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The back of the Radley place is a whole different beast from the front, a place where Maycomb's humid air feels thick and heavy with neglect. The porch runs the width of the house, a dark, sagging thing clinging to the clapboard. It is not the kind of porch where one sips lemonade; it is where things go to be forgotten. There are two doors, their paint peeling like sun-scorched skin, and between them, two dark, blank windows, each a black eye staring out into the night. One end of the roof does not rest on a proper column but on a rough two-by-four, its grain splintered and coarse. In a corner, a Franklin stove—rusted and silent as a tomb—sits with a hat-rack mirror hanging above it. The glass catches a stray sliver of moonlight, shining with a pale, eerie light.
Dill and Scout stand below the porch, their shadows long and spindly in the half-light. Jem is the one with the nerve. He puts his foot on the bottom step, and the wood groans. A long, drawn-out squeak, like a mouse under a boot. He freezes, a stone statue of eleven-year-old courage. They all hold their breath. The sound fades into the cricket-chirp chorus of the night. Jem shifts his weight by degrees, an almost imperceptible pressure, and the step is silent. Satisfied, he skips two steps at once, a quick, jerky motion that puts him on the porch with a soft thud. He teeters, a boy momentarily off-kilter, then regains his balance, dropping to his knees. He crawls, silent as a lizard, to the window, raises his head just enough, and looks in. His face is a pale moon in the darkness.
That's when Scout sees the shadow. At first, it is just a shape, a darker patch in the gloom. It is the shadow of a man with a hat on. Her first thought is a tree, but there’s no wind, no breeze to stir the collard greens or make the leaves on the live oaks whisper, and tree-trunks never walk. The back porch is now bathed in the silvery glow of the moon, and the shadow, crisp and clean as a piece of toast, begins to move. It glides across the porch toward Jem, a silent, menacing thing. Scout puts a hand to her mouth, not daring to make a sound.
Dill sees it next. His hands, small and pale, rise to his face, covering his eyes as if to shield himself from the sight. He lets out a tiny, choked whimper. Jem finally sees it, and his body goes rigid. His arms fly up to shield his head, and he seems to lock up completely, a figure frozen in absolute terror. The shadow stops about a foot beyond him. Its arm comes out from its side, drops, and then goes still. Just like that. A silent, unblinking sentinel. Then, without a sound, it turns and moves back across the porch, walking along the edge and then off the side of the house, disappearing as it had come.
Jem explodes into motion. He leaps off the porch, a boy possessed, and gallops toward them. He flings open the front gate and shoos his friends between two rows of swishing collards. The leaves, wet with dew, slap against Scout's legs with a cold, insistent noise. Her heart is a hummingbird in her chest, beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
“Hurry up! Faster!” Jem hisses, his breath coming in sobs.
Halfway through the collards, Scout trips. Her knee connects with the hard Maycomb dirt, and she feels the sting as she falls. Before she can even yelp, the roar of a shotgun shatters the silence of the neighborhood. It is a terrifying sound, a violent explosion that makes every bird in the town take to the air. Dill and Jem dive beside her. They are a tangle of limbs and gasping breath.
Jem’s voice is a broken whisper. “Fence by the schoolyard!—Hurry, Scout!”
He holds the bottom wire of the fence up, and the thin metal digs into his fingers. Dill and Scout roll through, their bodies scraping against the chain-link. They are halfway to the shelter of the schoolyard’s solitary oak when they realize Jem is not with them. Scout turns and runs back, and there he is, a struggling form in the fence. His pants are caught on the wire, and he is kicking, a desperate, wild effort to get free. He finally yanks hard, and his pants rip loose. He leaves them there, a sad, empty monument to their failed venture, and runs to the oak tree in his shorts.
Safely behind the wide, gnarled trunk, Dill and Scout give way to a kind of numbness. Their terror is so deep it feels like a heavy coat, a silence that descends over them. But Jem’s mind is racing, his body still trembling.
“We gotta get home,” he says, his voice reedy with panic. “They’ll miss us.”
They run across the schoolyard, their bare feet slapping against the grass. They crawl under the fence to Deer’s Pasture behind the Finch house, their knees sinking into the damp soil. They climb the back gate and make it to the back steps before Jem lets them pause. Their lungs burn, and the frantic drumbeat of their hearts is slowly returning to normal. Once their respiration is steady, the three of them stroll as casually as they can to the front yard. They look down the street and see a small circle of their neighbors gathered at the Radley front gate.
“We better go down there,” Jem says, his voice now a little more controlled. “They’ll think it’s funny if we don’t show up.”
Mr. Nathan Radley stands inside his gate, a shotgun broken across his arm. Atticus is there, standing beside Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford. Miss Rachel and Mr. Avery are nearby, their faces lit by the street lamp.
“Where were you all?” Miss Maudie asks, her voice a low murmur. “Didn’t you hear the commotion?”
“What happened?” Jem asks, his voice surprisingly steady.
“Mr. Radley shot at a Negro in his collard patch,” Miss Maudie says.
“Oh,” Scout says. “Did he hit him?”
“No,” she says. “Mr. Radley said he aimed at the sky.”
They think they are in the clear. The adults are satisfied, their gossip already starting to turn over the event like a new rock. Atticus, however, sees the small details the others miss. His eyes sweep over them, and his gaze stops on Jem.
“Where’re your pants, son?” he asks, his voice soft but firm.
Jem swallows, his throat working. “Pants, sir?”
“Pants,” Atticus repeats.
Scout lets out a quiet sigh. This is it. They are dead.
Dill’s small voice cuts through the tension. “Ah—Mr. Finch?”
“What is it, Dill?”
“Ah—I won ‘em from him,” Dill says.
The lie is so audacious it hangs in the air, a bright, unbelievable thing.
Atticus’s brow furrows. “Won them? How?”
Dill’s hand seeks the back of his head, his fingers tangling nervously in his hair. He brings it forward and across his forehead, a dramatic gesture of a child making something up on the spot. “We were playin‘ strip poker up yonder by the fishpool,” he says.
Jem and Scout let out a simultaneous, barely audible breath of relief. The neighbors, however, stiffen as one. Their faces, once filled with curiosity, turn to stone.
Miss Rachel goes off like the town fire siren, a high, wailing sound of outrage. “Doo-o Jee-sus, Dill Harris! Gamblin‘ by my fishpool? I’ll strip-poker you, sir!”
Atticus puts his hand on Miss Rachel’s arm, saving Dill from immediate dismemberment. “Just a minute, Miss Rachel. I’ve never heard of ‘em doing that before. Were you all playing cards?”
Jem fields Dill’s lie with his eyes shut, a quick, desperate prayer. “No, sir, just with matches.”
The crowd murmurs. Matches are dangerous, but cards are fatal. Scout admires her brother. He is a boy with a quick mind and a love for his friends.
“Jem, Scout,” Atticus says, his voice now a low rumble of disappointment. “I don’t want to hear of poker in any form again. Go by Dill’s and get your pants, Jem. Settle it yourselves.”
And just like that, it is over. The air is still, but the shadows of the night seem to breathe again. They are alive. They are safe. For now.