Summer Night, Katie Hershey Van-Horn

Summer Night

The summer night--like most this time of year--was humid and so we left the windows open to let the warm, damp breeze waft in. The screens kept most of the nasty little bugs out, but every now and then one gets in and we scream for Dad to come and kill it for us. Allison, my little sister, and I share a room in our tiny little house located on 12304 Bishop Court. Our town is small and quaint, with a bunch of white houses lined up like dominoes along the streets. We aren’t very rich; we get new clothes about once a year, near Christmas. We make do with what we have. We can’t afford a ton of fancy things like brand new cellphones and computers; we have one home computer and Dad has a laptop for work. We’re not allowed to use it. Mom and Dad both have cell phones, but not those Apple ones. They’re smaller and open and close like a clam shell. Even though we don’t have fancy technology or money to go out to movies and stuff, Alli and I still have fun. We play outside after school, watch TV on rainy days, and read. We read a lot, actually. We practically live at the library. My favorite books are mysteries. I like the suspense. I always open the book to the very last page and read the last sentence before I actually read the book. I don’t know why, but I do. It’s an odd habit of mine. Alli, on the other hand, likes adventure and fantasy books. The only way Alli likes to read is to lay down and place her legs up against a nearby wall so she makes an L with her body. It’s fun to watch her do that in the library and see all the other people get super confused. Sometimes, the cranky old librarian, Mrs. Wells, will come over and scold us for bothering the other readers. Tonight, like most nights, we were in bed reading. And by ‘in bed,’ I mean ‘pillow fort’. At night, Alli has to take off her glasses and so I read to her aloud. She lay on her back, her legs sticking up into the air as she listened to James and the Giant Peach. We’ve mastered the art of being quiet. We’ve been caught by Dad many times before. We’d hear his light

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steps as he would approach the door and we’d scramble to strike down the fort and get into bed before he came in. It took us a little while before we got the hang of it. We can usually get through a book a week, if Dad doesn’t catch us and make us go to bed before we’ve even finished the chapter. During the summer, though, Dad’s a little more lenient and lets us stay up half an hour later than usual. “Bee?” Alli asked as she moved to sit cross-legged across from me. My name is Bridget, but when Alli was little, she couldn’t pronounce my name, and just decided to call me Bee instead. I’ve never corrected her. She’ll probably still be calling me that when we’re old and cranky like Mrs. Wells. “Yeah?” “Do you ever think about leaving home and going on an adventure?” She looked at me with her big, green doe eyes. “I dunno.” I shrugged. “Sometimes I think it could be fun. But think about Mom and Dad--we’d worry them. Maybe when we’re older we can go on an adventure.” Alli sighed and put her chin in her palm as she drew doodles with her fingernail in the carpet. “Alli--” I began, but was immediately interrupted by an almost angry Alli. “You don’t think we can do it, do you?” “What?” My eyebrows shot up. “I never said that,” I countered, shaking my head. “I just said we have to wait till we’re older.” Alli frowned and stood up. “Fine.” She began taking down the fort. There was no arguing with Alli; she was so defiant. I sighed and got up too, helping her fold the blanket up before putting it aside. I tucked Alli in, making sure the blankets were nice and snug how she liked it. I smiled as I watched her turn onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow as

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she put her legs in a figure 4 sort of shape so she looked like a flamingo but laying down; she was such an odd little creature. I hoped she never changes. “Goodnight, Alli.” “Goodnight, Bee.” I laid down on my bed and pulled the blankets up to my neck. I stared up at the ceiling, my eyes tracing the familiar glow-in-the-dark star constellation.

Katie Hershey Van-Horn ’14

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