The Days of Summer. Jill Barnett

sneak a peek, his grandfather blocked the doorway. “What if I told you that I like Jud because he’s the oldest?”

      Cale stood stick-straight, arms at his sides, like soldiers in tall red hats who guarded queens and refused to show people what they were feeling.

      “Answer me,” his grandfather said. “What would you say to that?”

      “I would say that you’re a stupid old man.”

      His grandfather’s expression didn’t change. “Perhaps I am,” he said finally, and closed the door in Cale’s face.

      Cale lay in bed, listening for silence in the hallway. A tree outside the window moved in the wind as he lay there, his heart beating in his ears, his breath sounding loud and hollow beneath the covers. His brother was all the way down the hall in the house of a man who said they were supposed to call him Victor. Not Grandfather or Grandpa. Victor.

      When only silence came from the hallway, Cale bolted from the bed and went straight to the closet. He carried an armload of clothes back to the bed, pulled up the covers, then socked them a few times so the lump looked like him sleeping.

      His grandfather’s bedroom was at the end of a long, dark hallway on the second floor. The double doors were slightly open and a shaft of bright light cut across the wood floor. Cale followed the sound of Victor’s voice coming from inside. His grandfather was yelling on the phone.

      “What the hell do you mean you can’t get the paintings? What auction house? Where?”

      Cale stopped two feet from the door.

      “Tell them they aren’t authorized to sell. Those paintings belong to the family. Screw the contract! You’re my attorney. Stop that sale. Hell, if you have to, buy them all. I don’t care how much it costs. I want every last painting.” His grandfather slammed down the phone, swearing.

      Cale waited until he saw Victor walk into his bathroom, then moved quickly toward Jud’s room and slipped inside.

      Jud sat up on his elbows. “What do you want?”

      “Can I sleep here?”

      “Have you been crying?”

      “No. I wasn’t crying,” Cale lied.

      Jud lifted the blankets. “Come on.”

      Cale ran over, jumped in the air, and rolled into the middle of the bed.

      “Move over, you hog,” Jud said, shoving him.

      “I’m not a hog.” Cale stared up at a black ceiling, worried that tomorrow would be as bad as today and yesterday. He pulled the covers up.

      A second later the light came on, bright and blinding, and Victor stood in the doorway. “What are you doing in here?”

      Cale felt instantly sick.

      “Never mind,” he said in the same angry voice he’d used on the phone. He crossed the room and pulled off the covers.

      Jud looked too scared to say a word.

      “In this house, we sleep in our own rooms.” Victor pulled Cale up, put his hands on his shoulders, and marched him to his own room, where he flipped on the light and paused before he pointed at the lump on the bed. “You know what that tells me?”

      I’m in trouble. But all Cale said was, “No,” in a sulky voice.

      Victor threw back the blankets. “It tells me that you knew damned well you were supposed to stay in your own bed.”

      Cale didn’t admit anything.

      “You are eight and I’m a lot older. There isn’t a trick you can pull I won’t see through.” He threw the clothes into a corner. “Now get into bed.”

      Cale crawled in and lay board-stiff, his eyes on the ceiling.

      “Do you want the light on?”

      “No,” Cale said disgustedly and jerked the covers up over his head as the light went off. He could see through the white sheet.

      His grandfather filled the doorway, backlit from the hall light. “Banning men don’t need anyone, Cale. We stand on our own.” He closed the door and the room went black.

      * * *

      Jud awoke to a sound like someone beating trash cans with a baseball bat. By the time he reached the window, the neighbor’s dogs were barking. It was after midnight, and misty fog hovered in the air. Cale lay sprawled in front of the wooden garage doors, two metal trash cans lids next to him, one of them spinning like a top, the barrels rolling down the concrete driveway toward the street. His little brother had tried to look in the high glass panes of the garage doors. Jud opened the window and called in a loud whisper, “Are you nuts? Get back inside. Hurry up!”

      Cale sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “I want to see the red car.”

      “Moron! It’s the middle of the night.”

      “I know, but he won’t let me see it. He won’t let me talk to you or sleep with you. Besides, he’s asleep.”

      “I was asleep, but someone woke me up making more noise than a train wreck.” Their grandfather stepped out of the shadows and walked toward Cale. There was a threat in the way he moved.

      Jud leaned out the window. “Don’t you hurt him!”

      His grandfather looked up, frowning. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

      “How do we know that?” Jud yelled. “We don’t even know you!” He raced down the stairs. By then the chauffeur was outside his room over the garage, dressed in pajamas and carrying a shotgun, and Cale glared up at Victor with a stubborn look on his face … one that was exactly like their grandfather’s.

      “Don’t hit him,” Jud said.

      “I’m not going to hit him,” his grandfather said in an exasperated tone. He looked down at Cale. “Do you think I’m going to hit you?”

      “I don’t care if you do.”

      “This is all your fault,” Jud said. “You should have shown him the car, too.”

      The chauffeur came down another step. “Mr. Banning?”

      “I’ve got it, Harlan.” His grandfather sounded tired. “Go back to bed.”

      The chauffeur turned back up the stairs.

      “Harlan, wait! You—” Victor pointed a finger in Cale’s belligerent face. “Apologize for waking him up.”

      For a moment Jud thought Cale was going to say no. The silence seemed to stretch out forever, then Cale faced the chauffeur and didn’t look the least bit apologetic when he said, “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

      “It’s all right, son.” Harlan went back upstairs, leaving the three of them standing silently.

      “So, Jud. You think I should show Cale the car?”

      “Yes.”

      “Okay.” Victor took a key from the pocket of his robe, unlocked the door, and held it open. “Go inside, both of you, and look all you want.”

      In a flash of brown Hopalong Cassidy pajamas, Cale slipped under Victor’s arm and Jud followed. The MG was low and lean, its chrome sparkling. The tan top was folded down and the glass in the headlamps picked up the reflection of too-bright overhead lights. You didn’t see that kind of car anymore, except in old movies. It was square, with running boards, tan leather seats, and a red paint job that made it look like a miniature fire engine.

      “Wow!” Cale walked around the MG, then put his hands on his knees and made a face in the side mirror, then more faces in the polished chrome grille. He was just a little kid with his pajamas buttoned wrong and leaves from the driveway sticking to his back and spiky hair, which looked as if it were angry.

      Their