School started, and so did our daily trips past the Radley Place. Jem was in the seventh grade now and went to high school, ; I was now in the third grade, and our routines were so different I only walked to school with Jem in the mornings and saw him at mealtimes.
The Radley Place didn’t scare me anymore. I sometimes felt a bit of regret , when passing by the old place, at ever having taken part in making fun of Arthur Radley – what person wants children peeping through his shutters, delivering greetings on the end of a fishing-pole, wandering in his garden at night?
And yet I remembered. Two Indian-head pennies, chewing gum, soap dolls, a rusty medal, a broken watch and chain. Jem must have put them away somewhere. I stopped and looked at the tree one afternoon: the trunk was swelling around its cement patch. The patch itself was turning yellow.
I still looked for Boo each time I went by. Maybe someday we would see him. I imagined how it would be: when it happened, he’d just be sitting in the swing when I came along. “Hidy do, Mr. Arthur,” I would say, as if I had said it every afternoon of my life.
“Evening, Jean Louise,” he would say, as if he had said it every afternoon of my life, “Right pretty spell we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, right pretty” I would say, and go on. It was only a fantasy though. We would never see him.
One night when I told Atticus that I wanted to see Boo Radley someday, he said “Don’t start with that again, Scout. I’m too old to go chasing you off the Radley property. Besides, it’s dangerous. You might get shot. You know, Mr. Nathan shoots at every shadow he sees, even shadows that leave size-four bare footprints. You were lucky not to be killed.”
I couldn’t believe it! Atticus KNEW it was US that Mr. Radley shot at that night! This was the first time he had let us know that he knew a lot more about something than we thought he knew.
