"Will!" said Jim.
Too late.
For Will had jumped high and was scrambling through the window.
"Here," he said, simply, as he touched the floor.
Chapter 27
THEY WALKED home quietly on the moon-colored sidewalks, Mr. Halloway between the boys. When they reached home, Will's father sighed.
"Jim, I don't see any reason to tear your mother to bits at this hour. If you promise to tell her this whole thing at breakfast, I'll let you off. Can you get in without waking her up?"
"Sure. Look what we got."
"We?"
Jim nodded and took them over to fumble among the clusters of thick moss and leaves on the side of the house until they found the iron rungs they had secretly nailed and placed to make a hidden ladder up to Jim's room. Mr. Halloway laughed, once, almost with pain, and a strange wild sadness shook his head.
"How long has this gone on? No, don't tell. I did it, too, your age." He looked up the ivy toward Jim's window. "Fun being out late, free as all hell." He caught himself. "You don't stay out too long--?"
"This week was the very first time after midnight."
Dad pondered a moment. "Having permission would spoil everything, I suppose? It's sneaking out to the lake, the graveyard, the rail tracks, the peach orchards summer nights that counts.... "
"Gosh, Mr. Halloway, did you once--"
"Yes. But don't let the women know I told you. Up." He motioned. "And don't come out again any night for the next month."
"Yes, sir!"
Jim swung monkeywise to the stars, flashed through his window, shut it, drew the shade.
Dad looked up at the hidden rungs coming down out of the starlight to the running-free world of sidewalks that invited the one-thousand-yard dash, and the high hurdles of the dark bushes, and the pole-vault cemetery trellises and walls....
"You know what I hate most of all, Will? Not being able to run any more, like you."
"Yes, sir," said his son.
"Let's have it clear now," said Dad. "Tomorrow, go apologize to Miss Foley again. Check her lawn. We may have missed some of the--stolen property--with matches and flashlights. Then go to the Police Chief to report. You're lucky you turned yourself in. You're lucky Miss Foley won't press charges."
"Yes, sir."
They walked back to the side of their own house. Dad raked his hand in the ivy.
"Our place, too?"
His hand found a rung Will had nailed away among the leaves.
"Our place, too."
He took out his tobacco pouch, filled his pipe as they stood by the ivy, the hidden rungs leading up to warm beds, safe rooms, then lit his pipe and said, "I know you. You're not acting guilty. You didn't steal anything."
"No."
"Then why did you say you did, to the police?"
"Because Miss Foley--who knows why?--wants us guilty. If she says we are, we are. You saw how surprised she was to see us come in through the window? She never figured we'd confess. Well, we did. We got enough enemies without the law on us, too. I figured if we made a clean breast, they'd go easy. They did. At the same time, boy, Miss Foley's won, too, because now we're criminals. Nobody'll believe what we say."