It's arranged that Dill can stay in Maycomb for the summer.

After an uneventful week, one evening Mr. Heck Tate knocks on the front door of the Finch house. Some men want Atticus to step outside.

The bits of the conversation Scout can hear are about Tom Robinson: Tate doesn't want to keep him in the town jail the night before the trial starts.

There are some back-and-forth threats, and then Atticus says that he's going to make sure that the truth gets told.

Tension rises, until Jem shouts that the telephone's ringing. Atticus tells him to answer it, causing the men—whom Scout now recognizes as people she sees every day—to go off laughing.

Was that a gang? Nope, Atticus says. Those were their friends.

Yeah, some friends.

​

By Shane Walker