Pennies in my pocket

For a penny Gerald Dean would let me look, and I wanted to see that bright, swollen thing. We were standing on his back porch, and the moon peered down at us through a v-shape in two oak trees sprawled across his back lawn. I scrunched one eye, and stared at Gerald Dean through the other. Beams of moon bounced off the top of his telescope and glinted in his eyes, which looked black in the dark but were really the color of toasted walnuts.

"What good's a penny gonna do ya?" I said. "A penny ain't worth nuthin."

"I collect 'em," he said fast, like he already thought the question before I did.

"Well, I ain't got no pennies," I said and looked up at the moon. A cloud drifted in front of it, covering up Mare Frigoris. The cloud was thin and long, with a bowl on top like a ladies' sunhat with a wide brim. "You better hurry up and decide," I said.

"Gerald Dean." His mother's voice leapt out the window and scurried across the porch. "Come on inside. It's late."

His name raced up our spines like a shiver and when I looked at our arms in the moonlight, we both had goose bumps.

"Your mother is a little spooky," I said. He shrugged, and we both stared at the house.

The windows gaped at us like a black crow with its eyes pecked out. I fingered the pennies I had stowed in my pocket.

"Gerald Dean did you hear me?" The words walked through us like a slice of chill wind, and I grabbed my jacket off the banister and put it on.

"I guess I better go," I said. There were some things I wanted to see and some things I didn't.

The cloud had gathered moisture into itself while we were talking as was as fat as a blood-filled leach. As if the brim had slipped down over the lady's face, now it covered up Mare Imbrium and Sinus Aestuum. The voice of Gerald Dean's mother had faded, but the cold lingered.

"I guess I better go," I said again.

"I guess you better," Gerald Dean said and scowled.

"Do you still want a penny?" I said. "A penny ain't worth nuthin'."

"Yeah, I do," he said.

The cloud slipped off the moon, and Gerald Dean's eyes glittered. For a minute I thought some stars had gotten sucked inside him and were trapped, but it was just an optical illusion.

"Walk me to the gate," I said, "and I'll give you a penny." I wished I could hear Gerald Dean's mother pacing back and forth in the long hall, like I had on some visits when the moon was full, and Mare Frigoris was hidden in dark on dark instead of only disguised by clouds.

"Come on," Gerald Dean said. "We'll go through the house. It's shorter."

I stared at those vacant eyes for less time than it took to touch the pennies in my pocket, and into the gaping mouth I went.

Challenge #2: Moon (502 words)