by Ray Bradbury
“Evening.” Mr. Jerrick sniffed in the doorway and looked at her. “Have a nice evening.” He went whistling down the steps.
That left only Mr. Britz, with his straw hat cocked over one eye, humming.
“Here I am,” said Miss Welkes, rising, certain that this must be the man, the last one in the house.
“There you are,” said Mr. Britz, blinking. “Hey, you smell good. I never knew you used scent.” He leered at her.
“Someone gave me a gift.”
“Well, that’s fine.” And Mr. Britz did a little dance going down the porch steps, his cane jauntily flung over his shoulder. “See you later, Miss W.” He marched off.
Miss Welkes sat, and Douglas hung in the cooling tree. The kitchen sounds were fading. In a moment, Grandma would come out, bringing her pillow and a bottle of mosquito oil. Grandpa would cut the end off a long stogie and puff it to kill his own particular insects, and the aunts and uncles would arrive for the Independence Evening Event at the Spaulding House, the Festival of Fire, the shooting stars, the Roman Candles so diligently held by Grandpa, looking like Julius Caesar gone to flesh, standing with great dignity on the dark summer lawn, directing the setting off of fountains of red fire, and pinwheels of sizzle and smoke, while everyone, as if to the order of some celestial doctor, opened their mouths and said Ah! their faces burned into quick colors by blue, red, yellow, white flashes of sky bomb among the cloudy stars. The house windows would jingle with concussion. And Miss Welkes would sit among the strange people, the scent of perfume evaporating during the evening hours, until it was gone, and only the sad, wet smell of punk and sulfur would remain.
The children screamed by on the dim street now, calling for Douglas, but, hidden, he did not answer. He felt in his pocket for the remaining dollar and fifty cents. The children ran away into the night.
Douglas swung and dropped. He stood by the porch steps.
“Miss Welkes?”
She glanced up. “Yes?”
Now that the time had come he was afraid. Suppose she refused, suppose she was embarrassed and ran up to lock her door and never came out again?
“Tonight,” he said, “there’s a swell show at the Elite Theater. Harold Lloyd in WELCOME, DANGER. The show starts at eight o’clock, and afterward we’ll have a chocolate sundae at the Midnight Drug Store, open until eleven forty-five. I’ll go change clothes.”
She looked down at him and didn’t speak. Then she opened the door and went up the stairs.
“Miss Welkes!” he cried.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Run and put your shoes on!”
It was seven thirty, the porch filling with people, when Douglas emerged, in his dark suit, with a blue tie, his hair wet with water, and his feet in the hot tight shoes.
“Why, Douglas!” the aunts and uncles and Grandma and Grandpa cried, “Aren’t you staying for the fireworks?”
“No.” And he looked at the fireworks laid out so beautifully crisp and smelling of powder, the pinwheels and sky bombs, and the Fire Balloons, three of them, folded like moths in their tissue wings, those balloons he loved most dearly of all, for they were like a summer night dream going up quietly, breathlessly on the still high air, away and away to far lands, glowing and breathing light as long as you could see them. Yes, the Fire Balloons, those especially would he miss, while seated in the Elite Theater tonight.
There was a whisper, the screen door stood wide, and there was Miss Welkes.
“Good evening, Mr. Spaulding,” she said to Douglas.
“Good evening, Miss Welkes,” he said.
She was dressed in a gray suit no one had seen ever before, neat and fresh, with her hair up under a summer straw hat, and standing there in the dim porch light she was like the carved goddess on the great marble library clock come to life.
“Shall we go, Mr. Spaulding?” and Douglas walked her down the steps.
“Have a good time!” said everyone.
“Douglas!” called Grandfather.
“Yes, sir?”
“Douglas,” said Grandfather, after a pause, holding his cigar in his hand. “I’m saving one of the Fire Balloons. I’ll be up when you come home. We’ll light her together and send her up. How’s that sound, eh?”
“Swell!” said Douglas.
“Good night, boy.” Grandpa waved him quietly on.
“Good night, sir.”
He took Miss Eleanora Welkes down the street, over the sidewalks of the summer evening, and they talked about Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier and Mr. Poe all the way to the Elite Theater . . .
About the Author
Tom Victor
The author of more than thirty books, RAY BRADBURY is one of the most celebrated fiction writers of our time. Among his best-known works are Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He has written for the theater and the cinema, including the screenplay for John Huston’s classic film adaptation of Moby-Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s Ray Bradbury Theater and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. In 2000, Bradbury was honored by the National Book Foundation with a medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He is the recipient of the 2004 National Medal of Arts, which is presented to those who have made extraordinary contributions to the arts in the United States. Among his most recent works are the novels Let’s All Kill Constance, From the Dust Returned—selected as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Los Angeles Times—and One More for the Road, a new story collection. Bradbury lives in Los Angeles, California.
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Also by Ray Bradbury
Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines
The Anthem Sprinters
A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis, and Ministers
Dandelion Wine
Dark Carnival
Death Is a Lonely Business
Driving Blind
Fahrenheit 451
From the Dust Returned
The Golden Apples of the Sun
A Graveyard for Lunatics
Green Shadows, White Whale
The Halloween Tree
The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope
I Sing the Body Electric!
The Illustrated Man
Let’s All Kill Constance
Long After Midnight
The Machineries of Joy
The Martian Chronicles
A Medicine for Melancholy
The October Country
One More for the Road
Quicker Than the Eye
R Is for Rocket
S Is for Space
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Stories of Ray Bradbury
Switch on the Night
They Have Not Seen the Stars
The Toynbee Convector
When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns
Witness and Celebrate
Yestermorrow
Zen in the Art of Writing
Credits
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2003 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
BRADBURY STORIES. Copyright © 2003 by Ray Bradbury. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST PERE
NNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2005.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Bradbury, Ray
[Short stories. Selections]
Bradbury stories : 100 of h is most celebrated tales / Ray Bradbury.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-06-054242-X
EPub Edition JUNE 2013 ISBN 9780062302113
1. Science fiction, American. 2. Fantasy fiction, American. I. Title.
PS3503.R167A6 2003
813′.54—dc21
2003042189
ISBN 0-06-054488-0 (pbk.)
05 06 07 08 09 /RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Additional Copyright Information
Copyright 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 by Ray Bradbury.
Copyright renewed 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Whole Town’s Sleeping”—McCalls, September 1950.
“The Rocket” (“Outcast of the Stars”)—Super Science Stories, March 1950.
“Season of Disbelief”—Colliers, November 25, 1950.
“And the Rock Cried Out” (“The Millionth Murder”)—Manhunt, September 1953.
“The Drummer Boy of Shiloh”—Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1960.
“The Beggar on O’Connell Bridge” (“The Beggar on the Dublin Bridge”)—Saturday Evening Post, June 14, 1961.
“The Flying Machine”—Golden Apples of the Sun, 1953.
“Heavy-Set”—Playboy, October 1964.
“The First Night of Lent”—Playboy, March 1956.
“Lafayette, Farewell”—The Toynbee Convector, 1988.
“Remember Sascha?”—Quicker Than The Eye, 1996.
“Junior”—The Toynbee Convector, 1988.
“That Woman on the Lawn”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1996.
“February 1999: Ylla” (“I’ll Not Ask For Wine”)—MacLeans, January 1, 1950.
“Banshee”—Gallery, September 1984.
“One for his Lordship, and one for the Road!”—Playboy, January 1985.
“The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair”—Playboy, December 1987.
“Unterderseaboat Doktor”—Playboy, January 1994.
“Another Fine Mess”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1995.
“The Dwarf”—Fantastic, January–February 1954.
“A Wild Night in Galway”—Harper’s, August 1959.
“The Wind”—Weird Tales, March 1943.
“No News, or What Killed the Dog?”—American Way, October 1, 1994.
“A Little Journey”—Galaxy, August 1951.
“Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s Is a Friend of Mine” (“The Best of Times”)—McCall’s, January 1966.
“The Garbage Collector”—The Golden Apples of the Sun, 1953.
“The Visitor”—Startling Stories, November 1948.
“The Man”—Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1949.
“Henry The Ninth” (“A Final Sceptre, A Lasting Crown”)—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct. 1969
“The Messiah”—Welcome Aboard, Spring 1971.
“Bang! You’re Dead”—Weird Tales, September 1944.
“Darling Adolf”—Long After Midnight, 1976.
“The Beautiful Shave”—Gallery, March 1979.
“Colonel Stonesteels Genuine Home-made Truly Egyptian Mummy”—Omni, May 1981.
“I See You Never”—The New Yorker, November 8, 1947.
“The Exiles” (“The Mad Wizards Of Mars”)—MacLean’s, September 15, 1949.
“At Midnight, in the Month of June”—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine–June 1954.
“The Witch Door”—Playboy, December 1995.
“The Watchers”—Weird Tales, May 1945.
“2004–05: The Naming of Names”—The Martian Chronicles, 1950.
“Hopscotch”—Quicker than the Eye, 1996.
“The Illustrated Man”—Esquire, July 1950.
“The Dead Man”—Weird Tales, July 1945.
“June 2001: And the Moon Be Still as Bright” (“And the Moon Be Still as Bright”)—Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1948.
“The Burning Man” (“El Hombre Que Ardea”)—Gente (Argentina), July 31, 1975.
“G.B.S.-Mark V”—Long After Midnight, 1976.
“A Blade of Grass”—Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949.
“The Sound of Summer Running” (“Summer in the Air”)—Saturday Evening Post, February 18, 1956.
“And the Sailor, Home from the Sea” (“Forever Voyage”)—Saturday Evening Post, January 9, 1960.
“The Lonely Ones”—Startling Stories, July 1949.
“The Finnegan”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October–November 1996.
“On the Orient, North”—The Toynbee Convector, 1988.
“The Smiling People”—Weird Tales, May 1946.
“The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl” (“Touch and Go”) Detective Book, Winter 1948.
“Bug”—Quicker than the Eye, 1996.
“Downwind from Gettysburg”—Playboy, June 1969.
“Time in Thy Flight”—Fantastic Universe, June–July 1953.
“Changeling”—Super Science Stories, July 1949.
“The Dragon”—Esquire, August 1955.
“Let’s Play Poison”—Weird Tales, November 1946.
“The Cold Wind and the Warm”—Harper’s, July 1964.
“The Meadow”—The Golden Apples of the Sun, 1953.
“The Kilimanjaro Device” (“The Kilimanjaro Machine”)—Life, January 22, 1965.
“The Man in the Rorschach Shirt”—Playboy, October 1966.
“Bless Me, Father, For I have Sinned” (“Bless me, Father”)—Woman’s Day, December 11, 1984.
“The Pedestrian”—The Reporter, August 7, 1951.
“Trapdoor”—Omni, April 1985.
“The Swan”—Cosmopolitan, September 1954.
“The Sea Shell”—Weird Tales, January 1944.
“Once More, Legato”—Omni, Fall 1995.
“June 2003: Way In the Middle of the Air”—The Martian Chronicles, 1950.
“The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone”—Charm, July 1954.
“By the Numbers”—Playboy, July 1984.
“August 2005: Usher II” (“Carnival of Madness”)—Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1950.
“The Square Pegs”—Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1948.
“The Trolley”—Good Housekeeping, July 1955.
“The Smile”—Fantastic, Summer 1952.
“The Miracles of Jamie”—Charm, April 1946.
“A Far-Away Guitar” (“Miss Bidwell”)—Charm, April 1950.
“The Cistern”—Mademoiselle, May 1947.
“The Machineries of Joy”—Playboy, December 1962.
“Bright Phoenix”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1963.
“The Wish”—Woman’s Day, December 1973.
“The Life Work of Juan Diaz”—Playboy, September 1963.
“Time Intervening” (“Interim”)—Epoch, Fall 1947.
“Almost the End of the World”—The Reporter, December 26, 1957.
“The Great Collision of Monday Last”—Contact #1, 1958.
“The Poems”—Weird Tales, January 1945.
“April 2026: The Long Years” (“The Long Years”)—MacLean’s, September 15, 1948.
“Icarus Montgolfier Wright”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1956.
“Death and the Maiden”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1960.
“Zero Hour”—Planet Stories, Fall 1947.
“The Toynbee Convector”—Playboy, January 1984.
“Forever and the Earth”—Planet Stories, Spring 1949.
“The Handler”—Weird Tales,
January 1947.
“Getting Through Sundays Somehow” (“Tread Lightly to the Music”)—Cavalier, October 1962.
“The Pumpernickel”—Collier’s, May 19, 1951.
“Last Rites”—Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1994.
“The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse” (“The Watchful Poker Chip”)—Beyond, March 1954.
“All on a Summer’s Night”—Today (Philadelphia Inquirer), January 22, 1950.
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