Properties
- end_line
- 5239
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:35.112Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5188
- text
- 4967 her. "Come on, now," I said.
4968 She didn't go up the steps with me, though. She wouldn't come with me. I went up
4969 anyway, though, and brought the bag in the checkroom and checked it, and then I came
4970 down again. She was still standing there on the sidewalk, but she turned her back on me
4971 when I came up to her. She can do that. She can turn her back on you when she feels like
4972 it. "I'm not going away anywhere. I changed my mind. So stop crying, and shut up," I
4973 said. The funny part was, she wasn't even crying when I said that. I said it anyway,
4974 though, "C'mon, now. I'll walk you back to school. C'mon, now. You'll be late."
4975 She wouldn't answer me or anything. I sort of tried to get hold of her old hand, but
4976 she wouldn't let me. She kept turning around on me.
4977 "Didja have your lunch? Ya had your lunch yet?" I asked her.
4978 She wouldn't answer me. All she did was, she took off my red hunting hat--the
4979 one I gave her--and practically chucked it right in my face. Then she turned her back on
4980 me again. It nearly killed me, but I didn't say anything. I just picked it up and stuck it in
4981 my coat pocket.
4982 "Come on, hey. I'll walk you back to school," I said.
<!-- [Page 112](arke:01KFYTAMSBGC28VC63N2TCRDH3) -->
4983 "I'm not going back to school."
4984 I didn't know what to say when she said that. I just stood there for a couple of
4985 minutes.
4986 "You have to go back to school. You want to be in that play, don't you? You want
4987 to be Benedict Arnold, don't you?"
4988 "No."
4989 "Sure you do. Certainly you do. C'mon, now, let's go," I said. "In the first place,
4990 I'm not going away anywhere, I told you. I'm going home. I'm going home as soon as you
4991 go back to school. First I'm gonna go down to the station and get my bags, and then I'm
4992 gonna go straight--"
4993 "I said I'm not going back to school. You can do what you want to do, but I'm not
4994 going back to chool," she said. "So shut up." It was the first time she ever told me to shut
4995 up. It sounded terrible. God, it sounded terrible. It sounded worse than swearing. She still
4996 wouldn't look at me either, and every time I sort of put my hand on her shoulder or
4997 something, she wouldn't let me.
4998 "Listen, do you want to go for a walk?" I asked her. "Do you want to take a walk
4999 down to the zoo? If I let you not go back to school this afternoon and go for walk, will
5000 you cut out this crazy stuff?"
5001 She wouldn't answer me, so I said it over again. "If I let you skip school this
5002 afternoon and go for a little walk, will you cut out the crazy stuff? Will you go back to
5003 school tomorrow like a good girl?"
5004 "I may and I may not," she said. Then she ran right the hell across the street,
5005 without even looking to see if any cars were coming. She's a madman sometimes.
5006 I didn't follow her, though. I knew she'd follow me, so I started walking
5007 downtown toward the zoo, on the park side of the street, and she started walking
5008 downtown on the other goddam side of the street, She wouldn't look over at me at all, but
5009 I could tell she was probably watching me out of the corner of her crazy eye to see where
5010 I was going and all. Anyway, we kept walking that way all the way to the zoo. The only
5011 thing that bothered me was when a double-decker bus came along because then I couldn't
5012 see across the street and I couldn't see where the hell she was. But when we got to the
5013 zoo, I yelled over to her, "Phoebe! I'm going in the zoo! C'mon, now!" She wouldn't look
5014 at me, but I could tell she heard me, and when I started down the steps to the zoo I turned
5015 around and saw she was crossing the street and following me and all.
5016 There weren't too many people in the zoo because it was sort of a lousy day, but
- title
- Chunk 17