Sweet Dream Baby Read Online Free

get out of here. She whispers, “I love you, Travis,” and she reaches into her pocket and takes out a wallet and hands it to me. She smiles and says, “I made it for you. I hope you like it. It’s for your birthday.”
    I take the wallet and look at it. It’s too early for this. My birthday’s in two days. I’m going to be twelve, and I’m going to have a cake, and I’m going to be at home with Mom and Dad, and there’s going to be a lot of presents. The wallet has a picture of Roy Rogers riding Trigger on it. My mom says, “I put that picture on there with an electric wand. I hope it’s not too young for you. You’re getting to be such a big boy.”
    She looks at Dad. He looks hard at the far away and says, “Miko, it’s not too young for him. He loves Roy Rogers.”
    I still like Roy, but I’m more interested in creatures now. I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon at the Rialto downtown last week, and I liked it a lot. I’d like to swim in a river in South America and find this guy with webbed hands and feet and fight him and drag him up on the bank and put him in a big tank and take him home and keep him in my room. He’d be my creature, and I’d show him to all my friends.
    My mom looks at me very carefully now, and I put away the wallet, and I say, “Thanks, Mom. I love my wallet. I really do.”
    She says, “I want you to be a good boy with Grandpa and Grandma Hollister. Will you do that for Momma?”
    I say, “Sure.” I want her to hug me. I want us to run away. I’d protect her. I’d take care of her. I’d never say she couldn’t have her household god.
    My dad puts his hand on my shoulder. We all walk to the door and Dad pushes a button, and we hear the nurse’s key in the lock. My mom gets down on her knees in front of me, and she looks into my eyes.
    My dad says, “Kiss your mom good-bye, Travis, Buddy.” He has his old voice back. I can’t see his eyes, but I know they aren’t big and soft anymore. I know he didn’t like me seeing them that way. I wait for Mom to kiss me.
    But she waits for me. It’s because we’re here. She smiles. I lean toward her, and she smells good, the old way, and I try to kiss her cheek but she stops me. She kisses me on the mouth. It’s sweet and slow and soft, and I’m crying like I told myself I’d never do again, and she says, “You’re going to love that ride on the airplane, Travis, my good boy. You’re going to fly on the wind like the spirits of my ancestors,” and then Dad lifts me by the arms, and the door opens, and he pulls me through it, and I don’t see much more until we’re in the car again.

Three
    I wake up when the stewardess shakes me. Her name is Wendy, and she smells good like my mom, but she doesn’t look like the ladies at church and PTA. She looks like the lady the Creature kidnapped in the Black Lagoon. She’s the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen that isn’t in a magazine or on TV or in the movies. She’s my friend. When the plane took off, she let me sit beside her and buckled my seat belt. I was so surprised when we left the ground, I said, “It feels like my stomach’s going into my butt,” and Wendy giggled and put her finger across her mouth. She gave me a Coke in a paper cup and a Baby Ruth. After I ate the candy and we hit a storm and the plane started to bounce around, I wasn’t feeling so hot. Wendy gave me a pill that made my stomach feel better and made me sleepy. She gave it to me with a paper cup full of water, and she leaned down and I smelled her, and she kissed me on the cheek and then rubbed off the lipstick and said, “You’ll probably sleep the rest of the way, but don’t worry, Gorgeous, I’ll wake you up before we land.”
    I looked at her, and I know I was smiling. I was already feeling warm and my