gently, with mellow implication. Every little while Hugo would answer them with words of approbation, correction or disapproval.
They walked around among the groups. So I can give you only such details as were later reported to me by one of his admiring pupils. During all the discussion of it afterwards no one ever denied that it was an enormous success, and no pupil ever regretted having received its degree — Bachelor of Jazz. The parents innocently assumed that it was a sort of musical and dancing academy, but its real curriculum was transmitted from Santa Barbara to Biddeford Pool by that underground associated press which links up the so-called younger generation.
Invitations to visit Southampton were at a premium — and Southampton generally is almost as dull for young people as Newport.
He was making money. His charges were not exorbitant — as a rule his pupils were not particularly flush — but he moved from his boarding-house to the Casino Hotel where he took a suite and had Hugo serve him his breakfast in bed. Within a week she was known to everyone in the school by her first name. Miss Genevieve Harlan took such a fancy to her that she was invited to a sub-deb dance at the Harlan house — and evidently acquitted herself with tact, for thereafter she was invited to almost every such entertainment in Southampton.
Jim saw less of her than he would have liked. Not that her manner toward him changed — she walked with him often in the mornings, she was always willing to listen to his plans — but after she was taken up by the fashionable her evenings seemed to be monopolized. Several times Jim arrived at her boarding-house to find her out of breath, as if she had just come in at a run, presumably from some festivity in which he had no share.
So as the summer waned he found that one thing was lacking to complete the triumph of his enterprise. Despite the hospitality shown to Amanthis, the doors of Southampton were closed to him. Polite to, or rather, fascinated by him as his pupils were from three to five, after that hour they moved in another world. His was the position of a golf professional who, though he may fraternize, and even command, on the links, loses his privileges with the sun-down. He may look in the club window but he cannot dance. And, likewise, it was not given to Jim to see his teachings put into effect.
He could hear the gossip of the morning after — that was all. Perhaps, he thought, there was some real gap which separated him from the rest. Van Vleck was twenty-one, a tutoring-school product who still hoped to enter Yale. Jim had passed these over. He knew that Van Vleck was attending the school chiefly to monopolize the time of little Martha Katzby, who was just sixteen and too young to have attention of a boy of twenty-one — especially the attention of Van Vleck, who was so spiritually exhausted by his educational failures that he drew on the rather exhaustible innocence of sixteen.
It was late in September, two days before the Harlan dance which was to be the last and biggest of the season for this younger crowd. Jim, as usual, was not invited. He had hoped that he would be. The two young Harlans, Ronald and Genevieve, had been his first patrons when he arrived at Southampton — and it was Genevieve who had taken such a fancy to Amanthis. To have been at their dance — the most magnificent dance of all — would have crowned and justified the success of the waning summer. Hugo, standing beside Jim, chuckled suddenly and remarked:.
Jim turned and stared at Van Vleck, who had linked arms with little Martha Katzby and was saying something to her in a low voice. Jim saw her try to draw away. There was an unaccustomed sharpness in his voice and the exercises began with a mutter of facetious protest.
With his smoldering grievance directing itself toward Van Vleck, Jim was walking here and there among the groups when Hugo tapped him suddenly on the arm. Two participants had withdrawn from the mouth organ institute — one of them was Van Vleck and he was giving a drink out of his flask to fifteen-year-old Ronald Harlan. The music died slowly away and there was a sudden drifting over in the direction of the trouble. An atmosphere of anticipation formed instantly. Despite the fact that they all liked Jim their sympathies were divided — Van Vleck was one of them.
Ask him if he wants you to tell him what he can do! Van Vleck did not move. Reaching out suddenly, Jim caught his wrist and jerking it behind his back forced his arm upward until Van Vleck bent forward in agony. Jim leaned and picked the flask from the floor with his free hand.
But no one felt exactly like going on. The spontaneity of the proceedings had been violently disturbed. Someone made a run or two on the sliding guitar and several of the girls began whamming at the leer on the punching bags, but Ronald Harlan, followed by two other boys, got their hats and went silently out the door. Jim and Hugo moved among the groups as usual until a certain measure of routine activity was restored but the enthusiasm was unrecapturable and Jim, shaken and discouraged, considered discontinuing school for the day.
But he dared not. If they went home in this mood they might not come back. The whole thing depended on a mood. He must recreate it, he thought frantically — now, at once! But try as he might, there was little response. He himself was not happy — he could communicate no gaiety to them.
They watched his efforts listlessly and, he thought, a little contemptuously. Then the tension snapped when the door burst suddenly open, precipitating a brace of middle-aged and excited women into the room. No person over twenty-one had ever entered the Academy before — but Van Vleck had gone direct to headquarters.
The women were Mrs. Clifton Garneau and Mrs. Poindexter Katzby, two of the most fashionable and, at present, two of the most flurried women in Southampton.
They were in search of their daughters as, in these days, so many women continually are. You ghastly, horrible, unspeakable man! I can smell morphin fumes! You have colored girls hidden! Jim was not a little touched when several of them — including even little Martha Katzby, before she was snatched fiercely away by her mother — came up and shook hands with him.
But they were all going, haughtily, regretfully or with shame-faced mutters of apology. And, after all, they were not sorry to go. Outside, the sound of their starting motors, the triumphant put-put of their cut-outs cutting the warm September air, was a jubilant sound — a sound of youth and hopes high as the sun.
Down to the ocean, to roll in the waves and forget — forget him and their discomfort at his humiliation. They were gone — he was alone with Hugo in the room. He sat down suddenly with his face in his hands. Autumn had come early. Jim Powell woke next morning to find his room cool, and the phenomenon of frosted breath in September absorbed him for a moment to the exclusion of the day before. Then the lines of his face drooped with unhappiness as he remembered the humiliation which had washed the cheery glitter from the summer. There was nothing left for him except to go back where he was known, where under no provocation were such things said to white people as had been said to him here.
After breakfast a measure of his customary light-heartedness returned. He was a child of the South — brooding was alien to his nature. He could conjure up an injury only a certain number of times before it faded into the great vacancy of the past. Usually a few words from Jim were enough to raise him to an inarticulate ecstasy, but this morning there were no words to utter.
For two months Hugo had lived on a pinnacle of which he had never dreamed. He had enjoyed his work simply and passionately, arriving before school hours and lingering long after Mr. The day dragged toward a not-too-promising night. Amanthis did not appear and Jim wondered forlornly if she had not changed her mind about dining with him that night. Perhaps it would be better if she were not seen with them.
Jim had lived in state, and he realized that financially he would have nothing to show for the summer after all. When he had finished he took his new dress-suit out of its box and inspected it, running his hand over the satin of the lapels and lining. This, at least, he owned and perhaps in Tarleton somebody would ask him to a party where he could wear it. Some of those boys round the garage down home could of beat it all hollow.
He surveyed his purchase with some pride. He knew that no girl at the Harlan dance would wear anything lovelier than these exotic blossoms that leaned languorously backward against green ferns. She came down wearing a rose-colored evening dress into which the orchids melted like colors into a sunset. At their table, looking out over the dark ocean, his mood became a contended sadness. They did not dance, and he was glad — it would have reminded him of that other brighter and more radiant dance to which they could not go.
After dinner they took a taxi and followed the sandy roads for an hour, glimpsing the now starry ocean through the casual trees. She gave the chauffeur a direction and a few minutes later they stopped in front of the heavy Georgian beauty of the Madison Harlan house whence the windows cast their gaiety in bright patches on the lawn. There was laughter inside and the plaintive wind of fashionable horns, and now and again the slow, mysterious shuffle of dancing feet.
They walked toward the house, keeping in the shadow of the great trees. They moved closer till they could see first pompadours, then slicked male heads, and high coiffures and finally even bobbed hair pressed under black ties. They could distinguish chatter below the ceaseless laughter.
Two figures appeared on the porch, gulped something quickly from flasks and returned inside. But the music had bewitched Jim Powell. His eyes were fixed and he moved his feet like a blind man. Pressed in close behind some dark bushes they listened. A breeze from the ocean blew over them and Jim shivered slightly. Then, in a wistful whisper:.
He held out his arm to her but instead of taking it she stepped suddenly out of the bushes and into a bright patch of light. She seized his arm and though he drew back in a sort of stupefied horror at her boldness she urged him persistently toward the great front door. The great doors swung open and a gentleman stepped out on the porch. In horror Jim recognized Mr. He made a movement as though to break away and run. But the man walked down the steps holding out both hands to Amanthis. New Jersey was warm, all except the part that was under water, and that mattered only to the fishes.
All the tourists who rode through the long green miles stopped their cars in front of a spreading old-fashioned country house and looked at the red swing on the lawn and the wide, shady porch, and sighed and drove on — swerving a little to avoid a jet-black body-servant in the road.
A girl with yellow hair and a warm color to her face was lying in the hammock looking as though she could fall asleep any moment. Near her sat a gentleman in an extraordinarily tight suit. They had come down together the day before from the fashionable resort at Southampton. Harlan had tried to present him with a check.
They reached the automobile just as Hugo drove in his last nail. Jim opened a pocket of the door and took from it an unlabeled bottle containing a whitish-yellow liquid. He looked for a moment at her yellow hair and her blue eyes misty with sleep and tears. Then he got into his car and as his foot found the clutch his whole manner underwent a change.
The gesture of his straw hat indicated Palm Beach, St. His body-servant spun the crank, gained his seat and became part of the intense vibration into which the automobile was thrown. It was almost a lullaby, as he said it. Then they were gone down the road in quite a preposterous cloud of dust. Just before they reached the first bend Amanthis saw them come to a full stop, dismount and shove the top part of the car on to the bottom pan.
They took their seats again without looking around. Then the bend — and they were out of sight, leaving only a faint brown mist to show that they had passed. The sidewalks were scratched with brittle leaves, and the bad little boy next door froze his tongue to the iron mail-box. Snow before night, sure. Then he let himself hurriedly into the house, and shut the subject out into the cold twilight. Roger turned on the hall-light and walked into the living-room and turned on the red silk lamp. He put his bulging portfolio on the table, and sitting down rested his intense young face in his hand for a few minutes, shading his eyes carefully from the light.
Then he lit a cigarette, squashed it out, and going to the foot of the stairs called for his wife. He had trouble every day at this hour in adapting his voice from the urgent key of the city to the proper casualness for a model home. But tonight he was deliberately impatient. They kissed — lingered over it some moments. They had been married three years, and they were much more in love than that implies.
It was seldom that they hated each other with that violent hate of which only young couples are capable, for Roger was still actively sensitive to her beauty. His wife, a bright-coloured, Titian-haired girl, vivid as a French rag doll, followed him into the living room. Her hand, palm upward, was extended towards him.
In his impatience it seemed incredible that she should ask for matches, but he fumbled automatically in his pocket. After all, she had done no more than light a cigarette; but when he was in this mood her slightest positive action irritated him beyond measure. She was a Southern girl, and any question that had to do with getting ahead in the world always tended to give her a headache. He smiled airily as if it were a new game they were going to play.
Then, as Gretchen was silent, his smile faded, and he looked at her uncertainly. You do enough work as it is. Somewhat to his annoyance the conversation abruptly ended. Gretchen jumped up and kissed him sketchily and rushed into the kitchen to light the hot water for a bath.
With a sigh he carefully deposited his portfolio behind the bookcase — it contained only sketches and layouts for display advertising, but it seemed to him the first thing a burglar would look for. They had no automobile, so George Tompkins called for them at 6. Tompkins was a successful interior decorator, a broad, rosy man with a handsome moustache and a strong odour of jasmine. He and Roger had once roomed side by side in a boarding-house in New York, but they had met only intermittently in the past five years. Roger stared moodily around the stiff, plain room, wondering if they could have blundered into the kitchen by mistake.
I think the movies are atrocious. My opinions on life are drawn from my own observations. I believe in a balanced life. Would that seem horribly egotistic? Do you take a daily cold bath? A horrified silence fell. Tompkins and Gretchen exchanged a glance as if something obscene had been said. Then a good snappy game of bridge until dinner. Dinner is liable to have something to do with business, but in a pleasant way. Or maybe I sit down with a good book of poetry and spend the evening alone. At any rate, I do something every night to get me out of myself.
Let me tell you, every private hospital in New York is full of cases like yours. You just strain the human nervous system a little too far, and bang! The saddest thing about women is that, after all, their best trick is to sit down and fold their hands. When Tompkins dropped them in front of their house at eleven Roger and Gretchen stood for a moment on the sidewalk looking at the winter moon. There was a fine, damp, dusty snow in the air, and Roger drew a long breath of it and put his arm around Gretchen exultantly.
If I could only sleep for forty days. Then he turned around defiantly. From eight until 5. Then a half-hour on the commuting train, where he scrawled notes on the backs of envelopes under the dull yellow light. At twelve there was always an argument as to whether he would come to bed. He would agree to come after he had cleared up everything; but as he was invariably sidetracked by half a dozen new ideas, he usually found Gretchen sound asleep when he tiptoed upstairs.
Christmas came and went and he scarcely noticed that it was gone. But the world outside his business became a chaotic dream. He was aware that on two cool December Sundays George Tompkins had taken Gretchen horseback riding, and that another time she had gone out with him in his automobile to spend the afternoon skiing on the country-club hill.
A picture of Tompkins, in an expensive frame, had appeared one morning on their bedroom wall. And one night he was shocked into a startled protest when Gretchen went to the theatre with Tompkins in town. But his work was almost done. Daily now his layouts arrived from the printers until seven of them were piled and docketed in his office safe. He knew how good they were. December tumbled like a dead leaf from the calendar. There was an agonizing week when he had to give up coffee because it made his heart pound so.
On Thursday afternoon H. Garrod was to arrive in New York. On Wednesday evening Roger came home at seven to find Gretchen poring over the December bills with a strange expression in her eyes. I love you, Gretchen. Say you love me — quick! The quarrel was averted, but there was an unnatural tenseness all through dinner. It came to a climax afterwards when he began to spread his working materials on the table.
It occurred to him to send them both to the movies, but somehow the suggestion stuck on his lips. He did not want her at the movies; he wanted her here, where he could look up and know she was by his side. We can stand so much, and then — bang! When Roger had spread out his materials on the bed upstairs he found that he could still hear the rumble and murmur of their voices through the thin floor. He began wondering what they found to talk about.
As he plunged deeper into his work his mind had a tendency to revert sharply to his question, and several times he arose and paced nervously up and down the room. The bed was ill adapted to his work. Several times the paper slipped from the board on which it rested, and the pencil punched through. Everything was wrong tonight. Letters and figures blurred before his eyes, and as an accompaniment to the beating of his temples came those persistent murmuring voices. At ten he realized that he had done nothing for more than an hour, and with a sudden exclamation he gathered together his papers, replaced them in his portfolio, and went downstairs.
They were sitting together on the sofa when he came in. She got up from the sofa, and very deliberately looked at her flushed, tear-stained face in the mirror. Then she ran upstairs and slammed herself into the bedroom. Automatically Roger spread out his work on the living-room table. The bright colours of the designs, the vivid ladies — Gretchen had posed for one of them — holding orange ginger ale or glistening silk hosiery, dazzled his mind into a sort of coma. His restless crayon moved here and there over the pictures, shifting a block of letters half an inch to the right, trying a dozen blues for a cool blue, and eliminating the word that made a phrase anaemic and pale.
Half an hour passed — he was deep in the work now; there was no sound in the room but the velvety scratch of the crayon over the glossy board. After a long while he looked at his watch — it was after three. The wind had come up outside and was rushing by the house corners in loud, alarming swoops, like a heavy body falling through space.
He stopped his work and listened. He put his hands to his head and felt it all over. It seemed to him that on his temple the veins were knotty and brittle around an old scar. Suddenly he began to be afraid. A hundred warnings he had heard swept into his mind. People did wreck themselves with overwork, and his body and brain were of the same vulnerable and perishable stuff. He arose and began pacing the room in a panic. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, and returned to the table to put up his work, but his fingers were shaking so that he could scarcely grasp the board.
The sway of a bare branch against the window made him start and cry out. He sat down on the sofa and tried to think. Why, there was the wolf at the door now! He could hear its sharp claws scrape along the varnished woodwork. He jumped up, and running to the front door flung it open; then started back with a ghastly cry.
An enormous wolf was standing on the porch, glaring at him with red, malignant eyes. As he watched it the hair bristled on its neck; it gave a low growl and disappeared in the darkness. Then Roger realized with a silent, mirthless laugh that it was the police dog from over the way. Dragging his limbs wearily into the kitchen, he brought the alarm-clock into the living-room and set it for seven. Then he wrapped himself in his overcoat, lay down on the sofa and fell immediately into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
When he awoke the light was still shining feebly, but the room was the grey colour of a winter morning. He got up, and looking anxiously at his hands found to his relief that they no longer trembled. He felt much better. Then he began to remember in detail the events of the night before, and his brow drew up again in three shallow wrinkles.
There was work ahead of him, twenty-four hours of work; and Gretchen, whether she wanted to or not, must sleep for one more day. The general housework girl had just arrived and was taking off her hat. For he set it down on the dining room table and put into the coffee half a teaspoonful of a white substance that was not powdered sugar. Then he mounted the stairs and opened the door of the bedroom.
Gretchen woke up with a start, glanced at the twin bed which had not been slept in, and bent on Roger a glance of astonishment, which changed to contempt when she saw the breakfast in his hand. She thought he was bringing it as a capitulation. Roger discreetly deposited the tray on a table beside the bed and returned quickly to the kitchen. So you just put on your hat and go home. He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to eight, and he wanted to catch the 8. She was sound asleep. Comedy Central globe logo with buildings. George Clooney's long hair. The black Power Ranger was black and the yellow Power Ranger was yellow.
The orange Nickelodeon couch. Otto, Reggie, Twister, and The Squid.
Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers. Winona Ryder dating Johnny Depp. Pee-Wee Herman caught masturbating. The Gushers commercial where kids' heads would turn into fruit. Kathie Lee Gifford and child labor. Johnny Carson leaves the "Tonight Show". Miss Cleo and her Psychic Readers' Network. Jerry Seinfeld American Express Commercials. Woody Allen marrying his stepdaughter. Girl of the 21st Century". The Secret of the Ooze". Disney Channel Original Movies. The "secret stuff" from "Space Jam". Fievel and the "An American Tail" sequels.
The Olsen Twins' basset hound. The Smell of Fear". The kid from "Jerry Maguire". Hugh Grant with a prostitute. Requesting songs on the radio. Sheryl Crow's album banned by Wal-Mart. Recording the radio on a tape recorder. Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Sports Illustrated for Kids magazine covers. Duke Blue Devils basketball. Florida State Seminoles football.
Tony Hawk lands the "". Women's Softball debuts at Olympics. Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. David Wells' perfect game.