Boo Radley

**rexle** · 08-23-2006 09:59 PM

This was a short story i wrote for my english class. it's from the perspective of boo radley from TKAM. and so i decided to post it...tell me what you think.

The sun had long since gone down, but I was still awake and for me the night was still in its youth. It was dark enough for me not to be seen if I kept in the shadows. The challenge of creeping past my father’s door and escaping out the side door without making any noise still lay in front of me. It’s getting later and I can hear the deep rhythmic breaths of my father signifying his deep sleep and my chance to escape this cursed house for the night. The time for my departure into the outside world was upon me. Over the years I had perfected my escape technique to the point where I could walk through the house and out the side door so noiselessly that if it wasn’t for the dim moonlight projected through the window you wouldn’t even be able to tell I was there. I crept passed my fathers partially opened door, through the living room and down the hall, watching the floor all this time so as not to step on any of the creaky floorboards. I was feet from the door. I could see the moonlight that had found its way under the gap between the door and hard wood floor and I could feel the cool air that had came in the same way. Now was the hard part: opening the door. I put my hand on the knob and cautiously began to turn. I felt a small gust of warm summer night air come in through the door as I opened it. The door opened a little more and the crack was now big enough for me to fit through. I stepped outside and slowly closed the door behind me. Silently down the steps I went, onto the dirt and out the front gate. A rush of goose bumps ran across my back. I was free.
My first stop during my nightly escape ritual was the trees at the edge of our lot. I had been leaving small trinkets in the knot-hole for a neighborhood girl called scout. Often times I watched her and her brother play carelessly in the streets. As I neared the tree I could see that the coins I left last night were gone. Until I was right next to the tree, I didn’t realize that I forgot to bring something from inside to leave in the tree. I contemplated my options. I couldn’t go back into the house to get something for risk of being heard. I searched around the yard for some small object that I could put inside the tree. I found nothing but dirt. I was just going to have to leave the tree empty tonight. After getting over my disappointment of having forgotten something to put in the tree I decided that for the rest of my night time freedom hours I was just going to sneak around the neighborhood, staring in through windows at the children, wishing and longing to have had a childhood like theirs. I started down the street toward the Finch’s house. Staring in through the back window of the house where scouts room was I watched her sleep. I thought about how lucky she was to have a loving father who read to her every night and could answer all of her questions. After watching and pondering for some time I decided to move on to another house. This house I was less familiar with because the child who stayed there only came during the summer. The boy was a friend of Scout and her brother. As I neared the house I realized that it was getting lighter. Had it really been that long? My ersatz freedom was coming to an end and it was time to go back into my prison.
I went back up the street, up my steps, through the door, down the hall, into the living room, past my father’s bedroom and into my bedroom. My shoes came off my feet and I laid down on the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to make it look like I had been asleep the whole time.