TKAM Ch. 4-7 Journal 2: Dill

I always have a good time when I come to Maycomb. It’s definitely because of Scout and Jem, without them the summer would be long and boring. The best part is when we do stuff with Boo Radley. This summer we acted out whole scenes of Boo’s life. Jem always got to fake stab me in the leg with the scissors. Sometime we quibbled about which part we would play but we mostly got fair turns. One time though we were so caught up in the play that none of us noticed Atticus standing there watching us. We stopped real quick though when we saw him. He would get mad at us for acting out the things we did and he would say that we were tormenting Boo.

It all started the first day I came back. I had told Jem and Scout about the Hot Steam’s and Jem got mad at Scout for disagreeing with him. Scout wanted to be pushed in the tire and when Jem pushed her he pushed her right into Boo Radley’s yard! Scout got real scared and was frozen for a little and then ran back to us. Jem then got the idea to act out Boo Radley, which we did all summer long.

I started hanging out with Jem a lot more. Me and Scout’s relationship teetered on the edge most of the time though. I wasn’t sure if she was mad at me for proposing to her then leaving her out almost always. She started hanging out Miss Maudie, who I think is a nice lady. She makes us cakes and lets us explore her backyard. I felt bad because of me and Jem’s evasion of Scout, but Jem seemed intent on not hanging out with a “girl”, as he says.

One day I started thinking that Boo might like some company. If he had survived the tyranny of his father he might want some friends to talk to. Jem and I decided to give him a note by sticking it through the shutter. We were right in the middle of doing it when Atticus comes walking by! I started ringing the alarm bell even though I knew it would do no good. Atticus got really mad but I think that we could agree unanimously that he was trying hard to keep a straight face. He had tricked Jem with some fancy words and probably found it funny.

On the last night before I left Maycomb we went for a walk. Jem and I had already planned on peeking in Boo Radley’s window. We hadn’t planned on Scout coming along, but she did, which I didn’t mind. We went around the back fence and crept real quietly up to the back porch. I looked in the window and didn’t see anything except a little bit of light. Jem wanted to go on the porch, I figured he’d be ok because he’d already touched the house before and he hadn’t gotten killed. When he stood on the step it squeaked really loud, Jem was scared and then hopped up to the top. Then he crawled to the window, it was easy to see him because the moon was really bright that night. I looked over at Scout to see if she was ok, and when I did I don’t think I had ever seen someone so scared in my entire life. I looked in the direction of where she was looking at and saw the most terrifying thing ever. It was a shadow and it was going to kill Jem! We ran out of there as fast as we could. Everything was a blur, there was a gunshot, then we went under a fence, then Jem lost his pants, there was screaming, and then back to the street.

We ran to the crowd that was around the Radley place where I had to come up with a lie to explain Jem’s lost pants. In the end it was all ok, and I had to say goodbye to Jem and Scout for the summer. I was about to leave, but decided to kiss Scout because we were engaged after all. I can’t wait till I come back next summer, that’s the best time out of the whole year.