Properties
- end_line
- 4107
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:13.526Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4053
- text
- 3880 you'd be home Wednesday," she said. "She said Wednesday."
3881 "I got out early. Not so loud. You'll wake everybody up."
3882 "What time is it? They won't be home till very late, Mother said. They went to a
3883 party in Norwalk, Connecticut," old Phoebe said. "Guess what I did this afternoon! What
3884 movie I saw. Guess!"
3885 "I don't know--Listen. Didn't they say what time they'd--"
3886 "The Doctor," old Phoebe said. "It's a special movie they had at the Lister
3887 Foundation. Just this one day they had it--today was the only day. It was all about this
3888 doctor in Kentucky and everything that sticks a blanket over this child's face that's a
3889 cripple and can't walk. Then they send him to jail and everything. It was excellent."
3890 "Listen a second. Didn't they say what time they'd--"
3891 "He feels sorry for it, the doctor. That's why he sticks this blanket over her face
3892 and everything and makes her suffocate. Then they make him go to jail for life
3893 imprisonment, but this child that he stuck the blanket over its head comes to visit him all
3894 the time and thanks him for what he did. He was a mercy killer. Only, he knows he
3895 deserves to go to jail because a doctor isn't supposed to take things away from God. This
3896 girl in my class's mother took us. Alice Holmborg, She's my best friend. She's the only
3897 girl in the whole--"
3898 "Wait a second, willya?" I said. "I'm asking you a question. Did they say what
3899 time they'd be back, or didn't they?"
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3900 "No, but not till very late. Daddy took the car and everything so they wouldn't
3901 have to worry about trains. We have a radio in it now! Except that Mother said nobody
3902 can play it when the car's in traffic."
3903 I began to relax, sort of. I mean I finally quit worrying about whether they'd catch
3904 me home or not. I figured the hell with it. If they did, they did.
3905 You should've seen old Phoebe. She had on these blue pajamas with red elephants
3906 on the collars. Elephants knock her out.
3907 "So it was a good picture, huh?" I said.
3908 "Swell, except Alice had a cold, and her mother kept asking her all the time if she
3909 felt grippy. Right in the middle of the picture. Always in the middle of something
3910 important, her mother'd lean all over me and everything and ask Alice if she felt grippy.
3911 It got on my nerves."
3912 Then I told her about the record. "Listen, I bought you a record," I told her. "Only
3913 I broke it on the way home." I took the pieces out of my coat pocket and showed her. "I
3914 was plastered," I said.
3915 "Gimme the pieces," she said. "I'm saving them." She took them right out of my
3916 hand and then she put them in the drawer of the night table. She kills me.
3917 "D.B. coming home for Christmas?" I asked her.
3918 "He may and he may not, Mother said. It all depends. He may have to stay in
3919 Hollywood and write a picture about Annapolis."
3920 "Annapolis, for God's sake!"
3921 "It's a love story and everything. Guess who's going to be in it! What movie star.
3922 Guess!"
3923 "I'm not interested. Annapolis, for God's sake. What's D.B. know about
3924 Annapolis, for God's sake? What's that got to do with the kind of stories he writes?" I
3925 said. Boy, that stuff drives me crazy. That goddam Hollywood. "What'd you do to your
3926 arm?" I asked her. I noticed she had this big hunk of adhesive tape on her elbow. The
3927 reason I noticed it, her pajamas didn't have any sleeves.
3928 "This boy, Curtis Weintraub, that's in my class, pushed me while I was going
3929 down the stairs in the park," she said. "Wanna see?" She started taking the crazy adhesive
3930 tape off her arm.
3931 "Leave it alone. Why'd he push you down the stairs?"
3932 "I don't know. I think he hates me," old Phoebe said. "This other girl and me,
- title
- Chunk 4