knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.
“Ain’t so high and mighty now, are you!” I screamed, sailing in again. He was
still on the bed and I couldn’t get a firm stance, so I threw myself at him as hard
as I could, hitting, pulling, pinching, gouging. What had begun as a fist-fight
became a brawl. We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.
“That’s all,” he said. “Both of you go to bed right now.”
“Taah!” I said at Jem. He was being sent to bed at my bedtime.
“Who started it?” asked Atticus, in resignation.
“Jem did. He was tryin‘ to tell me what to do. I don’t have to mind him now, do
I?”
Atticus smiled. “Let’s leave it at this: you mind Jem whenever he can make you.
Fair enough?”
Aunt Alexandra was present but silent, and when she went down the hall with
Atticus we heard her say, “…just one of the things I’ve been telling you about,” a
phrase that united us again.
Ours were adjoining rooms; as I shut the door between them Jem said, “Night,
Scout.”
“Night,” I murmured, picking my way across the room to turn on the light. As I
passed the bed I stepped on something warm, resilient, and rather smooth. It was
not quite like hard rubber, and I had the sensation that it was alive. I also heard it
move.
I switched on the light and looked at the floor by the bed. Whatever I had stepped
on was gone. I tapped on Jem’s door.
“What,” he said.
“How does a snake feel?”
“Sort of rough. Cold. Dusty. Why?”
“I think there’s one under my bed. Can you come look?”
“Are you bein‘ funny?” Jem opened the door. He was in his pajama bottoms. I
noticed not without satisfaction that the mark of my knuckles was still on his
mouth. When he saw I meant what I said, he said, “If you think I’m gonna put my
face down to a snake you’ve got another think comin’. Hold on a minute.”
He went to the kitchen and fetched the broom. “You better get up on the bed,” he
said.
“You reckon it’s really one?” I asked. This was an occasion. Our houses had no
cellars; they were built on stone blocks a few feet above the ground, and the entry
of reptiles was not unknown but was not commonplace. Miss Rachel Haverford’s
excuse for a glass of neat whiskey every morning was that she never got over the
fright of finding a rattler coiled in her bedroom closet, on her washing, when she
went to hang up her negligee.
Jem made a tentative swipe under the bed. I looked over the foot to see if a snake
would come out. None did. Jem made a deeper swipe.
“Do snakes grunt?”
“It ain’t a snake,” Jem said. “It’s somebody.”
Suddenly a filthy brown package shot from under the bed. Jem raised the broom
and missed Dill’s head by an inch when it appeared.
“God Almighty.” Jem’s voice was reverent.
We watched Dill emerge by degrees. He was a tight fit. He stood up and eased his
shoulders, turned his feet in their ankle sockets, rubbed the back of his neck. His
circulation restored, he said, “Hey.”
Jem petitioned God again. I was speechless.