Chapters 1-3 in the perspective of Dill

“Dill, now where are you headed?”
“I'm going to the collard patch outside Aunt Rachel,” I said as I opened the back screen door and felt the humid air on my skin.
“Well be back inside for dinner,” she said and I nodded in acknowledgment to her pronouncement.
I sat cross legged in the patch in the back of Aunt Rachel's home. I was already missin' my friends back in Meridian but reminded myself it was only 'til school started up again. A few minutes past as I sat there, staring at the wired fence separating Aunt Rachel's collard patch and the neighbor's yard. Next thing I knew there was two unfamiliar faces staring at me through the fence.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” said a boy who I had learned was named Jem.
I told him my name but he didn't seem to agree that I fit my name perfectly fine 'cause I'm old enough to. His full name wasn't as flattering; Jeremy Atticus Finch, what a strange name. Jem and his little sister Scout were both indigenous to Maycomb in the sense that they were born and raised here. They were wondering why I was here all the sudden so I told 'em 'bout me winning five whole dollars for the Beautiful Child Contest and now my mom and I were going to spend summer here every year. We spent a while talking about ourselves and I told them the story of Dracula that I had seen in the theater.
I liked being with Jem and Scout, we'd always play games where we'd all be characters from a play and act out the story. We had acted out so many stories, none of us had anymore ideas. We sat down thinking of something to do. I looked down the street at the mysterious, malevolent looking home. On the outside it seemed as if the home was abandoned, the grass was uncut, paint peeling and lights off. I had heard of this house from Jem and Scout a bit, which only made me want to find out more about the house and the people inside of it. Jem stared at me as I wrapped my arm around the lightpole and leaned on it while watching the Radley home.
Scout and Jem explained the story of the Radley family. I didn't allow them to see that the stories intimidated me, especially since I would be living in a house very close to the Radley's until the end of summer. I wasn't so sure about Nathan Radley but he seemed very much like his father. I wondered how he was getting along with having to live with that monster, Boo Radley, alone. That night I decided there must be a way to see Boo. Although his story scared me, my eccentric curiosity overpowered fear. I figured that I could probably convince Jem to get Boo Radley out of the house.
In the morning, I was leaning against the lightpole when Jem and Scout came to speak to me.
“Why don't we try to make Boo come out of his house?” I asked them.
“You'll get yourself killed if you get near his house,” Jem warned.
I told him that I would make him a bet that he wouldn't be able to get passed the front gate of the Radley home. He looked at me as if I was insane and said that he wouldn't do it on account of being respectable. After three days of reminding Jem that he was a chiken, he finally made his decision to merely touch the Radely house. He stood nervously in front of the gate with Scout and me right behind him.
“Well, open it already,” I said after a minute.
He reached for the gate and it creaked open. He got ready to run as fast as he could and dashed to the front door and back to the gate with Scout and me panting behind him. Once we got out of the gate, out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw the shutters quickly close. I spent the rest of my summer with Jem and Scout. When the time came to leave Maycomb County and head back Meridian I said my goodbyes to Jem, Scout and Aunt Rachel and left with my mother. The first day of school, I saw my friends that I had left for the summer but now I was missing Jem and Scout and couldn't wait until next summer to visit them once again.