Another block lay behind them.
Missy, fighting that sensation of stupidity, in anguished resolution spoke again: “Just look at the moon—how big it is!” Jim followed her upward glance. “Yes, it's great,” he agreed.
Creak! creak! said the shoes.
A heavy, regularly punctuated pause. “Don't you love moonlight nights?” persisted Missy.
“Yes—when my shoes don't squeak.” He tried to laugh.
Missy tried to laugh too. Creak! creak! said the shoes.
Another block lay behind them.
“Moonlight always makes me feel—”
She paused. What was it moonlight always made her feel? Hardly hearing what she was saying, she made herself reiterate banalities about the moon. Her mind flew upward to the moon—Jim's downward to his squeaking shoes. She lived at the other end of town from Raymond Bonner's house, and the long walk was made up of endless intermittent perorations on the moon, on squeaking shoes. But the song of the shoes never ceased. Louder and louder it waxed. It crashed into the innermost fibres of her frame, completely deafened her mental processes. Never would she forget it: creak-creak-creak-creak!
And the moon, usually so kind and gentle, grinned down derisively.