The Shining

cars?”
“Mike? Sure, I know Mike. What about him?”
“Mr. Hallorann, why would she want his pants?”
“What are you talking about, boy?”
“Well, when she was watching him, she was thinking she would sure like to get into his pants and I just wondered why-”
But he got no further. Hallorann had thrown his head back, and rich, dark laughter issued from his chest, rolling around in the car like cannonfire. The seat shook with the force of it. Danny smiled, puzzled, and at last the storm subsided by fits and starts. Hallorann produced a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket like a white flag of surrender and wiped his streaming eyes.
“Boy,” he said, still snorting a little, “you are gonna know everything there is to know about the human condition before you make ten. I dunno if to envy you or not.”
“But Mrs. Brant-”
“You never mind her,” he said. “And don’t go askin your mom, either. You’d only upset her, dig what I’m sayin?”
“Yes, sir,” Danny said. He dug it perfectly well. He had upset his mother that way in the past.
“That Mrs. Brant is just a dirty old woman with an itch, that’s all you have to know.” He looked at Danny speculatively. “How hard can you hit, doc?”
“Huh?”
“Give me a blast. Think at me. I want to know if you got as much as I think you do.”
“What do you want me to think?”
“Anything. Just think it hard.”
“Okay,” Danny said. He considered it for a moment, then gathered his concentration and flung it out at Hallorann. He had never done anything precisely like this before, and at the last instant some instinctive part of him rose up and blunted some of the thought’s raw force-he didn’t want to hurt Mr. Hallorann. Still the thought arrowed out of him with a force he never would have believed. It went like a Nolan Ryan fastball with a little extra on it.
(Gee I hope I don’t hurt him)
And the thought was:
(!!! HI, DICK!!!)
Hallorann winced and jerked bac kward on the seat. His teeth came together with a hard click, drawing blood from his lower lip in a thin trickle. His hands flew up involuntarily from his lap to the level of his chest and then settled back again. For a moment his eyelids fluttered limply, with no conscious control, and Danny was frightened.
“Mr. Hallorann? Dick? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hallorann said, and laughed weakly. “I honest to God don’t. My God, boy, you’re a pistol.”
“I’m sorry,” Danny said, more alarmed. “Should I get my daddy? I’ll run and get him.”
“No, here I come. I’m okay, Danny. You just sit right there. I feel a little scrambled, that’s all.”
“I didn’t go as hard as I could,” Danny confessed. “I was scared to, at the last minute.”
“Probably my good luck you did… my brains would be leakin out my ears.” He saw the alarm on Danny’s face and smiled. “No harm done. What did it feel like to you?”
“Like I was Nolan Ryan throwing a fastball,” he replied promptly.
“You like baseball, do you?” Hallorann was rubbing his temples gingerly.
“Daddy and me like the Angels,” Danny said. “The Red Sox in the American League East and the Angels in the West. We saw the Red Sox against Cincinnati in the World Series. I was a lot littler then. And Daddy was…” Danny’s face went dark and troubled.
“Was what, Dan?”
“I forget,” Danny said. He started to put his thumb in his mouth to suck it, but that was a baby trick. He put his hand back in his lap.
“Can you tell what your mom and dad are thinking, Danny?” Hallorann was watching him closely.
“Most times, if I want to. But usually I don’t try.”
“Why not?”
“Well…” he paused a moment, troubled. “It would be like peeking into the bedroom and watching while they’re doing the thing that makes babies. Do you know that thing?”
“I have had acquaintance with it,” Hallorann said gravely.
“They wouldn’t like that. And they wouldn’t like me peeking at their thinks. It would be dirty.”
“I see.”
“But I know how they’re feeling,” Danny said. “I can’t help that. I know how you’re feeling, too. I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s just a headache. I’ve had hangovers that were worse. Can you read other people, Danny?”
“I can’t read yet at all,” Danny said, “except a few words. But Daddy’s going to teach me this winter. My daddy used to teach reading and writing in a big school. Mostly writing, but he knows reading, too.”
“I mean, can you tell what anybody is thinking?”
Danny thought about it.
“I can if it’s loud,” he said finally. “Like Mrs. Brant and the pants. Or like once, when me and Mommy were in this big store to get me some shoes, there was this big kid looking at radios, and he was thinking about taking one without buying it. Then he’d think, what if I get caught?