Peyton Place by Grace Metalious Page A

it all. Better if he were a bastard than what he is.”
    “He'll always be a bastard as far as I'm concerned,” said Charlotte. “The bastard son of a whoring woman.”
    The two sisters bit off these words as crisply as if they had been chewing celery, and the fact that these same words in print would have been an occasion for book banning and of shocked consultation with the church did not bother them at all, for they had the excuse of righteous indignation on their side.
    Caroline dropped the curtain as Norman moved out of sight.
    “You'd think that Evelyn would have had the decency to move out of town after Father left her,” she said.
    “Humph,” said Charlotte. “Show me the whore who knows what decency means.”
    Little Norman Page did not slow his steps or sigh with relief when he had passed the house of his two half sisters. He still had to go by the house of Miss Hester Goodale before he could reach the sanctuary of his own home, and he dreaded Miss Hester every bit as much as he feared the Page girls. Whenever he encountered his half sisters on the street, they merely fixed him with dead looks, as if he were not there at all, but Miss Hester's coal-black eyes seemed to bore right through him, looking right down into his soul and seeing all the sins hidden there. Norman hurried now because it was Friday afternoon and almost four o'clock, and at exactly four on Fridays Miss Hester came out of her house and walked toward town. Although Norman was on the opposite side of the street from the one on which Miss Hester would walk, he was nonetheless afraid, for Miss Hester's eyes, he knew, could see for miles, around corners and everything. She could look right into him as clearly from across the street as she could have if he stood directly in front of her. Norman would have run except that if he arrived home flushed and panting his mother would think he was sick again and put him to bed. She might even give him an enema, and while Norman always got a bittersweet sort of pleasure from that, he had to stay in bed afterward. Today he decided that getting the enema was not worth the hours alone that were sure to follow, so he forced himself to walk. Suddenly he saw a figure ahead of him, and recognizing it as Allison MacKenzie he began to shout.
    “Allison! Hey, Allison. Wait for me!”
    Allison turned and waited.
    “Hi, Norman,” she said when he reached her side. “Are you on your way home?”
    “Yes,” said Norman. “But what are you doing over here? This isn't the way to your house.”
    “I was just taking a walk,” said Allison.
    “Well, let me walk with you,” said Norman. “I hate to walk alone.”
    “Why?” asked Allison. “There's nothing to be afraid of.” She looked hard at the boy beside her. “You're always afraid of something, Norman,” she said jeeringly.
    Norman was a slight child, built on delicate lines. He had a finely chiseled mouth which trembled easily, and enormous brown eyes which were filled with tears more often than not. Norman's eyes were fringed with long, dark lashes. Just like a girl's, thought Allison. She could see the lines of blue veins plainly beneath the thin skin on his temples. Norman was very good looking, thought Allison, but not in the way that people thought of as handsome.
    He was pretty the way a girl is pretty, and his voice, too, was like a girl's, soft and high. The boys at school called Norman “sissy,” a name with which the boy found no quarrel. He was timid and admitted it, easily frightened and knew it, and he wept at nothing and never tried to stop himself.
    ‘I'll bet he still pees the bed,” Rodney Harrington had been heard to say. “That is, if he's got a dink to pee with.”
    “There is too something to be afraid of,” said Norman to Allison. “There's Miss Hester Goodale to be afraid of, that's what.”
    Allison laughed. “Miss Hester won't hurt you.”
    “She might,” quivered Norman. “She's loony, you know. I've heard plenty of