Twenty Two Years Later: Late September 1985

        The Gold Record in the silver frame on the wall behind his desk was a shock, “How the hell did anyone find that?”

        Jack Harrison, at thirty something years old, looked more like twenty something – He was thin - five feet, eleven inches tall – looked taller, unless he was standing near his long time friend Larry – His long 'medium brown' hair had grown down past his shoulders – was just beginning to thin slightly. He wore a pair of 'comfortably worn and faded boot cut' jeans, 'authentic' moccasins, and a solid green flannel shirt. He had just walked into his brand new 'office' for the first time since the carpenters and the moving crew had finished late last night. This office was in the newest extension of the expanding log cabin building that had begun its life as a much smaller “Common Hall” in the center of the co-op village that now sprawled over several hundred acres of mostly gently sloping south facing hillside, 'Somewhere just off Route 9' in southern Vermont. (He'd read that in one of those Rock N Roll magazines that had pretty much gone main stream by 1985.)

        The 'new-ness' of the office gave it a feeling that was pretty close to sterile. He shivered as he looked around and thought it looked like a set for a home decorating magazine. It smelled brand new. There was the hand-made credenza, about seven feet wide, beneath a huge picture window that faced east and looked out over the convergence of two slopes where maybe half the trees were just beginning to think about 'peaking' into their best autumn colors while the rest were evergreens and would stand there, stoically, through the coming winter.

        But then he noticed the photographs and personal touches someone had brought here from his previous office. He thought the old photos, even the ones he'd taken himself, looked surprisingly professional in their new silver frames

        He almost never got up and out of bed this early. And then - after a twenty minute drive on nearly empty highways before dawn and poking around in the dark, he finally found someone who hadn't gone to bed yet, who knew where to show him where the serious-looking 'industrial' panel of light switches that powered up the 'secondary electric lines' - was. And this guy explained that the 'secondary electric lines' were the ones that carried direct current electricity to the lighting – twelve volt lighting designed for travel trailers and motor homes. Just as bright as 'regular' lighting, “maybe even brighter” – Jack guessed that the guy who explained this stuff was running on a couple quarts of coffee and didn't really know who he was talking to. Anyway – after he received his tutorial on the placement of light switches and the concept behind alternative lighting, Jack flipped all the correct switches and stepped into his new 'office' a little after seven fifteen. The first rays of morning sunlight were streaming over his head and hitting treetops nearby and kissing the ground somewhere much higher up the slope behind him, somewhere he couldn't see from where he stood.

        Someone had actually cleaned the office – almost beyond 'spotless' - and arranged several newly framed photographs along with the older ones on the newly sanded and re-stained credenza. The guitar shaped clock on the wall was also new, with its hour hand shaped like the tuning end of a Gretsch guitar's fret board and the minute hand shaped like that of a Fender - while the clock, running on a quartz battery, quietly ticked as the second hand (with a Fender guitar pick sculpted onto its pointing end) jumped ahead, one second at a time.

        He took a couple steps toward the credenza. And there, in the series of custom shaped silver frames, were more than a dozen photos. Each photo was either signed by the professional photographer who took that photo or had a short caption embossed in the curving 'splotches' of the frame below the actual photograph. There, on the far left, was the color photo of the dozen original co-operative members, sitting on the front porch of the first Common Building they had just finished building. The next photo to the right was the black and white - remarkably well focused - shot of a topless 18 year old photographer focusing her camera on three topless 'hippie chicks' who were trying to look 'natural' while standing on a rickety dock in the middle of a Long Island swamp in the early summer of 1969 - Jack smiled and remembered climbing a short, twisted tree and catching that photo of the soon-to-be-famous photographer who made her name and put an 'underground' music and lifestyle magazine - that you've all heard of since - up there in contention with the more respectable magazines of its day. He walked a little farther to his right with each step, saw photos of a band, shot from back stage, playing to a packed crowd on the summer slope of a nearby ski resort. There was another shot of a very famous rock and roller plugging a guitar into a monster Marshall amp, beside Jack on a stage in Central Park. There were wedding photos, baby photos, a huge group of 'hippies' crowded on the growing porch of the growing Common Building. A shot of somebody grinning with a newly published hard copy of a novel in his hands - Another shot of half a dozen guys and maybe eight women looking ecstatic in a semi circle, everybody's arms around the person next to him or her-

        The door opened and Jack turned around, almost startled, “Larry!-” he was surprised to see his friend carrying a box into his office, “Have you been here all night?”

        “Pretty much-” Larry, six feet three, still built like a healthy swimmer with longer, lighter and redder hair - carried that large, heavy looking cardboard box to the imposing 'executive style'- hand built desk and set it down, “We've been working on getting the-” he comically cleared his throat- “-'Radio Booth-' finished in time for it's official unofficial opening at eight this morning.-”

        Jack pointed to the photos on the credenza, “Who arranged the-?”

        “Oh, Peggy's here- with her daughter and her state cop husband. There are three guys out there, playing spy, running around, trying to guess where the cop might show up next, trying to get to anywhere it looks like he's going ahead of him to warn everybody there's a law man here, he's cool, but don't smoke anything in front of him-”

        Jack grinned and shook his head, looked at the box Larry had just plopped on his desk- “What's this?”

        “That's the box of stuff your mother gave you when we stopped off at your old hacienda on our way back here from --- I think that was either Mike's publication party or the interview you did on the Merv Griffin Show with Robbi and the couple original guys from Mongoose-”

        Jack sighed, looked glum.

        Larry picked up the top item from the open box, “New York Times coverage of the JFK Funeral?-”

        “Holy- ---”

        “Yeah- she said she never threw anything of yours away, your baby shoes might be in there somewhere - The high school magazine - two issues of the literary magazine from our old workshop -”

        “You peeked-” Jack chuckled.

        “Not me -” Larry raised his hands in a surrender posture, “It was one of the girls - Somehow or other this got mixed up in the stuff we brought back to our place.”

        Jack nodded as he picked up five or six copies of the New York Times from the days after the JFK assassination, and found an old photo album beneath that. He set the newspapers down on the desk beside the box and picked up the photo album, opened it, turned a couple pages, “Wow-” and then watched a photograph fall from between two pages and land near the newspapers.

        He balanced the album on the box, picked up the photo and turned it over, then he had to sit down, “I didn't think we still had anything like this – anywhere -”

        Larry walked around behind Jack and the high-backed fabric covered office chair with the wooden frame and the wheels-

        Several Junior High School students were clowning for the photograph with the back walls of their Junior High School behind them - Jack flipped it over, and read the tiny letters printed down near the lower edge, “-'Tuesday, September 24, 1963 – Two months before the second shot heard around the world.'- Any idea whose writing that is?”

        “Peggy thinks it's Denise's.”

        Jack looked like he might even cry, “Do you have any idea how often I wonder what the hell happened to her?”

        “Do you want to know?”

        Jack shook his head, “Not right now- I've got stuff I gotta do and I can't sit here and wallow-” But he flipped the photo back over, pointed- “Barbara-” The blonde in the longish green skirt had tried to hide, but had been shocked by something and jumped, Larry had caught her and she looked happier in that photo than anybody remembered her.

        Larry pointed, “Denise-” Posing like a manikin with her fingers splayed out and her head tipped, looking incredibly cute with a vacant stare-

        Jack laughed, nodded and pointed- “Peggy-” Tall, thin and perky, her happy smile conveyed unlimited enthusiasm and energy – She had grinned right at the camera.

        Larry smiled, “She still looks like that-”

        Jack sighed, looked away and winced, “Stuart-” Somber, reflective, dressed too formally for junior high school, looking very Jewish, standing next to Denise's very Jewish looking sister, Rhonda. Jack did have to wipe a tear from his eye.

        Larry nodded, “Mike-” looked quite dashing in short blond hair – wearing a sport coat and chinos with a crisp, straight seam.

        Jack pointed, “You-” looking very happy to have Barbara almost in his arms.

        Larry pointed, “And some pain in the ass named 'Sean'-” - It was Jack, sitting on a bicycle rack, looking like a tortured young poet, philosopher or artist.

        Jack laughed, “Who took this?”

        “Beats the hell out of me-”

        Jack took one more long look and clamped his eyes shut, “Just before the shit hit the fan-”

Labor Day, Monday, September 2nd, 1963

     Almost fourteen year old Jack sat in the shade of his grandparent's eight by eight foot covered front porch. He looked more than a little bit restless. He sighed and leaned back against the eight by eight inch post his grandfather had used to support the porch roof instead of trying to buy a ready made column, or buying thicker posts and turning them on a lathe, and, 'cutting away everything that didn't look like a column'.

     Jack glanced sideways toward his sister, twelve year old Beth. She was six feet away, talking with the eleven year twin daughters of a family friend.

     One of the twins, who would probably be cute in a year or two, whispered, “All those kids belong to one family?”

     The other twin glanced at Jack, then pretended to be looking at the kids. Jack pretended his eyes were closed.

     Beth whispered, “The two- woops, three? Bigger kids, wait a minute, the oldest girl, Jean, with the blondest hair? All the younger ones are her brothers and sisters. The other biggest girl, the almost blond? She's Jean's friend, I don't know who the dark haired one is.”

     Jack glanced back at the twins when he knew they weren't looking. They were both 'almost blond' and had curly hair that had been cut fairly short in a way that made them look something like two nearly identical versions of the sphinx. They both had green eyes. One was wearing a blue cotton blouse, the other was wearing yellow. The yellow one was light enough to reveal hints of a bra beneath the blouse.

     Ben had been pacing around a foot or two from the porch, he stepped closer, looked down at Beth and said, “Yeah, it looks like there are two and a half bigger kids watching the little ones,” laughed, and walked back to the tree that was less than a foot from the driveway, the 'catalpa tree'. He turned around and leaned back against the tree.

     Both twins looked at Ben like his size really worried them. He was already over six feet tall and 'solidly built'. His upper arms were probably bigger around than Beth's thighs. He would turn thirteen in December, and was already practicing trying to convince people that he was fourteen. Before Beth and twins came along he'd admitted to Jack that he couldn't wait to get away from this annual picnic, far enough away to light up a cigarette.

     The twins were still gawking at the kids in the street.

     Jack turned and tried to pretend he wasn't bored half to death, “The youngest ones on the tricycles, the ones they won't let go zooming down the hill are the second set of twins. Robby and Roger- they're- I think, three and a half years old. The five year old girl with the blue sun-suit is Julie, she's a sweetheart, but a terror on the tricycle, don't step in front of her, she'll knock you down. She's, um, 5 years old since July something. The other two on the biggest tricycles are Cindy and Sam, they were the first set of twins, they turned 6 years old in May I think. Cindy might not look it, but she's a girl. The seven year old who just tagged his sister is Christopher. The eight year old he just tagged and who screamed that she doesn't want to play tag, is Christine. The nine year old who looks like she doesn't know whether she should be helping her big sister watch the smaller ones or playing with them, is Veronica- Everybody calls her 'Ronny' because she hates it.”

     The twins sat up a little straighter when he turned toward them, looked at each other a couple times and tried not to giggle.

     Jack glanced back, “The other, slightly bigger girl out there, what? Half an inch shorter than Jean? -The one whose hair is the same color as yours, is Kristien, spelled with a 'K'. And I don't know who the dark haired troublemaker who is trying to be a boss with the other two bigger girls is, either.”

     The twin in the blue cotton blouse looked nervous, swallowed, “Thank you.”

     The one in the yellow smiled and stared down at a flower she'd just pulled all the petals from.

     The one in the blue tapped the one in the yellow on the shoulder and glanced back toward the adults.

     The one in the yellow looked at Beth, then Jack, “We'll be back-” and they got up and hurried away.

     Ben walked over, sat down where they had been, “What did you say to them? You scared them away-” he grinned, “Thanks-”

     Beth scowled and almost took a swat at Ben, shuddered instead, “They're nice girls-”

     Ben nodded, leaned back against the square post on that side of the porch and closed his eyes, “Maybe too nice. They told my mother I had a pack of cigarettes in my pocket.”

     “What did your mother do?”

     “She took it away and started smoking them. She said I was too young and she was all out.”

     The three more adventurous tricycle riders went charging down the 'hill' in front of the Harrison house. Jean almost ran after them, but had to stop the younger twins from charging down too. Kristien got to Robby and caught his handlebars just in time. He nearly broke free, but then the dark haired girl stepped in front of him and put her foot up on the spot where the front fender and the front tire almost met.

     When the three and a half year olds turned around and pedaled back toward the fence and the wall at the end of the road, Jean turned and called down to the three who had just gotten past her, “Remember the rules, if you can't get back up by yourself, you can't go down the hill again-”

     That hill only dropped six feet, and slowly at that. It took about seventy five feet to drop six. When you're less than three feet tall, that probably looked a whole lot more dangerous and more fun than when you were 'almost a grown up'.

     “How wide is this road?” Ben sounded like he had died of boredom.

     Jack shrugged, “Twenty one and a half feet wide, I measured it once.”

     Ben pointed to the green, 1957 Ford parked off the road next door, in front of the Herzog's smallish, single floor house, “They park on their front lawn, off the side of the road. Sekelskys don't drive and the Adamchecks beyond have a paved driveway and use a fixed up barn for a garage back there. Welshes drive down the gravel ramp at the end of the road and park their car in their back yard. Every house is different.”

     And that was just the top of the hill, on this side.

     One of the kids climbed off his tricycle at the bottom of the hill and started to cry, “Jean- It's too high, I can't make it.”

     Jean turned with her hands on her hips, “If I have to come down there, I'm bringing your tricycle up onto the porch and that will be the end of your riding for you today.”

     Ben stood up and raised his arms, “If I have to come down to help you, I will eat your tricycle and they what will you do?”

     The kid jumped and pushed his tricycle up the hill in a big hurry. His twin sister, Cindy, pedaled furiously up the hill and into the little bit of Grampa Harrison's driveway that didn't have a car parked in it, “No you won't, you can't eat metal-”

     Ben laughed and Cindy laughed with him, then she turned her tricycle around and charged out into the street, turned around and moved her feet away from the pedals and let gravity pull her down the hill again.

     Cousin Pat came toward the porch in a hurry, not quite running, almost tripped over something, looked at Beth, hesitated, “Um, your father told a joke and the twins have to go home.”

     Beth looked scared, she got up and almost ran back up to the picnic table beside Pat.

     “Uht-oh?” Ben laughed quietly.

     “Sounds like good old Rocky's at it again.” Jack chuckled.

     “Can we leave now, I am dying for a cigarette.” Ben groaned and turned to look up the hill where the twins' parents were offering excuses and asking for whoever was parked behind them in the driveway to please move their car.

     Ben got up and stood there, looking back across the side yard where almost a dozen smaller relatives and friends' kids were playing, some of them in the kids' pool. But he looked past, and over, them and up the hill.

     Jack got up, walked a few steps and stood beside Ben.

     The twins, two girls who had turned eleven years old in July, looked miserable as they stood behind their father and mother.

     Rocky, Jack's father, stood up, looked angry, tried to take a step forward and fell back into the chair he was sitting in.

     The twins' father stepped closer to Rocky and once again explained, “No, it's nothing you said or did- we really have to go- my brother is calling us from Seattle in-” he checked his watch, “Half an hour, we told everybody when we got here, then we were having such a good time, we almost lost track of what time it is.”

     These were old friends of the family, the father had gone to school with both Rocky and Jack's mother, probably liked Jack's mother better, Rocky had always been a bully. They hadn't come to one of these picnics in years. Maybe because of something Rocky said or did last time.

     Almost all the 'adults' at the Harrison's annual Labor Day picnic were up the hill in the back yard, in the shaded, almost perfectly flat area around the picnic table. Rocky had brought a case of beer, and from the sound of things, drank half of it already himself.

     Aunt Laurel, Ben's mother, got up, reached into the pocket of her blue-gray with white stripes Bermuda shorts and came up with her car keys, “I'm the last one in the back-” she said and tossed the keys to twenty year old Uncle Erik, Rocky and Laurel's baby brother.

     Uncle Erik, the six foot tall, not-quite-as-thin-as-he-used-to-be red head who always looked like he combed his hair with an egg-beater, grinned, turned, ran a few steps, jumped over somebody who was almost asleep in a chaise lounge and continued running toward the driveway.

     Ben and Jack looked behind them, turned and walked toward the road.

     Jean and her friends, were still quite busy with Jean's younger brothers and sisters, five of them on tricycles zooming around in seven different directions at once, while the two smallest kept trying to shoot down the slight hill that probably looked like a mountain to them. The three slightly older kids were still arguing about wanting to play tag or anything but tag, with the 9 year old half thinking she should act like an adult and help Jean keep the younger ones from hurting themselves or beating on each other- the other half wanted to run around and win at every game of tag the others could think of.

     Kristien looked up and smiled. Jean turned around and looked dazed, but then she burst into a smile, “Can you guys come out and-”

     Robby almost broke free, heading for the hill at top speed. Ben jumped down into a crouching posture and growled at him. Robby screamed, jumped off his tricycle and ran all the way home. Ben picked up the tricycle and pretty much slung it over his shoulder and announced, “It's mine now!”

     Robby glanced back, screamed louder and ran harder.

     Jean laughed, accepted the tricycle when Ben brought it around and handed it to her, “Thanks- thanks for stopping him, he's the worst-”

     Ben didn't let go of the tricycle until it was back down on the road. Jean turned the handle bars so it wouldn't accidentally roll down the hill.

     “We're not free yet-” Jack told them, “They're going to start moving a couple cars around, we thought we should warn you-”

     Jean assumed a sort of ballet stance with her feet, but her head was tipped to one side as she squinted and tried to cover her eyes with one hand while she looked up at Jack, “Okay- thanks, but you're still going to come out and-” she waved her arms around and then shrugged.

     Jack nodded, then assumed a strange accent, “Let me take you away from all this-”

     She laughed, nodded, “Please?”

     Then Ben chased after and caught Roger, who had almost gotten to the top of the hill. Ben caught the back of the tricycle below the seat and the poor kid was pedaling like mad and getting nowhere. When he turned around and saw Ben, he screamed-

     Jean's mother waddled out of her house, across their sunken porch, up the stone steps and stood beside Jean, shielding her eyes as the sun went behind another cloud.

     Jean turned to her mother, “They're going to move some cars to let somebody go home.”

     And the almost five foot tall, would be slim if she wasn't six months pregnant- woman put two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle that could have knocked a bird off a branch half a mile away-

     All the kids knew she meant businesses and turned and either ran of raced their tricycles toward the shade of the tree that almost completely hid their house from the street.

     Jean pulled Robby's tricycle behind her as she bent over and made sure she was the last person to gain the sanctuary of her own front yard.

     Jack and Ben were almost back in Grampa and Grandma Harrison's yard when Erik stood at the door of Ben's mother's old '53 Chevy- with its green body and white roof-

     Erik stood there with his hands up, “Hey, could you guys stand there and watch out while I back out and turn-” he looked up and down the street, “Turn backwards up that way?”

     Ben grinned and nodded.

     Jack nodded and stood at the edge of the Herzog's weirder color green 57 Ford.

     Erik started the Chevy up, shifted into reverse, twisted himself around in the driver's seat and began backing up.

     Ben walked along on the driver's side while Jack stepped back into the road and kept his eye on the kids in Jean's yard who were eager to watch Erik back the car up.

     “Start turning-” Ben said and motioned, “Or you'll hit Murphy's bank again-”

     Erik nodded and began turning the wheel, did manage not to hit the bank, backed all the way into the wrong lane, “I'm going to back all the way to the end of the road.”

     Ben nodded and walked along with him as he backed farther.

     Jack ran a few steps to the back of the car and walked along with it.

     “Hey, wait a minute, I can't block the chief's driveway parked on the wrong side of the road-” Erik shifted into first and drove up alongside Herzog's Ford and needed guides again to back all the way and block the Welsh's driveway instead.

     Erik turned off the engine, made sure the parking brake was on, pulled the keys and got out. When he looked up at Ben- this might have been the first time he realized his 'little nephew' was taller than he was.

     They laughed and walked back toward the driveway where they began guiding the family friend as he backed out of the driveway with the twins looking forlorn in the back seat of their 1962 Comet.

     Erik stood at the driver's door when the guy was ready to drive away, “Sorry about that-”

     The guy shrugged, “Some people never change- maybe he can't help it-”

     Erik shrugged.

     The man looked back at Jack and hoped he didn't know what that conversation was about, then waved to Jack and Ben, “Thanks- thank you-” put the shifter in D and drove away.

     The twins turned around and waved out the back window as Beth and Patrick joined the boys in the street.

     Erik looked at Ben and Jack, “I guess I have to move it back up here, don't I?” made sure he still had the key in his hand and walked back to the Chevy.”

     Ben laughed, “Need help?”

     Erik turned like he wasn't sure he'd heard that right and then shook his head and laughed, “I think I can handle this one.”

     Jack, Beth, Patrick and Ben made it back to the porch before Erik drove the old Chevy up beside the house, and parked it almost exactly where it had been before he moved it.

     And Jack and Beth's mother came along, “Well that was a close one, I almost thought we'd have to leave- did you hear him?”

     “No-” Beth shook her head.

     “What'd he say?” Jack asked.

     “Ask me when we get home-” his mother answered, “But, okay- you can leave the yard now. Just don't go too far, we might have to send somebody out after you if your father either gets somebody mad enough to- I don't even want to think about it- or, like last year, he might just decide it's time to go and start screaming at me again-”

     Jack nodded, he remembered- But he also remembered that his mother had just given them official permission to leave the yard, “Thanks-”

     “You're welcome-”

     So Jack, Ben, Beth and Pat escaped from the picnic and walked out into the road.

     “Wuh- why did uh, Erik need you guys in the street?” Patrick asked Ben.

     “Last week, no two weeks ago- he almost backed into the chief's car when he didn't see him coming.”

     Pat laughed nervously, “That wuh-wouldn't be good.”

     Ben grinned, shook his head, “No, it wouldn't-”

     Jack and Ben took the lead, walking up the street to where the Welsh gang was still in their own front yard and their mother was standing there with them.

     The mother took a step up and peered down the road as Jack almost reached the road in front of her house, “Is that it, is anybody else going to be coming down the driveway?”

     “They're finished for now. We've been set free-” Jack smiled. He'd gotten to know the whole family a couple years ago, after Rocky fell asleep with a lit cigarette and caused a fire that the inspectors blamed on an electrical short circuit. The whole family had moved in with Grandma and Grampa for three months. Insurance paid for the repairs and included a small check for housing. Rocky split that check with his father. The kids solidified their friendships and everybody was happy until somebody told Rocky that the contractor had screwed him and charged more than he should have. Rocky was still threatening to kill the guy if he ever saw him again.

     Mrs Welsh looked at Jean and they exchanged 'meaningful looks' after which Mrs Welsh nodded, “Okay kids, are you almost ready for dessert?”

     They nodded.

     Julie smiled and said, “Yes please-” and started a chorus of “Yes, please-”

     Their mother looked pleased, “Okay, in ten minutes-” she smiled and turned and waddled back into her house.

     The kids exploded, everybody running every which way. Jean, Kristien, the dark haired girl, Beth, Jack and Ben all jumped to try to form a ring around them. Patrick covered his ears and stood in the middle of the mayhem looking like he was afraid he might get trampled, but couldn't move.

     Jack was probably about five foot ten or eleven. He had dark blue eyes and medium brown hair, was kind of thin, 'wiry' and intense. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans that hadn't disintegrated yet, and a loose cotton shirt that was solid up the front, had three buttons at the neck, a pocket and a collar. The shirt was darker blue than the faded jeans. He was wearing black slip-on shoes that almost looked like moccasins, but had a rubber sole and heal and a leather strap over the top of  each foot with a dercorative metal coin or circular medalion. These were his new school shoes and they were soft enough leather, but he had been told to wear them for a couple days to break them in. He would turn 14 years old in about a week.

     Beth had turned twelve years old a couple days ago. She had lighter brown hair, freckles, stood about five foot five and wore a pair of blue framed glasses. The frames pointed at their outer top corners and were rounded, more like oval, on the bottom. Jack thought they made her look weird, but she liked them. She was wearing a pair of light blue shorts that almost covered her knees, and a cream colored cotton blouse that was almost a tee shirt, but thicker, and she had an older pair of worn tennis shoes on her feet.

     Ben, who wasn't quite towering over everybody when Jack was near him, had hair that was darker than Beth's but lighter than Jacks. He was wearing a new off white pair of pants his mother had bought him for the first day of school, then told him to wear to the picnic. She'd also insisted he wear his 'nice' new dark and light blue plaid short sleeved cotton shirt that had also been designated as his first day of school shirt, but his mother really wanted him to look good today. He didn't know why. At least she didn't insist that he wear school shoes. He was wearing last springtime's penny loafers with real pennies in place.

     Patrick had dark, almost black hair. He would be thirteen in January. He wore thick glasses, looked like he took everything seriously, but had a really weird sense of humor. Yes, he was seriously intelligent. And he had been told to wear school clothes to the picnic too. A pair of dark chinos and a dark blue short-sleeved cotton, almost dressy shirt, and high-topped black sneakers. He had insisted on wearing the sneakers.

     Cousins Ben and Patrick would probably never talk to each other if they weren't cousins. But, since they were, and because Ben and especially Jack had learned to enjoy Pat's very strange jokes, the two 'older' cousins had a 'natural' protective attitude toward the 'younger' cousin who was actually only a month and a half younger than Ben, but looked and acted much younger. Pat and Ben both lived across the river from Springfield, in Milford, behind the big power plant that was plainly visible from the top of the hill at the end of Rockwell Street.

     Jean was the tallest and easiest to spot on the other side of the kids in the street. She had just turned, or would soon turn, twelve years old. As oldest of ten kids, she was the designated third in command and had a lot of responsibilities, but she was always smiling. Now she stood up almost taller than she actually was, and counted heads. Then moved a few steps to where she could watch everybody and had her feet pointed in her kind of ballerina stance, with just a little less poise than a 'real' ballerina. She was slim, almost blond, a 'cute' and usually happy kid. During the summer she'd tanned quite a bit, and her hair had lightened. Up until recently, she had always been out and around the neighborhood in shorts and a tee shirt, and almost always barefoot if she could help it. Today she was wearing something a little bit looser, something that looked like a light weight, dark and light blue with a yellow sun and hints of green tropical foliage - almost see through 'beach jacket' over what looked like it might be her bathing suit. Whether that was a beach jacket or not, it was probably something a young woman might wear over a bathing suit that she thought might be a bit too revealing. She was also wearing tight fitting shorts that almost covered to her knees. The shorts were brown with a pattern of small orange dashes down the sides of her legs. She was suddenly looking a lot more sexy than she had a couple years ago.

     Kristien Krazinski was a middle kid with two older sisters. One sister was married and lived in California, the other was in high school. Kristien also had a younger brother who was probably about eight or nine years old. He was nowhere in sight, probably home playing with his trucks and cars, pushing roads through in the sandy area that he screamed was not a sand box. Kristien had very green eyes and very clear-smooth skin, even with a tan that was almost as deep as Jean's, she had an 'other worldly' quality that Jack couldn't quite identify as he approached his fourteenth birthday. She was six months away from her twelfth birthday, sometimes looked extraordinarily fragile and other times looked and acted like she could play tackle on anybody's football team. She was a Pisces. One of her sisters had explained that to her. Maybe she had no idea what that meant- but she did have an artistic, almost mystical outlook on life, and sometimes let the 'wrong' people know how sensitive she could be. But then those wrong people might tease her or call her a name on the wrong day, under the wrong phase of the moon and discover that she could be quick and deadly and knew where to kick and could take any antagonist by surprise. Today she was wearing the top of a modest deep-blue two piece bathing suit and an almost new light blue and white checked cotton short-sleeved shirt that she hadn't buttoned. She was wearing tight new shorts, about the same length as Jean's, and her shorts were almost the same color as the bathing suit top. Both girls were wearing well worn tennis shoes. It wasn't always easy to know what kind of mood she was in. For instance, today, with Jean's brothers and sisters all calling her variations of her name, some calling her 'Christian' others calling her 'Christine' and still others calling her 'Kristin' and one calling her 'Kirstin' and then others calling her 'Kirstine' – The last time Jack had heard them going on like that they had driven her crazy. They knew they'd succeeded in that when she covered her ears, screamed and ran all the way home. Then they'd laughed, and Jean had gone ballistic, yelling at them. They laughed at her, then Jean screamed. Her mother had come to the doorway before Kristien had run home and opened the door, quietly picked out the ringleaders, called them, “Ronnie, Christopher, Christine, Sam and Robby- go to your rooms, NOW!” and the suddenly not so happy kids stopped laughing and trudged into the house looking like a chain gang. Today Kristien seemed not to notice their attempts to rattle her cage. She had stationed herself at the top of the gravel driveway / ramp and looked like she was day dreaming about something pleasant while she kept her face turned toward the mob of kids running wild around her.

     Beth was running around, near Jean, trying to keep the kids on tricycles from doing anything dangerous.

     The new girl with them- She had darker, wavier hair and very blue eyes. She had a mischievous grin and looked like she could imagine all kinds of ways to get into trouble that most people would never dream of, and she looked like she believed she would probably get away with anything. Jack couldn't tell how old she might be at all. Jean's nine 'and a half year old' sister looked much younger than the dark haired girl. Jack guessed she had to be older than Jean's sister. But how much older? He couldn't guess.

     Kristien came over to Jack, the new girl came at him from another angle, “Hi, Jack, this is Michele- She's Mrs McKendricks' granddaughter- You know, Mrs McKendricks?-” she pointed.

     Jack turned and looked where she pointed, “Pretty much across the street from you?”

     Kristien nodded, smiled and then reached out and caught the almost four-year-old who had suddenly jumped from his tricycle to run after something he saw or imagined up the slight hill toward the Murphy's green house. The chief's house, one of two houses on the south side of the street, was on a slight hill, maybe four feet higher than any other house on the street. The Murphy family had a green house there since forever- and little kids who didn't know better than to pick up a rock and throw it over the hedge were not supposed to approach the greenhouse, or the hedge or the hill on that side of the street. They all knew that.

     So, yup- it was Robby who made the mad dash for forbidden territory.

     The boy wiggled free and Kristien ran around trying to catch him, or at least stay between him and the Murphy's property.

     Michele was shorter than Kristien, who was probably almost five feet tall. Jean had probably grown over the summer to around five feet three. Jean's nine year old sister was almost as tall as Michele. Jack was trying to guess how tall that made her, four feet, ten inches tall?

     “Hi, I'm Michele- you're Jack-” She almost laughed.

     “That's funny?”

     “No, Kristien chasing Robby all around is funny- And she likes doing that.”

     Jack shrugged, “Gives her something to do- and when all the kids are inside and Jean is still on duty, Kristien gets to go home.”

     Michele looked thoughtful for a minute, then turned her back on everybody but Jack, frowned, “I'm older than I look-” And pulled her blouse tight to prove it.

     Jack at least pretended to look shocked.

     Michele laughed, then stopped and almost glared at him, “Yes, they're real, what? Are you going to tell me to show you to make sure?”

     He might have been shocked at first, but then smiled as he shook his head, “I'll take your word for it- and I didn't say anything- I didn't even think they look like anything but the real thing-”

     Michele's face darkened as she frowned, she turned and almost left to go stand and glare at the world from somewhere else. She was wearing brand new denim shorts, a brand new blue and red  plaid cotton button blouse with pockets, and brand new nayy blue tennis shoes.

     She stopped and looked up at Ben, then turned and walked back to Jack, pointed to Patrick, “Who's he?”

     “He's my brilliant cousin Patrick. One of these days, he will probably be a millionaire smart guy inventing things that nobody else ever thought of but him, or developing things that nobody thought were possible, but right now he sometimes needs somebody to make sure he ties his shoes before he runs outside, and then make sure he pays attention to what's going on in the real world and doesn't step out in front of a bus while thinking about something really important, like how to tell a girl a joke that won't make her run away screaming.”

     Michele thought about that, then grinned.

     “Do you know my cousin Ben already?” He pointed up and craned his neck.

     She looked confused, but then caught on, grinned from ear to ear.

     “And that-” he pointed, moved his finger to follow Beth as she ran in front of Robby and caught him as he thought he could escape from Kristien and actually make it to forbidden ground-, “Is my sister, Beth.”

     Michele grinned again.

     Mrs Welsh waddled out of their house again- put two fingers in her mouth and let out that incredibly loud whistle of hers, “Dessert time!”

     And as Jean almost followed her last younger sibling into the house, her mother stopped her, waved her off, “I'll save yours for later, go have fun with your friends, and thanks for being such an angel and watching them out here so long, I really needed a break-" Mrs Welsh kissed her daughter on her cheek and Jean was so relieved that she was free for a couple hours that she didn't even seem to mind.

     Kristien, no longer worried about Robby, walked over, closer to Jack and stared away, toward the west or north-west and shielded her eyes as she looked up into the clouds.

     “Were they trying to get you upset again by mispronouncing your name?” Jack smiled.

     Kristien looked up at Jack and smiled, appreciatively, “They do that every once in a while.” She shrugged, “It's getting easier to pretend it doesn't bother me at all.”

     Michele scowled at first, but then looked like she was thinking about something, “How is it supposed to be pronounced?”

     “-'Kristin' is okay with me, that's what I call myself. But they tell me I have an old family name that I think was pronounced 'Kristie-enn' in the old country. That's what my grandmother and old aunts who couldn't speak a word of English always called me.”

     “What old country?” Michele watched Patrick as he walked over to where Jean and Beth were talking.

     Kristien shrugged, “My parents don't talk about it a lot, when we ask they tell us we're a mix of Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian and Slovakian.”

     Michele bumped into Jack and tried to subtly point toward Patrick and Beth.

     Patrick asked Jean a question that Jack, Kristien and Michele couldn't hear. Jean looked puzzled for a minute or two and then shrugged, “Well I just got permission to take off and 'play' with you guys.”

     Michele scowled darkly, “I don't believe she has to ask permission-” then she jabbed Jack in the ribs with her elbow and gave him a look that he interpreted as 'next time I'll aim lower' as she frowned at his crotch.

     “Beth- Pat- Ben- This is Michele-”

     Michele turned and beamed a ver innocent smile at Patrick.

     Pat looked like he thought she was probably smiling at somebody else, actually turned around to see who might be standing behind him, but then smiled back, took a step toward her, almost tripped, came over and extended his hand, bowed a bit, “Nice to meet you-”

     Michele glanced up at Jack with a, 'Now-that's-weird' expression, but smiled broadly at Patrick and shook his hand. And wouldn't let go for almost a full minute.

     Jean came over toward Jack and Beth came with her.

     Ben was staring off across the sand from a few feet behind Jack, turned and waved when he introduced Michele, then turned around and stared away again. Jack guessed he was looking to see how far he had to get before he lit up a cigarette.

     Jean looked up and kind of squinted, even if the sun was behind her, “Where do you guys all want to go?”

     Ben pointed down into the sand down and to the right of where they stood, off beyond the creek, over toward the 'rocks'.

     Jean smiled, “Okay- I'll go tell my mother where we're going-” she began walking quickly toward her home, with Kristen hurrying along beside her.

     Michele scowled again, “I don't believe she has to ask permission to go anywhere-”

     Patrick stuttered through a question, “D-did y-you just m-move here?”

     Michele seemed happy that Pat was at all interested, maybe she was happy that anybody was interested enough to ask a question, turned and pointed to a house they could barely see from where they were, a light green older house with two stories and an attic, and a steeply pitched roof, across Hastings Street, the road that connected Rockwell Street with MacDonald Street -which was parallel to Rockwell, and Patch Road, that ran out to East Main Street and had a dirt road extension with a couple houses kind of hidden away, surrounded by trees and a small jungle of weeds and wild plants that liked living near the creek which was south of Patch Road, “I think we're going to live with my grandmother- she lives in that green colored house down there-”

     “You think?”

     She shrugged, “My mother and I aren't sure yet- depends on whether she gets a job or not.”

     “Wuh-what ab-about your f-father?”

     She winced, “Don't ask about my so-called father-” she rolled her eyes.

     “Wuh-why not?”

     She tried to look upset, but grinned like she was absolutely delighted that Patrick was paying attention to her, “Because he's an asshole, that's why-”

     Patrick looked shocked.

     Michele moved enough to cast a triumphant glance up toward Jack.

     “Wuh, what kind of-” Patrick swallowed, “Ice-hole- is he.”

     Michele giggled, her eyes were positively gleaming as she nodded, “Oh, he's a real ice-hole okay- He ran off with his boss's wife and left my mother and me- then the shit really hit the fan.”

     “The f-fit really hit the sh-shan?” Patrick grinned.

     Jack wondered if that might be what Patrick actually heard, or did his brain translate what he'd heard into that inside out phrase.

     She laughed happily, “Yup- the fit really hit the shan on that one,” She leaned against Pat's arm and kissed his cheek.

     Pat looked astounded, like maybe he'd actually felt real boobs against his arm. That would more than likely have to have been a first- with the possible exception of his mother, who didn't count.

     Jean and Kristien came back out of the Welsh home with big smiles on their faces, nodding, pointing toward the rocks.

     As Jack, Ben and the others turned to glance down the sandy, gravely 'driveway' – ramp that was probably put there by the town engineers to facilitate the special Army surplus trucks that carried the land fill around the edges of the swamp where they were they'd planned to pump the sand when they dredged the river- the sand which now made up the little desert beyond the end of the road - They noticed a guy about Jack's age and a girl about Beth's age walking out of the reeds, at the far northern edge of the 'desert' – maybe two hundred yards or more away, to the north.”

     “Who's that?” Michele almost grumbled, like she was worried that somebody might distract Patrick.

     Beth perked up, “I think that's Carol Wilkenson, and her brother, Larry- She was in girl scouts and now she's probably in my class at Lincoln-”

     “Lincoln?” Michele scowled, “What's Lincoln?”

     “The Junior High school for everybody north of Bridgeport Avenue-” Jack almost whispered.

     “Are we north of Bridgeport Avenue?” she asked.

     "Yup-" He nodded.

     She asked Patrick, “Where do you go to school?”

     He pointed across the river, “N-N-Naugatuck Avenue School, with B-Ben-” he pointed to Ben.

     Jean covered her eyes, like a scout might in an old cowboy movie, then nodded, “Yeah, that's Larry and Carol, they live on the other side of the nursery-”

     Michele made a face, “Nursery?”

     Jack pointed, “The woods- It used to be a commercial tree growing operation- they call that a nursery. The Conways made a lot of money selling trees to people, then made a lot more money selling the woods to construction companies that want to fill our forest with houses.”

     “Sounds like a good idea-” she grinned.

     He shook his head, “We can't play in the woods any more- that sucks.”

     She considered that, looked at Pat and smiled.

     Jack wondered if she was thinking that Patrick might be more her size. He was one of the shortest guys in the whole family, a second cousin to Jack, first cousin to Ben. Patrick's hair was almost the same shade of 'dark' as hers.

     The whole group of them sort of started down the driveway / ramp at the same time with nobody taking the lead or saying anything.

     The boy and the girl in the sand saw them coming.

     Beth waved.

     Jean waved.

     The girl out there waved back, turned to the boy, probably said something, and started walking more quickly toward the approaching group while the guy kind of hung back and did not speed up, possibly out of caution, seeing Ben and Jack there- Not recognizing them.

     Pat, halfway down the ramp, stopped, “D-do I n-need p-per- m-mission to g go any wuh where be y yond here?”

     Jack answered, “I doubt it- but if you want to make sure, go ahead and ask your parents. Don't run, you should be able to see us when you come back to here.”

     Patrick nodded for a few long moments, looking like he was trying to memorize the order of things he had to do, then smiled, and almost ran, but slowed down and only hurried up the driveway.

     “What did you do that for?” Michele glared at Jack, “I like him. He's funny-”

     “If you hurt his feelings I'll-” Jack shrugged, “No I won't- but I'll be angry-” he pretended to glare at her.

     She laughed, “What were you going to say?”

     “I was going to say, if you hurt him- I'll strangle you, but-” he looked glum, “I couldn't do that, I'd spend the rest of my life thinking you just might have grown up to be a good person and what did I do? I lost my temper and killed somebody who could have been a really good friend.”

     She looked at him like she was convinced he was crazy, “So you said Pat was a genius?”

     “Almost a genius- you can't really tell from those stupid tests. But who knows, maybe he'll discover the cure for cancer and make zillions of dollars when he grows up, if some cutey doesn't break his heart at the wrong time- or some idiot bully doesn't beat him senseless on the way to school and give him permanent brain damage.”

     She looked up at Jack and blinked, like maybe she was considering the idea that there just might be hope for Jack after all.

     “Or-” Jack shrugged, “Who knows, he might turn out to be an evil genius and conquer the world, turn us all into his slaves-”

     She laughed again, shook her head, “That might even be more fun.”

     "Well, hey-” Jack pretended to be deep in thought, “He might need a diabolical, plotting and scheming wife to keep him on track, help him torture his victims, like, for instance hand him his branding irons and the tongs to pull their tongues out with when he forgot where he left them.”

     She laughed, then turned away and shuddered, waved something away, waved at it again, turned and looked desperate, “Don't talk about torture, okay?” and she stared up at him like she wasn't kidding.

     He winced, thought she might have been abused or something and the word 'torture' brought something back, “Sorry-”

     She turned, looked at him, looked through him, seemed impressed by something, “Accepted- you couldn't know-”

     Kristien stopped and let Jack and Michele catch up to her, “What are you two talking about?”

     And Beth, who had been in front of almost everybody, stopped and let Kristien and Jack and Michele catch up to her, caught Kristien's eye and groaned, “My stupid brother was teasing your friend-” she glared at Jack and then took off to run the last few yards to meet up with her other friend, who was now running toward her.

     Kristien smiled at Jack, “You were teasing Michele?”

     Jack shrugged, “Somebody has to-”

     Kristien looked shocked, then laughed again.

     Michele scowled, “Oh- you can kiss my-”

     And Jean quickly clamped her hand over Michele's mouth, “If my mother hears you, she'll come out screaming and send you home, maybe even drag you all the way home and tell your grandmother.”

     Michele, her mouth still covered, suddenly had a renewed sparkle to her eyes, the kind of sparkle that might accompany a really evil grin.

     Jean pulled her hand away from Michele's mouth, “Ewwwww- she licked me-” Jean gasped.

     Michele thought Jean's expression was the best thing she'd seen all day.

     Jack stepped closer to Jean, took her offended hand and wiped it on his shirt.

     Jean smiled and then wiped her hand on his back. She shuddered and wrinkled her nose and might have tried to wipe the memory of having Michele lick her hand after that hand was as dry as she could get it, Then, when her other hand touched his chest, she looked stunned, looked up at Jack, with an expression that looked very much like a speechless, 'uht-oh-'

     Jack looked into Jean's eyes and smiled.

     That made her 'uht-oh' expression even worse.

     Beth and Carol met, almost halfway from their original positions. Jean and Kristien took a few hurried steps to catch up. Jean turned back to look at Jack with a slightly worried expression on her face.

     Jack and Michele plodded along and reached the group almost at the same moment that Larry caught up, coming from the other direction. Ben was several yards back, he'd managed to light a cigarette and was smoking with the cigarette cupped in his hand, keeping it a secret from almost everyone else.

     Jean stood in her ballet position with her right elbow at her hip and her right forearm moving to point at everybody in turn as she introduced them, “Okay, Carol and Beth? You know each other? Larry- Carol's brother, this is Jack- I think you already know Kristien, this is Michele, and-” she looked around, “Ben- and-” she pointed as Pat ran halfway down the ramp way back there, almost lost his balance and stopped, slowed down to a quick normal hurrying pace, “That's Patrick-”

     Larry was taller than Jack, and shorter than Ben. He had reddish light brown hair, greenish eyes, a few freckles and was wearing a dark colored tee shirt beneath a light cotton unbuttoned short-sleeved light blue almost-denim shirt and jeans that were more faded than Jack's, His shoes were an older pair of suede shoes that looked like saddle shoes. “I know Jack, he was in my gym class last year.” Larry was, at least slightly more muscular than Jack, possibly healthier looking, with the non-defined musculature of somebody who swam a lot, but not quite as much as Ben- Larry almost laughed as he recognized Ben and saw the big guy toss a cigarette butt and discretely cover it with sand as he stepped on it make sure it was good and out, “I know Ben, too-”

     Ben perked up, “Larry? Larry Wilkenson? That Larry Wilkenson?”” he nodded, “Somebody in his family has a beach house down near where my uncle Paul has a beach house too.”

     Carol smiled, “Yeah, we see him there all the time-”

     Larry grinned, “Since he was this big-” then he raised his hand about a foot, “Okay, maybe this big- He never used to want to come out of the water-”

     “You were the same-” Ben grinned.

     “Yeah, but I knew I would be skinned alive if I didn't come when I was called.”

     “And all I had to do is pretend I couldn't hear them, then pretend to knock some water out of my ear, and – hey – suddenly I could hear again.”

     Jack grinned, he'd seen Ben use that tactic more than once.

     Beth let out a squeal of delight, jumped up clapping her hands together, “Hey, we're in the same home room!”

    Jack and Larry looked at each other and shrugged, “We never will be, they go by alphabetical order beginning with the ninth grade.

    “You're still in Lincoln, though, right?”

    Larry nodded, “Scott High is already over crowded.”

    Kristien grinned as she realized she could add something, “Yeah, My sister will be a senior this year, she says it's so crowded they will have to let students go outside unless it's really stormy because if they all struggle to get through the halls everybody would be late for their next classes.”

    Larry smiled at Kristien.

    Jack looked at Larry and his own sister, Beth, and thought they looked more like they belonged in the same family than he and Beth did.

    Larry's sister Carol had brown hair that was only slightly darker than Jack's. She also had the deeper blue eyes, more like Jack's than Larry's. And she was wearing a dark blue, loose cotton blouse, bunched at the shoulders, with a neckline that was just low enough to reveal the small cross she wore on a golden chain around her neck. She squinted a lot, the way Jean did. Maybe she needed glasses? She was wearing dark blue shorts, shorter shorts than most of the other girls that day, and dark blue tennis shoes that looked brand new. She was more like 'average weight', might have been slightly more shapely than anybody else there.

    Michele smiled as Patrick came closer and closer, but painstakingly slow. She finally gave up and ran toward him.

    Kristien hovered near Beth and Carol and Jean for a few minutes, looked like she was interested in their talk about school, and silly old girl scout memories and looked like she wanted to join in, but couldn't find an opportunity.

    Larry asked Ben about some of the guys that Ben hung out with over the summer. Ben was happy to explain, one guy was going steady with a girl who might have been 'sleeping around' already at the age of twelve. Ben looked like he found that disgusting. Larry looked away and shrugged, maybe wishing some loose girl would have a fling with him?

    Kristien looked frustrated and walked back to stand closer to Jack, arms crossed in front of her chest. She stared off toward something beyond the power plant. A slight breeze caught her hair. Jack noticed that a bone in her nose was just slightly wider than the rest of her thin nose. It didn't stick out, maybe you wouldn't notice unless you stared at her, she just had this subtle, bony ridge in her nose that might disappear if she ever gained weight. No, she wasn't emaciated, she might weigh five pounds more than Jean, or have half an inch more of, no, not fat, um, ectoplasm? Her skin, especially around her eyes and the rest of her face, suddenly took on an - opalescent?- quality. She turned to him and almost blushed, then smiled, shrugged.

    “Anything wrong?”

    She shook her head, glanced back toward Beth, Carol and Jean, then looked down and sighed, “They're really smart, ya know? I couldn't keep up with them.”

    “You're no dummy-” he said.

    She looked at him, slightly shocked, then puzzled, “How would you know that?”

    “It's your attitude- you don't talk about mindless nonsense, you talk about things that really matter. You might be a heck of a lot more intelligent than they are, and your intelligence might be more emotional. Maybe you understand emotional things that they won't even know about for a couple more years.”

    She didn't think she liked hearing that, “I don't quite- understand?”

    He frowned, looked away, looked back, shrugged, “You look at things the way an artist does. You don't judge, you just look, from all sorts of angles. And you don't make your mind up until a long time after you've considered everything about something. You don't jump to conclusions.”

    She almost looked shocked, “How would you know?”

    He shrugged, “Good guess?”

    She almost smiled, then really did smile, “I think I am an artist, I really feel different when I'm drawing, or painting or making something out of clay- And sometimes, the more I look at a photo or a painting, the more I see, and the more I want to try to -capture?- what I see? - in my own painting, or something- I love painting, even painting my room, the way the color comes out and then dries and it's different- but how do you know that about me?”

    He shook his head, shrugged, “I don't know, I just know I like you a lot, as a person. I remember, what? Last May? You and a bunch of kids were over near the rocks, throwing stuff in the river and one of the guys made a wise crack about somebody and you walked away, and they called after you and when you didn't come back- one guy called you a name and shouted, 'You're just plain weird-' and you had tears in your eyes."

    She brightened, “I remember that day- I didn't know you were there. You told me they were full of it and saved me from thinking I was a complete loser. --- I didn't know you heard any of that other stuff.”

    He nodded, “I wanted to hug you and make it all better, but I didn't know if that might even make it worse- like maybe you would think I wanted something that you weren't ready to give or something, maybe if I said something nice You might even think I was just saying something so I could drag you into the bushes and take advantage of you. - I was having a kind of bad day myself.”

    She looked at him with a really worried expression for a few moments, then shook her head, “No- you'd never do that. Never hit me on the head and drag me off into the bushes---”

    He grinned, “How do you know that?”

    She thought about it, and he could see a light coming on behind her eyes, “The same way that you know stuff about me that I never told you?”

    He nodded, “Don't worry, I don't know any deep dark secrets-”

    She almost laughed, looked away and smiled, turned back, “I don't have any deep dark secrets yet, sometimes I wish I did.”

    “No you don't-”

    She looked through him again, “So what's your deep dark secret?”

    “My father beats me up every once in a while, he comes home drunk, sometimes takes one look at me and pow- I'm flat on the ground, he's sitting on top of me with my arms pinned at my side, pounding the heck out of my with his fists.”

    She looked like she was in pain for him-

    “Then a couple years ago, he came at me, I ducked out of the way, I got lucky, he swung really hard and went crashing into the wall, he swung again and missed, I jumped on his back and gave him a Karate chop at the back of his head, he tried to grab me as he fell- he hit his head hard on on the seat of a chair and knocked himself out, I thought I killed him. I was terrified.”

    She looked horrified for him.

    “He woke up with a heck of a headache and thought he'd fallen all by himself and I wasn't going to tell him what really happened-”

    She nodded.

    “And then there was this one time, he came drunk, forgot he was supposed to pick up my mother and the girls at my other grandparents'? - Every once in a while he is a really happy drunk, he sat in a chair at the kitchen table and sang songs, like, 'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine-'”

    She grinned and nodded.

    “And then he opened his wallet and started giving me money. He gave me a twenty dollar bill- He pulled out another chair and told me to sit down with him and asked me to sing too. I did, he gave me another twenty dollar bill, he pulled my chair closer and  put his arm around me and we swayed back and forth and we sang some other song. I told him I had to go to the bathroom, he smiled and said, 'Do you need money for anything? Here's a couple dollars-' - He gave me a hundred and ten dollars altogether. I ran upstairs, locked myself in the bathroom and came out maybe about ten minutes later, found him passed out on the floor with the chair on its side and his wallet in his hands and a big smile on his face. I ran back upstairs, hid the money he'd just given me. I came down again, saw him snoring away. I got some milk and made myself a sandwich and the phone rang, I got it quick and it was my mother, she asked if I had any idea where my father might be, I said, yeah he's passed out drunk on the floor in the kitchen. So she got her sister to  drive her home, didn't want her father to find old Rocky passed out drunk on the floor, and my aunt didn't want to come anywhere near him since the last time she saw him drunk- Um, when he woke up the next morning he counted his money, over and over again, said he'd won five hundred dollars with some kind of number or something, and only had half of that left. He ate something and went down to his favorite bar and the guys that had been there the night before told him he bought everybody several rounds of drinks and had maybe at least three hundred and fifty bucks left, but they weren't sure- They didn't know if he stopped off at another bar somewhere else and bought a couple more rounds, and he couldn't remember- So I opened a bank account, and I now have something like two hundred and fifty dollars secretly stashed away and that's after I went and bought a pair of shoes-” he pointed to his feet- “That he never would have paid for, and a couple other things now and then, little presents for my mother- things like that.”

    Kristien beamed a really pleasant smile at him, opened her arms and hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, then whispered, “I sort of have a boy friend- but you're special. I think you might be my knight in shining armor- ready to -at least try to say the right thing when I need that-”

    She let go and walked back toward the girls, who hadn't missed her, and stayed back, not in the small circle they had formed.

    Jack turned around to see Ben secretly light up another cigarette while he and Larry were still talking about people who hung out down at the beach in Milford, people Jack didn't know- Then he turned to see Michele walking beside Patrick. Patrick was looking straight down, like he was embarrassed half to death and couldn't admit that he really liked her. And she was walking, half bent over to see if there was anything all that interesting on the ground where he was staring.

    Jack grinned really broadly and then turned to see Kristien smiling just as broadly at him. She did not look away, tipped her head to one side and gave him a really soft happy smile, then did turn when Jean asked her a question.

    Jean led Carol, Beth and Kristien back to where Jack was standing as Ben and Larry came from the other side.

    Patrick and Michele were almost there.

    Jean pointed her right foot at that ballerina angle again, squinted up at the three guys, “Where do we want to go?”

    Ben pointed over by the 'Rocks', a formation that had probably been dumped by a retreating glacier something like ten thousand years ago and began capturing sand and 'stuff' brought down by the river. He looked at Jean, “Remember when we buried that band-aid box with all those nickels and dimes? Do you know if anybody ever dug that up? I want to see if I can find it again.”

    Jean tipped her head from one side to the other, smiled, nodded, “That sounds like fun-”

    Everybody looked around and everybody else seemed to think that wouldn't be the worst destination in the world. Most of them wanted to be as far from their parents as they could get without getting into real trouble.

    Patrick and Michele reached them. Patrick adjusted his glasses, “I can come with you guys.”

    “Cool-” Ben almost laughed, and grinned wryly at Jack.

    Jean, Beth, Carol and Kristien started walking back through the 'desert' toward the 'Rocks' that they could barely see over the jungle trees that grew along the banks of the creek that ran from maybe twenty feet from the end of MacDonald Street and all the way to the river, something like two or three hundred yards through what used to be pure swamp.

    Patrick had a message for Beth, so he hurried to catch up with her while Ben took the opportunity to light up his third cigarette in something like twenty minutes. Jack and Larry stayed back near Ben, more or less formed a bit of a wall behind which the others might not see or be able to guess what Ben was doing.

    Again, the big guy kept the lit cigarette hidden inside his cupped hand as they began to walk behind the girls, and Patrick.

    “Hey,” Ben shrugged with a smirk, “If he's out here, he got permission, ya think?”

    “B-Beth! B-Beth-” Patrick struggled in the sand to catch up.

    The girls stopped and turned around.

    Patrick smiled, “You h-have p-per-mission too-”

    Beth smiled, “Thank you Pat-”

    Patrick nodded, “Y-you You're Welcome-”

    It's harder, and slower to walk in beach sand, or river sand, that it is to walk on soil. The granules 'give' and your shoes sink a bit as the sand rises around your foot, and tries to hold on when you try to take your next step. These kids were used to that. Well, most of them were.

    This section of the neighborhood 'desert' had to be at least 500 yards long - north to south- and maybe two hundred yards wide, from the end of Rockwell and MacDonald Streets. Beyond the sand and inside the levee, there was an area of muck that the adults tried to warn their kids might be quicksand. The mucky area was probably seventy five yards wide and ended at the levee. During very high tides the mucky area became a pond. At its highest that pond went all the way to levee, which was a sloppy arrangement- it was easy to see where each dump truck load of lumpy hard clay and boulders had been dumped. There was another fifty to one hundred yards of marsh beyond the levee, and then the river, which was badly polluted, was probably a hundred yards wide right at the power plant. Before they realized they could catch ugly diseases and conditions from swimming in the river, the generation before these guys used to challenge themselves to swim across the river from the one area that had almost always been a beach, between hundred year old boat launching tracks and the train bridge. In recent years, a higher, more spectacular bridge had been built maybe seventy five yards south of the train bridge. The really big bridge supported the Connecticut Turnpike, I-95, across the river. And maybe a quarter to half a mile south of the Turnpike bridge there was another bridge that been named the 'Washington Bridge'- and that carried route 1, 'The Boston Post Road' across the same river, from Springfield to Milford.

    Patrick had stopped to catch his breath. Ben stood still, down wind from Patrick. - If Pat knew Ben was smoking he might tell somebody.

    Larry guessed that was the reason that Ben had halted.

    Ben leaned over and coughed.

    Pat looked at Ben and asked why he was coughing.

    “He caught a cold last month, walking in the rain,” Jack thought of that in a hurry.

    “That was July thirtieth.” Pat calculated, or remembered.

    Ben nodded, “And I had to walk all the way home from the beach-”

    Michele looked frustrated, rolled her eyes.

    “Weren't you guys playing tag?”

    “I hate playing tag-” Pat complained.

    “Well you better run, if she catches you you have to kiss her-”

    They never saw him move so fast. Ben missed a couple puffs on his cigarette because he was laughing too hard.

    Michele caught him five times before they got anywhere near Rockwell street.

    The first time she caught him he stamped, “This isn't fair-” and she giggled, “You know the rules-”

    After the third time she caught him, it began to look like he was slowing down because he wanted her to catch him.

    After Ben finished his cigarette, they almost caught up with Michele and Patrick.

    “New Rules-" Ben called out, "Pat chases. If he catches Michele, he can kiss her.”

    Jean heard that and turned around, walked backward a few steps, watched Michele deftly escape being caught and tried not to laugh, but couldn't help it.

    MacDonald Street was almost exactly the southern border of that 'bigger' desert. A storm drain ran under the southern edge of MacDonald Street and emptied into the creek that had to be at least thirty feet from the foot of the hill beyond the end of the road.

    Town engineers had built a curved gravel access road from the factory that had once been a small boat yard, just north of the train bridge, up to the creek. That had been 'way back in the '30s'. After the monster hurricane of 1938 they'd had to rebuild the road, and reinforce the end of MacDonald Street, which was a few feet higher than Rockwell, and had more like a twenty five foot drop, almost right at the creek. They'd put in a big square concrete block that looked like a small bunker, with a manhole cover that the neighborhood kids had figured out probably ten minutes after the engineers left and pronounced it secure.

    Grampa Harrison had come down and taken a look every night when the engineers went home. He'd puzzled over whether they were using scrap from their own junk yard, and kept wondering why he'd never thought of their methods of jamming iron rods and poles into the hill as far as they could get them, welding what almost looked like old iron bed springs and rusting old automobile bumpers to the poles, welding more cross bars on weird angles, tying a mess of chicken wire and thicker wire around in place on the hill side of that mess, then pouring concrete into the wire, dropping in iron bars and more bumpers from junked cars and creating a real mess, then burying that mess and planting ground cover in the soil they buried it with. Their bank held. But everybody who'd been 'old enough to know better' in those days had warned every kid who came near that hill that it wasn't safe. One crazy old lady told the kids some kind of monster lived in that hill and, “He comes out when you least expect him to -grabs and drags kids, stray dogs, even cows and horses underground, and eats 'em. Sometimes the bones come out of that storm drain.” That story kept most of the kids away better than when more sensible adults tried to reason with them.

    But now that most of the swamp had been buried under a whole lot of sand, nobody was telling the kids that story any more. The kids were more interested in running around in a desert, and weren't interested in some stupid old hill.

    But anyway, the bunker was at the foot of the hill, there was the fifteen or twenty feet wide stretch of nice, flat gravel road - a couple feet higher than the surrounding 'desert' and a thick, square bit of concrete wall that rose higher than the road- closer to the creek- And the end of the storm drain's culvert came out of that thick wall.

    The creek was only about ten feet wide at it's narrowest point, and too shallow for an outboard motor boat to navigate at low tide. With the landfill-levees on both sides of the creek in place, the banks of the creek were at a steeper angle these days, with maybe fifteen feet of swamp grass, reeds, and cattails and then the levees that were becoming home to jungle like plants that grown ups kept trying to convince kids was “poison sumac- yeah, that's real bad stuff, one kid damn near scratched his arm off a couple years ago- bad stuff.”

    A second, smaller 'desert' area had been filled in south of the creek, another sloppy levee built to hold back a new batch of sand when the dredging crews realized they had a lot more sand to deal with than they first believed. This desert area was only about a hundred yards north and south, and ran at least two hundred yards east and west, and had an exaggerated 'J' shaped levee to catch the sand that came out of the river in nearly liquid form. -They didn't want that sand seeping back into the river. Beyond the curled end of the J was the beach that I think I mentioned before and the wooden framework where the tracks used to be that let the boat builders launch their boats.

    This smaller 'desert' had built up the area around the 'Rocks'. There was now a nice sandy space where before it was pure swamp. Reeds and cattails were trying to grow back out of the sand in 1963.

    When they reached the shade at the end of MacDonald Street, most of them stopped just long enough to gaze down the creek. Ben continued walking, crossed the raised access road and went out into the smaller desert area, heading around the 'Rocks' and the saplings that had been growing there since way before the sand was pumped in. Beth was intrigued about the 'buried treasure', even if it was only a few nickels and dimes and Carol had been talking about school stuff and walked along beside Beth as Beth followed Ben.

    'Old Waldo' Gibson, the slightly eccentric, forty something year old guy who'd moved into the last house on the south side of MacDonald Street from 'somewhere in the deep backwoods of Maine' and Ray, his almost twenty year old son who had always been one of Uncle Erik's best friends, had been working in their yard and came crashing through the undergrowth at the foot of the hill ready to chase trespassers away, stood there for half a minute while Waldo tried to remember their names and then just waved, said, “Oh, it's just you- you're okay,” and waved them toward the rocks, dismissing them. He turned around, possibly wearing the same rubber boots he'd had for ten years, and crashed back into his undergrowth.

    Ray watched his father stomp off and looked back at the kids, with a weird smile, “Harrison Family picnic again? That's right, it's Labor Day,” he nodded, waved, pointed toward where his father had disappeared, “I gotta go keep him outta trouble.” Jack, Larry, and the neighborhood girls waved back.

    Michele came running from somewhere, leaping and dodging poor Patrick's attempts to catch, her, turned and ran in the same direction that Beth, Carol and Ben had gone.

    Patrick looked tired but determined and ran after her.

    Jean laughed, “What's that all about?”

    Jack made sure Patrick and Michele couldn't hear his answer, then, “They're playing kiss tag-” he grinned, “wanna play?”

    “What?” Jean turned to Kristien, “Is he serious?”

    Kristien pretended she believed the game was real, slapped Larry on the wrist, "You're it-" and ran toward a path into the reeds in the smaller 'desert'- away from the rocks.

    Larry looked like he didn't know whether a game like 'kiss tag' existed, but then took off at a slow jog through the sand after Kristien.

    Jean covered her mouth and turned to Jack, “You're kidding, right?”

    Jack grinned, but then smiled and nodded.

    Jean relaxed, I think I know where they're going, there are a couple clearings in there- where nothing grows, not yet-"

    Jack turned and looked and turned back to Jean, “Really?”

    Jean nodded, “Come on, I'll show you.”

    She led him onto a path where the tall, pale green stalks of beach grass had been knocked down over layers of dead brown stalks from earlier in the summer, or maybe last summer.

    Jean turned around, walked backward, squinted up at him, “Do you think they're really- ?

    He sighed, shrugged, “That's their business. I think they're teasing you.”

    Jean looked very confused, why would they tease her?

    But she shrugged and turned around and took a few tentative steps then heard Kristien laughing and crashing through the reeds and stopped to laugh. Larry ran by, on a path that crossed in front of her and Kristien came by 'a split second later', laughing, but still running after him, she waved.

    Jean shook her head, then led on.

    She came to a crossroads in the paths though the grass that had to be at least eight feet tall, looked to the left, then the right, shrugged, and turned down the left path. After maybe ten steps she stepped into an elliptical shaped area where no grass was growing, turned around, “This is one of the smallest clearings.” It was probably ten feet long and she could stand in the middle and stretch her arms out and touch reeds on both sides. Then she looked like she thought of something and turned, led him beyond that small area. She chose a path that wound around a lot, came to several crossroads and always knew which way she wanted to go. They reached the levee, with its jungle like trees beginning to grow, and turned to the right, walked along beside the levee then turned down a side path and into the thickest part of the reeds. This was an area where no one had gone in a while and the reeds had almost fully grown back to hide the path that had once been there.

    The path turned around through a couple sharp turns and ended at one clearing right at the levee. Here, the levee was about six feet higher than the sand and consisted of clumped up dirt with mangled tree roots still holding those clumps together. There were several sun bleached wooden boxes there. Boxes with handles cut into them. The twisted branches coming out of the dirt of the levee had created what looked like time worn steps up one side to the top. She climbed up those steps and stood above him and the rest of the world, and spread her arms to the sky- Smiled and looked down at him, “This used to be my favorite spot in the whole wide world.” She reached down toward his hand, “Come on, climb up-”

    He took her hand, but didn't depend on it to help him climb, if she was still as light as she was a couple years ago he could almost sneeze and blow her away.

    But when he climbed up beside her and looked where she pointed- he could see why she'd liked this spot.

    A quick-growing tree had grown out of the other side of the levee, and somebody, maybe even Jean, had broken a couple branches, so she had a 'window' at just the right height to look out over the swamp through. And at this angle a little bit of the power plant and its mountains of coal upstream were visible, but a wide expanse of swamp was also visible, and beyond it- they could see the solid ground of the steep hillside beside the river up along North Main Street.

    She turned, looked up at him and smiled, “I was just thinking about you yesterday- Last summer, not this one, when you used to come here every Saturday and help your grandfather, and when you were finished with whatever you were doing you came down and sometimes we sat on the swing and sometime we walked around the sand- and just talked.”

    He nodded.

    “Sometimes Kristien was there, and sometimes she wasn't, and then by the end of the summer both of us had huge crushes on you, and you would sit on the swing with your arms around both of us. Kristien asked me once, if we both married you when we grew up, could we still be friends for ever or what.”

    She took his hand and spun around, caught his other hand and leaned back against him, her back against him, her head almost touching his chin, both his hands trapped a safe distance from her chest, “You really made us feel special.”

    They didn't move for several minutes. Then she laughed, “So how does this 'Kiss Tag' thing work?”

    He shrugged, “If you catch me, you can kiss me. If the kids are too young its more like torture and the girl says “If I catch you have to kiss me,” and the guy has to run like crazy to avoid that horrible yucky stuff, ooooo kissing girls.”

    She laughed again, then suddenly tightened her grip on his hands, “I caught you, do you have to kiss me?”

    “You caught me, do you want to kiss me?”

    She let go of his hands and turned around, nodded, “Not really serious or anything- I sort of have a boy friend, and I want to know I can do it right.”

    He grinned, “Hey, kissing lessons, no charge-” he smiled and kissed her, almost as if she was his sister. “Easy, see? You probably don't need lessons.”

    She moved toward his mouth, touched his lips with hers, shuddered, “You're too tall.”

    He jumped half way down the levee, then all the way down, reached up and took her hand as she started climbing down. Then she stopped, put her arms out, “Catch me?” and jumped.

    He caught her at her rib cage, spun around and set her down with her feet on top of one of the lower boxes, They were almost eye to eye. She reached beneath his shoulders, around his back and almost didn't touch in a kind of near-hug.

    He stepped forward and kissed her. Held her in a light hug.

    It was a short kiss. When he didn't immediately let go she seemed to be fine with that, “If you want to be really 'passionate' you can move your head a little, move your mouth a bit and keep your mouths together for longer and longer times.” He tipped his head a bit

    She smiled and nodded.

    They kissed, he demonstrated the move-your-head-around and move-your-mouths stuff.

    She held him a little more tightly this time.

    He moved back just enough, they were still in a hug, but he wasn't trying to feel every square millimeter of her body through his skin, “Okay, if you want to stay safe, keep your hands and arms up around his shoulders. If you want to take chances that he might misinterpret your intentions, move your arms down. The middle of the back is still almost safe, the lower you go, the more dangerous it gets. If you grab him by the butt he's going to think you want to go to bed with him. Young guys are mostly idiots. They don't think girls are people. They don't want to stop and believe that you might have a brain and your own idea of what you might want to do in life, they think that if they learn to push the right buttons or touch the right spots in the right order, they've got it made, they can rip your clothes off and do anything they feel like and you'll be helpless to stop them. Do learn how to kick and you know where to aim.”

    She laughed.

    “And you know what can happen to a guy, I mean, if he gets aroused?”

    She nodded, moved her hips back and looked at his crotch, “That thing gets hard-”

    He nodded, “If it does that, don't think you're necessarily about to get raped. A lot of guys will not push, but some will. Practice those kicks. And while guys are usually quick to protect themselves, you can almost always slam him in the nose with the palm of your hand- the fleshy part just above you wrist, move quick and hard and he won't be able to stop you, he will probably have to let you go if he's holding you. Then you turn and run screaming as loud as you can and don't stop until you know you're safe.”

    She smiled, "This is what I missed by not having a big brother-"

    "You want your big brother to teach you how to kiss?"

    She made a face but couldn't stop smiling at him

    He showed her which part of the palm of his hand he'd been talking about. She didn't seem to want to let go of his shoulders, so he turned his head sideways and made like he was going to slam himself in the nose with that part of his hand.

    He looked at her, she smiled, “Another kiss?”

    She nodded.

    They kissed.

    It was a nice safe, soft kiss but when she drew a deep breath and pressed her chest a little harder into his, he began to get aroused.

    She looked a little bit worried at this point.

    He swallowed, “Should we stop here?”

    She shook her head.

    “If you want to get a little bit dangerous, move your arms down to about here and pull me toward you-”

    She moved her hands to the small of his back, but just looked worried.

    “I'm teaching you self defense, so you don't have to worry about telling anything to any dirty old priest who might have you doing 'Hail Mary's for twenty four hours while whipping yourself with a knotted rope or something.”

    She laughed.

    “Kiss?” he asked.

    She nodded. After about a minute she did pull him toward her, then pulled herself back.

    He nodded and stopped the kiss, “See- you know what to do.”

    She looked less worried, began to smile and looked into his eyes and sparkled back at him.

    “You don't want to know anything about the tongue stuff, do you?”

    She tensed, shook her head, then relaxed and nodded.

    “Open your mouth, just a little and let your tongue out about this far- If it feels weird, you're not ready, just pull your tongue back in and keep your mouth closed.”

    She nodded. Opened her mouth, closed it before their lips touched, then opened again and touched his tongue with hers, pulled her tongue back quickly, sighed, then tried again and liked it.

    She shivered and squirmed. He moved his mouth back, “You okay?”

    She nodded.

    “Want more?”

    She nodded. Tipped her head a bit and parted her lips.

    Before he touched her lips with his, he said, “Touch me anywhere, anything you're curious about, either ask or just do it. If you want me to do the same to you nod your head, if you want me not to, shake your head no. Okay?”

    She nodded.

    After a few seconds, she pulled him toward her again, then put her hands in his back pockets and shook her head. A while later she pulled her hands out of his pockets, grabbed a hand full of his butt and nodded.

    She kept nodding and then moved her hand to his chest and pushed him back, “We better stop-”

    He nodded, stepped back, “Don't look-” he turned around and adjusted his jeans.

    When he turned around she looked worried again, “Are you going to be okay, the nurse told us that could be painful.”

    He smiled, “I'll be fine.” Then he sighed, looked at her, “I really liked that. If you ever want more lessons, let me know.”

    She started laughing, had to reach for his shoulder to steady herself, blushing furiously, “Will that be a lesson in self defense too?”

    He nodded, Picked her up again, kept her a few inches away from touching any part of him as he turned around and set her down.

    She smiled up at him, then pointed at the sky, “Looks like it's going to rain soon.”

    He looked up, nodded, “Lead me out of here, I'd get us lost.”

    She nodded.

    Michele kept glancing back to make sure Patrick could still see her. She was beginning to know these trails really well. When she found the clearing she wanted, she turned and dropped to her knees, pretended to be out of breath.

    Patrick ran up to her, tagged her a little too hard and pursed his lips and waited.

    She kissed him. His kisses were getting sloppy, she almost cringed. But the poor kid had been trying so hard. He dropped to his knees, half beside her and panted. She sighed several times, frowned a couple frowns, waited while he caught his breath, then moved on her knees until her knees touched his, and then she rose, and tugged him until he rose with her, thighs touching, she reached behind his back and made her mouth available. He kissed. Sloppy, kissed again, still sloppy, she shook her head and kissed him the way she hoped he could learn to kiss her. Their next few kisses were better.

    Then he moved back, sat on his heels and looked bewildered.

    "I'm starting to grow boobs, want to see them?"

    His mouth fell open, he nodded.

    She shook her head, "I'm lying-"

    He looked like he might start crying.

    She frowned, unbuttoned her blouse and showed him her bikini top, "See? Nothing spectacular-"

    "Want me to kiss them?"

    It was her time to look startled, she grew a very wide grin and nodded, "Yeah!"

    She pulled the bikini top up and let her small young breast fall into full view, “But if you tell anybody, you know I'll have to kill you- right?”

    He nodded, looked at them from different angles, adjusted his glasses, shrugged and began kissing them, one at a time.

    She didn't care how sloppy that got, this was something.

    Then she sighed, pushed him back, “Let me see your chest-”

    His eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets the whole time, he nodded, pulled his shirt up to his chin and tried to keep his eyes on her boobs while she kissed his chest and touched his nipples. Then she shrugged, sat back, “That was fun, did you have fun?”

    He nodded.

    “You can't tell anybody, not even your mother-”

    He shook his head.

    She watched him stare at her as she bulled her bikini top down and got her breasts back in place, then she pulled her blouse back together and watched him watch her button herself back up.

    Then she pulled his shirt down, “You can tuck it back in your pants-”

    He nodded

    She smiled at him, “Did you like me kissing your chest?”

    He nodded.

    "Probably didn't feel as good as when you kissed me- but-" she shrugged.

    He shook his head, "That felt g- good, really good-"

    They hugged for a couple minutes, then stood up, "We better get back to the rest before they leave us here."

    He nodded.

    Their whole little rendezvous took a remarkably short time.

    Kristien stopped after she'd rounded the first turn in the first path.

    Larry caught up to her and stopped, smiled and laughed.

    She had no idea what to expect, but smiled when he didn't jump, grab her and slobber all over her or something. She half turned and pointed, "There's a real cool place in there, it's a clearing. I don't know why it's there, but it is."

    He looked interested.

    "Follow me?"

    He nodded.

    Kristien led Larry through the outer reaches of the reeds that were growing up through the sand. Not many steps later there were definite paths through the thickening reeds. They heard Jean laughing off to their left. Kristien led him to the right. The reeds grew very thick and acted like they wanted to whip them in the face, then she turned a slight corner and there they were, in a small clearing, probably eight feet wide by twenty feet long, irregularly shaped.

    He grinned, "This is cool!"

    She beamed back at him, "I knew you'd like it."

    He stood there grinning widely, looking all around, looking up, looking down- "Wow- your own secret place."

    "Not just mine, but almost-"

    He turned around a couple times and then sat down.

    She sat down, cross-legged, near him, looked disappointed, "I went to this stupid birthday party last June. I mean it was one of my friends' 9th birthday party. She wanted everybody to play spin the bottle- I just wanted to run away."

    "Did you?"

    "No, but when it was my turn, I spun a girl and everybody called me chicken. I kissed her on the cheek."

    "Like this?" he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

    She smiled, nodded, "My turn?"

    He nodded. She looked like she was going to kiss him on the lips and changed her mind at the last moment, kissed his cheekbone.

    He caught her hand, she was trembling, "Should we hug?"

    She nodded, moved to her knees, He knelt, knees touching hers, reached around her and hugged, "How old are you?"

    She trembled, "I'll be twelve in February."

    "Too young to kiss?"

    She shook her head, "Not when it's a fun game with somebody you trust."

    He kissed her lips, she pretended to faint.

    He held her. Not really tight, but she could tell he was strong enough, he wouldn't drop her.

    She laughed, “I always wanted to do that, I don't know why-”

    He smiled, “Why, my dear, you positively swooned at my kiss.”

    She laughed and almost slipped out of his arms.

    Then she looked at him and thought it might be fun to kiss like she meant it.

    Hey hugged and kissed for a couple more minutes, then shrugged and stood up. She took his hand and led him back out of the reeds; dropped his hand before they emerged.

    Michele and Pat came out of the reeds from one path and Jack and Jean came emerged from another.

    Kristien looked at Jean with a strange question in her eyes.

    Jean shrugged, “Jack was teaching me some self-defense stuff.” She turned and demonstrated, almost actually punched him in the nose, then gasped and touched his arm.

    He had covered his nose, but he was laughing, not crying or gasping in pain.

    She blushed, muttered something that sound like, “Guhhhhhhhh” and pretended she really did want to slap him, or punch him, or something.

    There was a rumble in the sky, they all looked up at once, “Uht-oh-”

    Larry nodded, “We can get back to your grandparents' in time-”

    They turned to watch Carol and Beth hurry toward them with Ben calmly taking long strides behind them. They weren't getting much farther ahead of him.

    Beth and Carol reached them, stood there trying to catch their breath as Ben took a couple more strides and joined them.

    Kristien asked Ben if he found what he'd buried.

    He shook his head and nodded, "I dug it up a long time ago. Five pennies, two dimes and ten nickels in a band aid box."

    "Ooo-" she grinned, "A real treasure-"

    He nodded, “I put a note and a two dollar bill in the band aid box and buried it again, But it's gone.”

    They all turned and started back a little faster than they had walked when they'd come there in the first place.

    Ben, Beth and Carol were the first to move and got just a little bit of ahead of the rest.

    There was another rumble in the sky and the wind began to pick up, battered the tall grass and trees from one direction and then another.

    Patrick looked at the sky, looked at Michele, looked worried and ran several awkward steps to catch up to Ben.

    Jean waited for Kristien and Larry, then turned back to see why they were walking toward the reeds again.

    Michele smiled at Patrick's back, then turned and looked up at Jack, “How did you know?”

    “How did I know what?”

    “How did you know that I was all worried about what it would be like to kiss a boy?”

    Jack shook his head and shrugged. He had thought that she would have been a veteran 'spin the bottle' player.

    She wrinkled her nose, “I thought I might have to kiss somebody that I didn't care much about? In case I got it wrong or did something stupid?” she made a face.

    They took a few steps together, she was probably the shortest person there, but he didn't have to slow down to avoid leaving her behind.

    She shrugged, pointed at Patrick's back, “He's not that bad lookin' or anything, but he had some funny ideas about kissing.” She shrugged, “I guess I wasn't as stupid as I thought.” Then she smiled, “When he wasn't all nervous and in a big hurry to kiss me, he wasn't a bad kisser-” she giggled.

    “Will you be all embarrassed to see him again?”

    She looked up at him like she wondered why he would ask that- shook her head and smiled.

    Jack guessed she might even be looking forward to another game of kiss tag or something along those lines.

    For a second or two it almost looked like she was going to run and catch up with Patrick.

    Jack glanced back to see Kristien pick something up from the sand, then she and Jean and Larry looked up at the sky, then turned to see where Jack and Michele had gotten to and probably couldn't see Ben, Pat, Beth and Carol up ahead. They began to hurry, but they did not start running.

    When he turned back around, Michele was still there, and she had been staring at him.

    She tipped her head to one side, half closed her eyes, “You're really intelligent, aren't you?”

    He had not expected to hear that from her. He shrugged. Shook his head.

    They began walking, not trying to catch up to the first group, not waiting for those behind them.

    “You're pretty intelligent yourself,” he said as it looked like she was looking through him as they walked.

    “They made me take an IQ test. I scored a freakin hundred and sixty.”

    “That's pretty good-”

    “But then I had to talk to a stupid psychiatrist to see why I wasn't 'applying myself'-”

    He winced, “I've heard that one before.”

    She smiled, “You too, right?”

    He probably looked guilty, he didn't quite blush. He nodded.

    “Do you believe in past lives?” she asked.

    He shrugged.

    “I have dreams-” she said, “The person I used to be tells me things. Warns me about people. She never told me about you.”

    He almost laughed.

    “Are you my friend?” she asked.

    He nodded, “I could be- If you want me for a friend.” She was catching him way off guard, talking about things he never would have guessed were important to her.

    She sighed and nodded, “Yes, I need friends. My parents are getting divorced and my freakin father is gone- he's in Idaho for gods sakes, but I mean, you don't treat me like you think I'm an idiot. I can see that- and you don't want to take advantage of me.”

    “How would I – why do you think I would take advantage of you?”

    She looked like she might burst into tears, sniffed and shook her head, then brightened and looked at him, “I showed you that I had boobs and almost dared you to dare me to show them to you and you didn't make me do that. Other boys- even men- grown ups, oh shit I don't want to talk about this now.”

    He nodded, “Okay-”

    “Do you think there's something wrong with me?”

    He shook his head, “No- I -” he shrugged, “You look like a prettier than normal girl with maybe more intelligence that most, and sometimes being intelligent is a pain in the butt.”

    She laughed.

    “Maybe smart people imagine we have problems that aren't there, and make things more complicated because we think they could be?”

    She looked like she thought about that, couldn't agree or disagree on the spur of the moment- but then almost crossed her eyes and winced and sighed, “Does Jean have your phone number?”

    He shrugged, “I don't think so- She knows how to get it- she knows where I live and I have the same last name as my grandparents-”

    “Make sure- make sure because I keep thinking something real bad is going to happen and you're somebody who can protect me.”

    They stopped walking and both turned to look up at the half dead tree near the highest point on 'The Rocks' There was a crack of lightening and might have been a strike, probably miles beyond that tree. But the tree lit up like an explosion of white light burst from inside and white flames danced around and vanished. In a blink Jack realized that the tree could not have been hit by lightening, heck a strike that close might have knocked them all to the ground.

    “Did you see that?” Michele gasped.

    “I thought the tree got hit by lightening, but it didn't and it looked like it burst into white flames,” he shook his head, “But it didn't.”

    She nodded, “I thought something exploded, I think I saw the same white flames, but it was like- something exploded and then the flames burned up and whatever it was, was gone.”

    He shrugged, “-Maybe-” Nodded.

    She looked at him with her eyes completely unfocused, “You are a child of thunder-”

    “What?” he turned and thought she was about to pass out and fall down. A lot of her normal color had left her face.

    “You are! And Larry too- Kristien is, and maybe Jean. Jean has too much pure love. She will be a healer.”

    “Are you okay?”

    She turned and looked at him like she had no idea who he was or where they were or what was going on at all, then she jumped, shook her head, her whole body, “Don't tell anybody, I left my body. And Indian saved us. A bad thing tried to kill us, all of us- right here, and an Indian – with a white wolf, killed the bad thing. That's what we saw.” She shuddered, blinked and turned, saw Patrick standing ahead, staring at her. “I have to go-” she told Jack and ran to catch up to Patrick.

    Jack shuddered, he looked at the tree and thought he saw something around it. Some clear watery thing. Then he noticed Larry, Jean and Kristien almost running toward him. But when he turned his head, he thought he saw something else. So he stood there and moved his head, scanned the horizon, the tops of the trees- nothing. He sighed and shrugged and looked back toward Larry and the two girls.

    Then he didn't actually see it, but there was something. A huge white wolf with angel's wings? Standing near the half dead tree. He looked right at it and no, it was a puff of a cloud or something, but he suddenly felt warm, and really good. Really good.

    Then he turned and caught Jean as she sprinted the last few yards, almost tripped, and he caught her.

    She smiled, half hugged him for a second, then looked worried, pulled herself back, turned and looked up toward the tree, “What are you looking at?”

    “I don't know- I thought I saw something, so did Michele,” He pointed to the North West, “The storm is coming from over there, but we both saw what looked like a lightening strike- there- I thought the tree burst into flames. She thought she saw something explode.”

    Jean stepped in front of him, started at the tree, shook her head, “The tree's still there,” she turned and took both his hands and looked at his eyes, “But you're different-”

    “How?”

    She wrinkled her nose, “You look healthy or something-”

    He laughed.

    “I'm not kidding-” she said, "before you looked all worried, and had dark circles around your eyes, and now you don't."

    Larry and Kristien were almost there, Jack leaned down and whispered, “You mean you let me kiss you when I looked like I was turning into a zombie?”

    She stepped back and laugh, shook her head, “I never said you looked like a zombie, I said you had dark circles around your eyes.”

    “He did-” Kristien said, walking beside Larry like they'd been in love for years, “Yeah, he looks better, what did you do to him.”

    “Nothing, I swear, he showed me how to pop a guy in the nose if he was attacking me and was too quick to protect his- you know whats-”

    Kristien almost blushed, looked up at Larry, looked at Jack, “You going to show me how to do that?”

    Jack nodded, “Sure.-” then he thought of something, “Jean- Michele says you need to know my phone number.”

    “You're in the phone book, right, Old Farm Road?”

    He nodded.

    “Why did she say I need your phone number?”

    “She's got this feeling that something bad might happen and I'm somebody she thinks she can depend on to help.”

    Kristien laughed a nervous little burst, “Yeah, she says things like that, sometimes- you know? Like out of the blue? She turned to me once and said, 'Don't ride near the door of your father's car-' and I thought that was weird, but she scared me, so I rode in the middle and nothing happened while I was in the car. But then at work, when the car was parked, somebody lost control trying to be the first one out of the parking lot and creamed my father's car, right where I almost always used to sit. She's scary-” Kristien smirked, “So if she says something weird, I pay attention."

    There was another flash of lightening, maybe closer than before.

    The four of them turned and began walking a little faster than they had before.

    Jack cast a glance back at the the half dead tree. Again, he could almost swear the tree had an almost invisible watery light around it, bluish white. Maybe it extended several feet beyond the trunk all the way up.

    But then, he had to pay attention to trying to catch up, if not to Ben, Beth and Carol, then at least to Patrick and Michele.

    Patrick was standing at the edge of the access road. He looked really worried. Michele was on her knees near him.

    Patrick gestured frantically, waving for them to catch up to him- then he pointed at Michele and then he waved his arms around and finally grabbed the side of his head.

    “Don't run,” Kristien said, “She does this- a couple times.”

    “Yeah, and about this 'Kiss tag' thing, you didn't answer before-” Jean smiled up at him, almost like she was glad he didn't, “Was that her idea?”

    “Um- partly-”

    “What do you mean partly?” Jean stopped for a second, grabbed his arm and squinted up at him.

    “I was the one who blurted that out- haven't you ever heard kids torturing each other with that?”

    Jean looked down, laughed, nodded, “But I don't think that's the way she took that- Do you know how old she is?” They were walking again, Larry and Kristien two steps ahead of them.

    Jack shrugged, “Twelve? Eleven?”

    Jean looked like she thought he'd lost his mind.

    “Ten?” he almost gasped.

    “Nine, she's only nine years old.”

    “But, she's got,-” he pulled his shirt tight and stuck out his chest.

    Jean would have rolled her eyes if they were standing still, “Tell me about it-” she tried to glance down at her own chest, which wasn't flat. Then she pulled his arm and whispered in his ear when she could get her mouth close enough, “She had boobs when she was seven.”

    Jack caught Jean's arm and leaned toward her ear, “Don't feel bad, I never wanted to kiss her-”

    Jean looked like she understood that that was supposed to be a compliment, looked confused, then happy, then confused again.

    Then they were right at Michele's side.

    Jack spun around and knelt down, touched her hand, “Hey, you in there- pssst- Wake up.”

    Patrick looked really really worried, “Is she dead?”

    Jack laughed and shook his head, “Hey, Michele- wake up, come back to us or I'll tell everybody all your deepest darkest secrets.” He laughed. She raised her head, and slapped him. Her eyes were still very strange, and she said something. But she said it in a language that almost sounded Russian.

    Jack looked at Kristien, “Was that Russian?”

    Kristien shook her head, “Doesn't sound like anything I ever heard anybody say.”

    Michele was just kneeling there, staring blankly at the sand a few inches in front of her knees.

    Jack shrugged, leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

    She raised her head, looked at him.

    He watched her eyes actually focus, and then she smiled, reached up and hugged his neck and shoulders, then sat back and looked around, “Oh shit- it happened again.”

    Jack turned to Patrick, “You didn't hear that-”

    He shook his head.

    Jack looked into her eyes, “Did you pass out?”

“No!-” she tried to scramble to her feet but only managed to land on her butt and pushed herself  back away from him, “I do not pass out, I never pass out!” she glared at him with a sudden seething rage and almost an animal hatred on her face.

    “Are you epileptic?” He asked in a calm voice.

    She looked like she was going to go into a screaming fit, but then, almost as if she'd heard something that brought her back from the edge of a mindless rage, - almost as if she was waking up from a bad dream with her favorite uncle or somebody like that standing there, she smiled, then shook her head. Then she remembered there were others around her and turned and almost burst into tears, pleaded, “You can't tell anybody about this. They made me go to psychiatrists and other doctors, they try to make me believe I'm schizophrenic or something and they want to give me drugs and do other things to me- you can't tell them- not my grandmother, not your parents, nobody!”

    Jack nodded, “You're safe. We ARE your friends. You might not be the easiest person in the world to be nice to when you're screaming at us and all that, but I think we understand. The worst thing anybody can do to a kid is try to convince them there's something wrong with them or they're not good enough.”

    Michele looked like she was trying to make sense of what he was trying to say, then she nodded, looked at Kristien, and Jean, and Larry and smiled, “I'll be okay-” she looked at Larry, “Give me a piggy back ride?”

    Jack laughed.

    Larry squatted down and offered his back to her.

    She climbed up and he looped his forearms beneath her legs and leaned forward and stood up.

    She smiled down at Patrick, “I like you, you're fun-”

    Both Patrick and Larry said, “Thank you-”

    Michele laughed, “We better hurry-” she looked at the sky and the trees were again going into a weird sudden gusts of winds from different directions routine-”

    They moved, more jogged than walked this time until they got just beyond the creek where Michele said she better get down and walk so nobody gets in trouble. Larry started to squat, Jack grabbed her from behind. Larry almost lost his balance and Jack set her down on her feet.

    She leaned toward Larry's ear, “Best piggy back ride ever-” Jack reached for Larry's hand. Larry clasped Jack's arm, and together they helped him stand up.

    Then they started walking toward Rockwell Street's hill.

    When they heard Pat's mother calling, “Patrick!” the girls hurried ahead, did run, waved to whoever was standing at the top of the hill and then ran around and up the driveway/ramp.

    Everybody knew that Patrick wasn't very good at running. If he tried, he would be face first in the sand in no time. And he might also be all scraped up like he dove hands first onto sandpaper.

    Patrick was half a step in front of them when Larry turned toward Jack and asked, “Did you get a letter from school on Friday, telling you that the whole ninth grade is supposed to report directly to the cafeteria? Maintenance had a problem and the floors aren't finished in our hallway.”

    “We have a hallway?” Jack grinned, then shook his head, “I didn't see a letter like that, either Friday or Saturday- And I'm watching the mail.”

    Larry nodded, “Let's hope that any letters like that are delivered tomorrow, I guess.”

    “Or, you can bet the principal and his goons will be standing there screaming at us to report to the cafeteria.”

    Larry chuckled nervously at that comment, “They will probably be doing that no matter what.”

    “It's in the job description, 'Junior High School principal wanted, No experience needed, must be an experienced bully.'-”

    Larry grinned and nodded agreement.

    Ben and his mother, Jack's mother, Jack's grandfather and Uncle Erik were standing at the top of the hill with Beth, and Carol, and Jean's very pregnant mother, and an old woman standing beside Michele. There were at least half a dozen curious little faces peering out from the edge of the porch to the Welsh hacienda-

    Jack thought Michele's grandmother was taller than he would have suspected. She was sturdy, not rolly-polly, and was wearing a dark blue dress with an apron front and a darker blue long-sleeved blouse, and, of course, 'sensible' black laced shoes.

    Patrick's mother hugged her son while he grimaced and blushed in front of everybody else, “Looks like you made it just in time-”

    Ben's mother, Aunt Laurel- looked at Larry, “Don't I know you and your sister from somewhere?”

    Larry shrugged, “I don't think so-”

    “Does your father work at Sikorsky's?”

    Larry shook his head and pointed toward Jack, “He works at the town garage with Jack's father-”

    Aunt Laurel, who'd always been one of the most nervous adults Jack had ever met, dropped her cigarette and stepped on it, twisted her foot, “I know I know you from somewhere- What church do you go to-”

    “We went to the Congregational Church, don't go much any more- Just Christmas and Easter-”

    Aunt Laurel beamed a smile, “On Main Street, down past the Town Center?”

    Larry nodded.

    “That's where I saw you before. The whole family- I remember you had a little brother or somebody who was brought up to the front and Christened one Sunday-”

    Larry nodded, “That was our cousin- they moved back up around Hartford the next year and we stopped going to church every Sunday after that.”

    Michele ran over toward her friends, whispered, “Thanks for putting up with me, guys," and ran back, took her grandmother's hand, looked back, waved and started down the hill toward her grandmother's house.

    Aunt Laurel looked up at the sky, “We better hurry-” turned and gave Ben a push toward the house.

    Jean squinted and waved, Kristien waved and the two of them walked, one on each side of Jean's waddling mother toward Jean's home and the waiting mob on the porch.

    Aunt Laurel turned to Larry and Carol before they had taken two steps toward the ramp and back toward the sand, “Come to our house, it will be pouring rain in a couple minutes, you can call your parents and I can give you a ride home.”

    Larry and Carol looked at each other, Carol nodded, Larry turned and nodded, and they hurried with the rest of them.

    Grandma Harrison was waiting on the front porch. That was very unusual. The family almost never used the front door. They always went to the back porch and entered through the kitchen. She was standing there waving frantically for them to come to the front porch.

    Grampa teasingly raised his hand and waved her, with a big, toothy grin.

    Grandma looked exasperated and waved toward herself, emphatically, again, “Come in this way, hurry-”

    Uncle Erik ran, dodged around Beth and Carol and got there before anybody else did.

    There was a flash of light and with a crack of thunder, the first couple rain drops began to fall. One rain drop for every square Yard? Then two, then three.

    Everybody ran. Grampa stood at the bottom of the three steps up to the porch and made sure everybody got under cover before he did.

    Almost as soon as he was under the roof he had built, the downpour began in earnest.

    Grandma took Jack's mother into the house and asked everybody else to wait on the porch. Aunt Laurel followed them inside anyway.

    Most of them on tried to get into the center of the the porch and watched as lightening flashed and almost solid curtains of rain came down everywhere.

    A couple minutes later, Aunt Laurel reappeared and asked Ben, Uncle Erik and Grampa to come inside.

    Jack turned to Larry and Patrick's mother who were almost side to side and shrugged before they could ask a question.

    Maybe five minutes later, the rain began to slow down. Then, with another flash of lightening and almost immediate crash of thunder, it resumed as intensely as it had been before.

    Aunt Laurel came out onto the porch with the living room telephone, which had a very long cord, and offered it to Larry, who deferred to Carol.

    Carol took the phone, held it like she was used to telephones with long cords, hooked the handset over her shoulder and dialed, then handed the heavy part to Larry who stood there, almost grinning, holding the phone like of course, he was put here on this earth to stand on someone's porch in the pouring rain and hold a telephone for his sister.

    “Hi mom, Yes, it's Carol, we are okay. We're at the Harrisons, over on,” she took the handset from Larry, and looked at Beth, “What's the name of this street?”

    Beth tried to mouth the words without saying them.

    Larry leaned toward the phone, “Rockwell Street.”

    Carol looked at her brother like she was surprised that he knew that, “Rockwell Street- Do you remember Beth Harrison from Girl Scouts? --- No she doesn't live here now, this is her grandparents' house. They were having a Labor Day picnic. --- No we didn't make pests of ourselves. We were out in the sand- and then Beth's Aunt called everybody and told us to come with them because it was about to start raining and she was right. --- Um, I think Beth's Aunt said she could give us a ride home-”

    Aunt Laurel reached toward the phone-

    “Mom, this is Beth's Aunt Laurel-” Carol handed the phone to Aunt Laurel.

    “Hello- this is Laurel Anderson- I'm Beth's Aunt- Yes, I can give them a ride home--- It's no problem I know where Hawthorne Street is, and I have to drive a few family members up past there anyway, really- No it really isn't any trouble at all- Okay, here she is-” Aunt Laurel handed the phone back to Carol.

    Carol nodded her head several time, “Yes- Uh huh- okay- yes, see you shortly- g'bye-” hung up the phone and smiled at Larry who stood there looking like a statue holding the phone.

    Grandma came to the door, “If anybody needs to use the bathroom, you can use the one upstairs-”

    Patrick raised his hand.

    Grandma frowned, “Any girls or ladies need to go first?”

    Patrick was suddenly dancing. If any girls or women needed the bathroom they must have guessed he needed it more.

    Aunt Laurel smiled at Larry and took the phone, and, being careful with the cord, walked it back into the living room, “Everybody else- wait here-”

    Jack's mother came to the porch's warm weather screen door, beckoned to Jack.

    “Oh Mom, this is Larry and Carol Wilkenson, Carol was in Girl Scouts with Beth.”

    Mom smiled, Beckoned and almost dragged Jack into the house

    Beth pointed to everybody on the porch and made sure Carol knew who everybody was, gave them an informal introduction. Larry nodded along.

    The rain, which had slackened off a second time came down hard, and loud, again for a third time.

    Jack came back a few moments before Aunt Laurel reappeared from somewhere with a couple big old umbrellas, looked out at the rain and grimaced, “Okay if we wait until it dies down a bit again?”

    Carol nodded, “Yes, it's okay. Mom told me to tell you to take your time and don't worry about her.”

    Aunt Laurel smiled, handed the umbrellas to Jack, and went back into the house.

    Beth looked at Jack with a nearly frantic expression.

    Jack leaned close enough so only Beth, Carol and Larry could hear, “Okay, dad passed out in the downstairs bathroom, he didn't hit his head, he isn't bleeding or anything, but they needed Ben and Erik to help them pick him up and turn him onto his side and move his arm because he cut off his circulation and his hand turned black.”

    Carol and Larry looked at each other, looked like they'd been through similar events.

    The rain tapered off and Aunt Laurel was back, took one umbrella from Jack, held it beyond the porch and opened it, stepped beneath it, “Jack, Beth, Larry, Carol, you're coming with me- Jack, your mother and Bev are getting a ride with your Uncle Erik, they should get to your home before we do. Is everybody ready?”

    Jack held the second umbrella out past the edge of the porch and opened it, muttered, “It's bad luck to be superstitious, but poor Aunt Laurel would get so nervous she might cause an accident if I open this under any kind of roof-” He then stepped out into the rain and held the umbrella over Beth and Carol's heads while Larry found out that trying to get under half of the umbrella was worse than being out in the rain when a cascade of water went down his back.

    Aunt Laurel pointed, “The back door on this side is jammed shut since Ben's father hit a tree the last time he came home drunk.”

    It wasn't dented, but it was slightly discolored.

    The 'kids' hurried around the back of the '53 green and white Chevy.

    Aunt Laurel had her door partially opened, but stood outside with her umbrella still over her head until the kids were on the other side of the car, “Larry, could you sit in the front, in case I need directions?”

    Larry nodded, opened the front door, “I am wet-”

    “You can't hurt this car-” she grinned, turned and lowered her umbrella, closed it, climbed in, set the umbrella down beside her, between the seat and the doorway, and closed the door.

    Jack, still holding the umbrella over both girls' opened the door and stepped aside.

    Carol looked at Beth, and then Jack, “I have to get out first-”

    Jack nodded, “I can either get out at your house and let you out that way or I can go in first, or in the middle or whatever you decide.”

    Aunt Laurel heard that and smiled.

    Carol looked slightly worried, “Could you get in first? Beth in the middle and then me?”

    Jack nodded, handed Carol the umbrella, whispered, “Keep it outside the car until it's closed, Aunt Laurel has a thing about umbrellas-”

    Carol smiled as she nodded then whispered, “I heard you say that before, thanks-”

    And Jack got in, sat down and moved across the back seat. Beth climbed in and sat in the middle and Carol sat down, kept the umbrella outside, closed it up, slid it on the floor behind everybody's feet and closed the door.

    Aunt Laurel had the engine running already, she turned in her seat, “Okay, everybody in back, I need your help, tell me if I'm coming close to anything- I don't want an accident-”

    Beth turned and knelt on the back seat to watch our the window. Carol leaned forward and moved to put her head as close to the window as she could get it and looked toward the back and out, up the street. Jack turned and knelt on the back seat and thought he might be better able to see the back and the side from that position.

    As she started backing out, Aunt Laurel grumbled, “I always hate backing out of this driveway-”

    “Still looks good back here,” Jack said.

    “You're okay on this side,” Carol added.

    “Turn now?” Jack asked.

    She began to turn the steering wheel, did manage to steer around the green ford next door and miss the hill across the street. She then hit the brake, maybe too hard, looked forward, looked back, backed up a little more, then a little more, then turned around again to face front, nervously shifted, and began to move forward, turning the wheel and leaning forward, much more worried about how close she was to the cars parked along the side of the road in front of her. She didn't show any sign of relaxing until they'd turned onto Hastings Street. She sighed, and leaned back, looked through the mirrors, “Thanks, everybody- thank you.”

    She drove up the slight hill on Hastings Street, did not stop at the corner when she turned right onto Patch Road. She did stop at the stop sign at the corner of Patch Road and East Main Street. There were no cars coming either way, she eased forward, stopped, looked all ways again and then turned right. And was almost visibly shaking as she sped up toward the 35 MPH speed limit. She glanced sideways, asked Larry, “What is it? The fourth or fifth right turn?”

    “It's the third right after the Pond-”

    She seemed to relax visibly again.

    “There's that first driveway that looks like a road, I wasn't counting that-”

    Aunt Laurel nodded, tightened her grip on the steering wheel, then relaxed slightly.

    Jack saw a dog walking along the sidewalk across the street and thought she might have been afraid the dog might have turned and ran into the road without warning.

    Larry did give her warning before they came near Hawthorne Street, “That's it up ahead-”

    The rain tapered off until it had all but stopped before Aunt Laurel made a right turn onto Hawthorne Street, drove a little farther than she expected.

    Larry waited until they'd almost reached the new road into the new development that was a left turn. “We're the only house on the left after that street- He pointed to the big old farm house and the driveway before the house.

    Aunt Laurel easily turned into the driveway and pulled to a stop.

    Larry and Carol opened their doors and climbed out. Both of them wary of the streams coming down the very slight hill of their driveway, and the puddle down closer to the road.

    Their mother came out their front porch door, down the stairs and across their front lawn, then around to the driver's side door while Aunt Laurel rolled her window down.

    Aunt Laurel spoke first, “Hi- I'm Laurel Anderson, used to be Laurel Harrison-”

    “Thank you so much-” Mrs. Wilkenson's French accent and sweet-almost singing voice were distinctive, “My name is Genevieve Wilkenson, do you live around here?”

    Aunt Laurel pointed, “I grew up on the other side of the woods- I think my brother is your husband's foreman. I've lived across the river in Milford most of the time since I got married.” She didn't say anything about her pending divorce.

    Larry's mother looked just a little bit nervous when she heard the word, 'foreman', “My husband doesn't speak so much about his work-”

    “If he did, he probably wouldn't have much to say that was good about my brother, and I wouldn't blame him.”

    Larry's mother had a nervous little laugh and then she nodded, “He really talks- not so much- about work- If your brother was a bad person, I am sure I would have heard his name.”

    “Rockwell Harrison Junior, and he's nothing like his father.”

    Mrs. Wilkenson shook her head, “I have not heard anything, good or bad, about him.”

    Larry had walked around beside his mother, “Mom, this is Jack on this side, and Beth, his sister, I don't know if you would remember her from Girl Scouts. We think Beth and Carol will be in the same home room at Lincoln Junior High School this year.”

    “Beginning this week, I think-” Mrs. Wilkenson leaned down to look across the back seat and smile at Beth, “Yes I remember Beth, and so nice to meet you, Jack-”

    A few new rain drops spattered on the windshield.

    “Oh, my- I think we should get inside, would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee or something?”

    “Usually, I would- but we've had our usual big Labor Day picnic and I have to go back and round up my two children after I take Jack and Beth home.”

    “Okay, then, perhaps some other time, and thank you again, Laurel?”

    Aunt Laurel nodded.

    “I am sometimes terrible with names, but your name is pretty, I should have no problem remembering-”

    Aunt Laurel began to tense a bit as more and more rain spattered, “It's been very nice talking to you-”

    “Yes, and the same here- and thank you so much one more time for giving my Carol and Larry a ride home.” She began to move as the rain became more steady- Then waved one more time and said something they couldn't hear with their windows all hastily rolled back up.

    Aunt Laurel needed Beth and Jack to turn and watch out the back window for her, tell her when to turn, but Hawthorne Street was wider than Rockwell street and there were no obstacles like steep embankments that were tricky to avoid when the neighbor's car was just as tricky to back around.

    When they got back to East Main Street Aunt Laurel had a change of mind, “I have a feeling-” she said and turned left instead of right, and drove back down to Patch Road and Hastings, and Rockwell, and turned into the driveway.

    The kids could see immediately that their father was face down in the mud near the front porch. Grampa, Ben, Erik and their mother were standing there. Their mother held an umbrella.

    “I had a feeling something wasn't going as planned-” Aunt Laurel sighed. She backed into Rockwell street again and pulled forward, pulled to the side of the road in front of her parents' house, partially off the street- and opened Ben's pack of cigarettes, took one out, picked up her lighter and lit it. She looked at Jack, “They might need your help- your father is a big guy-”

    Jack would have climbed over Beth if she didn't quickly open the door and climb out.

    They closed the door and hurried up the little bit of hill and around, Beth ran up to the porch and stood with Grandma who looked more upset about her son messing up in front of the neighbors than anything else. But the neighbors weren't paying attention.

    Grampa repeated a phrase he'd spoken, probably a dozed times in the past few minutes, “Come on Rocky, get up and either come back in the house or go home.”

    Ben leaned over and spoke more loudly, “Hey, Rocky, get up, you're late for school.”

    “What?” Rocky rolled over, covered with wet mud, “What? They took my car keys- who took my car keys?”

    “What car keys? You're fourteen years old. You don't have a car.”

    Erik backed Grampa's old 1934 Chevy Sedan down the driveway and parked so both doors were easily accessible and the old car pretty much blocked the way to anywhere else. The car had been one of the cars parked straight back, up the hill at the back of the driveway. There had been four cars between that car and Laurel's when they had left earlier to get Larry and Carol home.

    Erik had heard Ben, now grinned at his huge little nephew, walked to his mud covered brother, leaned down, “Come on, young man, we're here to give you a ride to school, we can't wait all day-”

    “What?”

    “If you don't get up and come with us now, we'll have to call the truant officer, and you don't want that, do you?”

    “Truant officer? No-” He tried to get up, slipped, Ben and Erik helped him try again.

    Jack ran around the three of them, opened the back door and moved out of the way.

    “Looks like my father's brand new car-” Rocky muttered as he nearly slipped again. When he got to the back door, he shook himself loose, stood up under his own power , gripped the roof of the old Chevy looked around, “It's freakin dark out here.”

    “Just cloudy, that's all-” Grampa said.

    Rocky nodded, looked inside the Back seat, “What a nice car- Can I have it when I grow up?” he climbed in, sat down and leaned back, closed his eyes and began snoring.

    Erik looked in the back seat, “Okay, what do you think? Ben in the back, Jack in the front, I'll drive- Dad you drive Rocky's car? We'll see you there?”

    “Are you sure?”

    Erik nodded.

    “Sounds okay to me then-”

    Jack ran around to the front passenger's door as Ben climbed in the back and pulled the door closed. The engine was still running.

    Erik was behind the steering wheel and as soon as Jack was inside and the passenger's door was closed, he started backing up. He was a lot more used to this car's handling and it's dimensions, and wasn't worried about digging up any more of the chief of police's embankment. He backed around and stopped, no problem

    Rocky was snoring really loudly.

    Erik took a look at his muddied drunk big brother and laughed, pointed straight ahead with his left hand as he shifted with his right, “We're off, in a cloud of wet hen shit!” And eased up on the clutch. They lurched forward.

    Ben leaned forward, “How much did it cost you to get this thing running again?”

    “Fifty bucks, not counting the oil change and the lubrication and all that. Don't you dare tell your grandfather, the damned paint job cost a hundred bucks. He'd shit his pants if he knew it cost that much.”

    Ben leaned back and grinned, turned his head and kept a wary eye on Rocky all the way home.

    Erik turned left on one of the side streets that was almost directly across the street from the house Jack and his family lived in. He rolled down the street to about its halfway point, turned right and climbed the hill, turned right again onto the street parallel to the first side street, cruised down one hill and back up a smaller hill, and then stopped where the road, still going slightly downhill, connected with Old Farm Road.

    They sat there and waited until two cars came up the road, slowed down. Grampa was first, driving Rocky's '59 Ford, and pulled up on the planting strip in front of the house, where Rocky had long ago worn brown tire tracks that were now trying to become world class ruts in the once 'nice' grass. Aunt Laurel pulled around Grampa and into the driveway.

    Uncle Erik signaled and then drove around, stopped, signaled again, and pulled into the driveway behind Aunt Laurel.

    Jack's mother climbed out of Laurel's front seat, moved quickly to their stairs, climbed to the front door, unlocked it, opened up and went inside, turned lights on. Beth, Bev, and Ben's eight year old sister, Audrey, climbed out of the back door, loaded up on the covered pot of beans, the casserole dish of potato salad and the plastic tray with the last of mom's banana nut bread, and carried these precious items into the house.

    Jack got out of the old Chevy, ran into the house, looked around to see if there was anything that Rocky might fall over or slip on. Saw that Beth, Audrey and Bev had delivered their treasures to the kitchen table and run upstairs to be out of the way when Rocky came in. His mother put the casserole in the refrigerator, put the last of the beans on the stove and set the tray with the last of the banana bread on the back of the kitchen table, where Rocky probably wouldn't fall on it if he fell in the kitchen. Jack smiled at his mother and ran back outside.

    Erik and Ben had talked over a plan B, if Rocky didn't wake up they would try to carry him.

    Erik laughed, “It might be easier and make more sense to drag him in.”

    Ben laughed, “But it won't be easy to drag him up the stairs.”

    And Erik agreed.

    Grampa came over to his old car, handed Jack the keys to his father's car and looked at the new seat covers in his old Chevy- “They did a nice job, how much did you say it cost?”

    “Seat covers and installation? Twenty five bucks.”

    “And they installed the blinker signals thing?”

    Erik nodded.

    Grampa nodded, “Nice job-” then he opened the passenger's side rear door, “Rocky, wake up, you're home-”

    “What? Oh-” he opened his eyes, saw where he was waved both his arms like he was reaching for something that evaded his grasp, took his father's hand and pulled himself up and out of the back seat.

    Erik on one side, Ben on the other, they followed him a step back as he stood up, found his footing took a couple tentative steps and then walked, almost in a straight line, toward the house.

    Rocky gripped the railing as he leaned a bit to one side and climbed the four front steps, made it to the small porch, into the afterthought of a front entryway and through the inside door, stumbled mostly sideways through the living room and dining room, turned into the kitchen, took two steps sideways for every one forward and finally got into the 'master' bedroom.

    “Jesus Christ, I'm all fuckin wet!” he ripped off his shirt and pants and threw them on the floor and crashed onto the bed.

    Beth, Audrey and Bev began to cautiously creep down the stairs.

    Rocky was already snoring.

    Audrey ran to her mother. Ben grinned and waved to Jack, they were leaving.

    Uncle Erik took a second to ask Jack, “He's working tomorrow, right?”

    And Jack nodded.

    Erik shook his head, “I wouldn't want to be working under him tomorrow-” he waved, “Gotta go-”

    Grampa looked helpless for a couple extra seconds, “I guess it's better he wakes up here, than in the bathroom back home-” he waved and followed Erik to the door.

    Jack walked to the door behind him, took a step down into what might later be called a mud room, stood by the door while the rain had decided to become a drizzle and watched while Erik climbed behind the steering wheel of the old Chevy and Laurel patiently waited.

    Erik started up, checked both ways, blinked and shot out into the street, backed up half a block and waited for Laurel to back out.

    She did, did not back into him, shifted and waved as she started forward.

    Jack turned the front porch off and back on several times and waved as the two cars took off down the street. When he turned around, he nearly collided with his sister, Beth, “I didn't know you were there-” he said.

    Beth nodded, she looked more than a little bit worried.

    “What's the matter?”

    She shook her head, “I'm glad we got home okay-” she crossed her arms in front of her chest and shivered, then turned around and hurried toward the kitchen.

    Jack followed his sister into the kitchen. His mother was putting dishes away that had been washed before they went to the picnic. He saw the tray of left-over banana bread and grabbed a slice, took a bite out of it.

    Beth looked like she was wondering what to do to help her mother.

    Mom read that look in her eyes and, “Beth, you can bring those pots and pans over here, um, after you empty out the dishpan, pour in a little bit of soap and fill it with hot water, they need to soak-”

    Beth nodded, took a step toward the stove, turned around and went to the sink, dumped the cold water that had been sitting there since before noon, found the soap, poured a little bit into the dish pan, turned the hot water on, let it run into the sink until the water coming from the faucet was hot enough, turned the faucet to begin filling the dish pan, went back to the stove while the hot water was producing suds as it filled the dishpan. She looked into the two pots on the stove, brought the bigger one over first, dipped it into the soapy water, and then moved it into the center of the plastic dishpan, made sure the faucet filled that pot first, as it forced the water already in the dishpan up the side of the sinking pot. She went back to the stove, got the second, slightly smaller pot, brought it to the sink, wondered how to get soap inside the second pot, she couldn't dip it into the first pot, the soapy water wasn't high enough yet. She turned toward her mother, who was looking at something in the refrigerator, then she glanced toward Jack who pantomimed picking up the soap bottle and squirting it into the pot.

    Beth wrinkled her forehead, looked slightly upset, but picked up the liquid soap and poured a little into the second pot, put the second pot inside the first one, directed the hot water from the faucet into the second pot and watched it until the water flowed from the second pot, filled the first pot and overflowed and almost overflowed the dish pan, then she turned the water off, did a little dance at the sink, “Um, I need to go to the bathroom-” she turned and ran for the stairs.

    Jack grabbed the last of the cups, one plate, one bowl and several spoons, a couple knives and a couple forks, and dropped everything that fit into the smaller pan, stood the plate alongside the bigger pot.

    Mom walked toward her bedroom, cautiously peered in to see what kind of shape her husband was in, shook her head, turned around and saw Jack finishing up what his sister had started, and smiled. She opened a cabinet and found a bowl that looked like it was the right size to hold the left over baked beans, opened the right drawer, pulled out a large spoon and began scooping the beans out of the pot they'd brought back from the picnic.

    Jack was drying his hands when the phone rang. He jumped and grabbed the phone before it finished the first ring. The phone was on the wall in the kitchen, beside the doorway into the dining room. He moved around into the dining room where he knew he could talk without his father hearing, “Hello?”

    He heard a woman's voice on the phone hesitatingly ask, “Hello? Is Beth there?”

    “Yeah, hang on a second-”

    “Wait a minute- Jack? Is that you?”

    Jack nodded, “Yes?”

    “It's Jean-”

    “Jean-” he smiled, "You sound very different on the phone."

    “That's what everybody says. Michele called and drove me crazy until I promised I would call to make sure I had the right phone number.”

    He grinned, he could easily imagine Michele pushing Jean until she agreed to call him, “Yeah, this is the right number.”

    “You got Larry and his sister home all right?”

    He nodded, “Yes, and then we had to pick my father up off the ground and load him into Uncle Erik's old car and got him home in one piece.”

    “Up off the ground?” she asked.

    “Yeah, he drinks a lot- he passed out on his way out the door and luckily didn't fall on the porch and knock his teeth out on the bricks or anything. He landed in the mud.”

    “That's awful-”

    “Yes, it is-” he nodded, “Did you get Kristien home okay?”

    “Yeah, she ran home the first time the rain really stopped.”

    Jack could hear Beth coming down the stairs, “Do you want to talk to Beth?”

    “Uhm, actually, I'm being told to get off the phone, my mother needs to call somebody, it was good seeing you guys today.”

    Jack nodded, “Really good-”

    “Yeah?” she sounded like she knew what he was trying to say, “I thought so too- I gotta go-” Click.

    He listened to the dial tone for a couple seconds before hanging up.

    Beth looked at her brother with a question in her eyes.

    He stepped back into the dining room, “That was Jean- Michele bugged her until she called to make sure she had our phone number.”

    “Michele's a brat-”

    The doorbell rang-

    Beth took off first, reached the door before Jack did, but they were both standing there together when she finished opening the door.

    Their neighbor from the next house next door was standing there with a letter in her hand, “Oh hi-” she handed the envelope to Jack, “Is this somebody in your family?”

    It was addressed to the parents of Sean R. Harrison.”

    He nodded, “That's my legal name.”

    “I've only ever heard anybody call you Jack-” she looked surprised.

    Mom came up behind them, “Oh hi- Maria- do you want to come in?”

    The woman from next door shook her head, “Eddy brought this in and dropped it on the table Friday, I didn't look at it until today, it's addressed to the parents of Sean R. Harrison. I never would have guessed Jack's name is Sean-”

    “It's a long story-” Jack's mother began.

    “-Named after my father's war buddy's father. When somebody convinced him that Sean was a girl's name it was too late, but then somebody told mom that Sean is an Irish version of John, so she started calling me Jack and I almost never hear anybody but idiot school teachers call me Sean.”

    “Idiot school teachers-” the woman looked like she was about to give him a piece of her mind for calling any school teacher an idiot.

    “When they act like they know better than my mother about this, they're idiots-” he nodded.

    Their neighbor blinked, maybe she couldn't fault him for defending his mother, but she still didn't believe he should get away with calling school teachers idiots.

    He handed the envelope to his mother, she began to open it.

    “Did you all get soaked when the clouds burst on your picnic?” the neighbor asked.

    Beth shook her head.

    “The picnic had started to break up when the sky looked threatening-” mom said, “Some were gone, almost everybody else was inside my mother-in-law's when the rain came-”

    The woman nodded, “Well, I'm glad I got this to you, I have to get back home, Eddy's drunk again-” she shrugged.

    Jack sighed and whispered, “There's a lot of that going around these days-”

    The woman looked like she understood the pain in his face as she pointed, “I guessed, when it took three cars to bring you home and Rocky couldn't find the sidewalk without a man on each side-” she frowned, caught mom's eye, “Talk to you tomorrow- hope everything works out okay-”

    Mom nodded, “Thanks- and thanks for this-” she held up the letter and the envelope, “The maintenance department isn't finished with the floors in the ninth grade home room section of Lincoln junior high and want all ninth graders to report to the cafeteria instead of their home rooms on Wednesday.”

    Jack nodded, “That's what Larry said-”

    The neighbor had taken one step down the front stairs, “Jack's in the ninth grade? Where does the time go?”

    Mom shook her head.

    “If I ever figure that out, I'll let you know-” Jack quipped.

    The woman did a double take, then grinned, “You do that-” and walked away shaking her head, turned back and cast a 'knowing' glance full of sympathy toward his mother.

    When she'd turned around again and was hurrying home Jack raised his hand and waved at her back.

    Mom sighed, “Okay, lets close the door before we let all the bugs in Springfield inside with us.”

    Beth still had the doorknob in her hand, backed up after Jack and her mother had stepped up into the living room. She closed the door and made sure it caught, locked the door, turned around and followed her brother into the living room, turned and closed the 'inside door' with its may pains of glass that rattled so nicely when Rocky blundered his way in after a night of drinking. He couldn't exactly sneak up on them.

    Their mother turned at them before she re-entered the kitchen, “It's still early, but you should probably think about getting used to going to bed earlier and getting up better than you did last year-” That had been directed at Jack.

    “I always get up on time,” Beth said.

    “Well, almost always,” her mother said.

    “Compared to Jack-” Beth turned her back on her mother and stuck her tongue out at her brother.

    Jack stuck his tongue out at his sister.

    “Jack- that's uncalled for-”

    Jack was about to protest, but shook his head, “I'm going to go upstairs and try to spend the rest of tonight in a nice calm -” he made a face, “-quietude?”

    His mother almost laughed, “Good luck-”

    He walked to the stairs and then climbed two steps at a time.

    His room was long and thin with a bit of an alcove down by the windows. He had a bed with a bookcase headboard on the left as soon as he stepped through the door. The room was narrowest right there, because the chimney was boxed in behind a wall right there on the right, between his room and his sisters' room. Their hot air heating system had a  small register in the about six inches above ther floor just beyond the chimney's box. - There was an identical register on the other side of that wall, in his sisters' room. There was a bookcase along that wall, something his father had made as a high school kid, before he'd joined the Navy during the war. Beyond the bookcase was the narrow door to what they called the 'attic', an un-insulated storage space. There was no third story space in this house. Beyond the 'attic' the alcove went about five feet toward Old Farm Road. The alcove had a low ceiling and a small round window that faced the road. Jack had lobbied for and got a pretty comfortable chair that Uncle Erik was going to throw away, something a friend of his uncle's had given Erik when the friend's family moved to the Midwest. Erik had gotten 'sick' of the floral chair cover. Jack had covered the 'girly' 'slip cover' with a blue plaid blanket that was a Christmas present from an obscure relative they never saw any more. He liked to sit back in there and read. There were two windows in the wall with its low ceiling- facing south. This was a dormer, the alcove and the windows with their low ceiling. The neighbors had told them when they moved in that the crabby old lady who'd lived there before them was really short. She'd lived upstairs. Before they'd had a fire in 1961, the “girls' room” was a little bit smaller, the section where Bev's bed, and dresser now 'lived' had been a tiny kitchen with a sink and a stove, cabinets over a little bit of counter, the counters and the sink were lower than usual. There may have been a refrigerator up there once, but that was gone. The “girl's room” had been the woman's living room. She must have eaten her meals at a small table in the living room. There was no room in that kitchen. But after Rocky 'fell asleep' one Sunday morning in April, when a relative had brought mom and the kids to church.-More like passed out with a lit cigarette after he peeked into the girls' room, probably making sure everybody had gone to church but him. And he was still quite drunk from Saturday night. Beth's bedspread caught on fire, melted the cord to a lamp on the table beside her bed, shorted the electric wires in that cord, and left the 'evidence' that a fire department inspector interpreted as the source of a short circuit that caused the fire.

    Rocky opened his eyes in hell and scrambled out of there, fell halfway down the stairs and smashed his way out the back door, caught his breath and went back in to the house that was rapidly filling with smoke and called the emergency fire department number, ran back out back and ran around the house and was standing in the front yard when the Fire Engines arrived, pointed- but they didn't need directions, they told him to go stand in front of their neighbors' house as they fought the fire that left a big hole in the roof, with the upstairs pretty much 'gone'.

    Rocky whispered to a couple friends he could trust that he was probably lucky the inspector called it an electrical fire. The insurance paid for a new roof, a slight redesign, the girls got built in dressers that took a little bit of space away from the 'attic'. The contractor was one of Rocky's friends from the VFW -Veterans of Foreign Wars- which had a building near a couple factories on Bridgeport Avenue that housed one of Rocky's favorite bars. Rocky had asked the guy to insulate the attic to help him save a couple dollars so he'd have more money to spend on getting drunk- but the guy, who'd forgotten about that, claimed he had run out of money, claimed a couple things had cost more than he'd expected- and moved to Arizona for his health. A couple of Rocky's buddies who knew something about contract builders and carpentry, looked at what had been done and looked at the bill and informed him that his so called friend had screwed him, royally- Rocky tried to find the 'sonofabitch' but the address he'd given somebody turned out not to exist and nobody could find him in the city he'd claimed he moved to.

    Jack did get a slightly larger closet out of the reconstruction- He got to pick the color of the paint, wanted blue but Beth had put in her bid for blue before he did, asked for green and got a shade of green he never would have picked, more like pistachio. But, he'd been told, he'd asked for green and that's what he got. He'd also taken a couple photos with Uncle Erik's camera of melted toothbrushes and other weird anomalies and Erik gave him prints. Erik had been on one of his 'kicks' and become obsessed with photography, developed his own photographs. And then, once he got into the University, took a course in photography there and developed the black and white negatives into color prints that looked pretty good. Jack had five eight by ten color prints of melted toothbrushes and piles of ashes in untouched lower dresser drawers.

    At the foot of his bed, along a wall that ran along the eastern side of the room, almost perfectly facing east, was a desk that Aunt Laurel had made for Ben before one of his uncles on the Anderson side gave him a shiny new desk and Laurel was tickled pink to think that Jack wanted something she had made with her own hands. She had hypertension and often couldn't sleep. Sometimes did housework all night, sometimes went out into their garage and built furniture. Tables, desks, -she put a model of a cuckoo clock together one night on her kitchen table and it worked, until her husband smashed in a rage. The next day she packed up the kids and moved in with her parents and sent the cops and contacted a lawyer and filed for divorce. The first lawyer she'd talked to smirked and told her, “Smashing a cuckoo clock is not exactly grounds for divorce.” The second one nodded, made sympathetic noises every couple sentences and told her she had grounds under the 'extreme mental cruelty' provision.

    So Jack had a desk. His bureau, that he'd had since he was a baby, and had been downstairs on the 'sun porch' when the new one burnt to a weird pile of ashes in the second drawer from the bottom-

    And beyond the bureau was the closet.

    He grabbed a brand new fresh notebook, a pen that still had ink and walked to the alcove, sat down in his chair, picked up an over-sized kid's picture book that made a dandy desk in a pinch, adjusted the wall lamp that hung on the nail he'd pounded into the wall, turned it on, opened the notebook to the first page and wrote,

“Monday, September 2, 1963 -Labor Day.

“Usual picnic at Gram and Gramp's on Rockwell street.

“Rocky got drunk and passed out in the mud. We got him home.

“New people: Michele McKendricks: Kid. I thought she was a bit of a pain at first, then she got scary. I thought she was maybe eleven or twelve. She's 9 years old. She had boobs when she was 7 and she is really messed up. She told me I'm a child of thunder. That Larry Wilkenson, who was in my gym class last year, is another one. She thinks something bad is going to happen soon and made Jean call me to make sure she had my phone number because she thinks I'm one person who might be able to come to her rescue if that happens.

“& speaking of Jean, I gave her some 'self defense lessons' today. She showed me a couple of neat 'secret places' where the swamp grass has grown back up into the sand down by the river. And we had a really nice time. I think we both had a nice time. I know I did.

“And I think cousin Pat actually got to kiss Michele. Now that's a first.-”

He stared into space for a while.

“Larry Wilkenson lives near Gram and Gramp H- He and his sister were out in the sand today when we got away from the picnic and Beth used to go to Girl Scouts with his sister. He told me that he'd gotten a letter saying that the maintenance guys at school hadn't been able to finish the floors in the ninth grade homeroom section, so we're supposed to go directly to the cafeteria Wednesday morning.

“& Wednesday will be half a day, I think we get out around 12:30 pm.”

He signed it, “-Jack”

First Day of School, Wednesday, September 4, 1963

     Lincoln Junior High School's address was listed as #200 Lincoln Avenue. It was the only building on the north side of Lincoln Avenue. Union Park Drive ran slightly west of directly north along the uphill side of the school. The junior high school was the only building on the west side of Union Park Drive from the corner of Lincoln Avenue to Park Brook Place which was a good three hundred yards north of Lincoln Avenue . Union Park itself, what there was of it, was north, beyond the school's grounds.

     In 1963 the swamp south of the pond, south of the stream below the dam that had created that pond in Union Park had not been filled in, but came within twenty yards of the north-west corner of the building.

     The school had opened in 1951. It was a large, not quite uniformly 2 story building. The Gymnasium and cafeteria occupied the single story section with very high ceilings, at the far west end of the building.

     On the first Wednesday in September, 1963, most of the ninth grade students were swarming into the cafeteria after the first bell rang at five minutes to nine a.m.

     Lincoln Junior High School 'served' the northern half of Springfield, Connecticut. A brand new High School “Scott High” had just opened in September of 1960. The first class graduated in June 1961. But the new high school was already crowded, with many more students that had been projected when that building had been designed and the actual construction had begun. The baby boom in Springfield had 'boomed' much louder than anyone expected. A little less than half of what would become the Scott High class of 1967 was spending their 'Freshman' year of high school as the 'senior' class of Lincoln Junior High. The Junior High School wasn't as crowded as Scott High. It could handle the ninth graders, as it had during the decade before when Scott High was on the drawing boards, in the planning, being reviewed, beginning construction and then passing inspections and being shown off and then open for business.

     There were 125 ninth grade students in the cafeteria when the 9 a.m. late bell rang. Many of them had tried to take seats at the dining tables and been told to stand up and walk toward the wall of windows, the south wall, and get as close to that wall as they could. The ensuing chaos was so loud that the Vice Principal gave up trying to talk over the noise and sent somebody across the hall to the gym and had the coaches come over with orders to bring their whistles.

     It only took two loud whistle blasts to bring the noise level down to a 'dull roar'.

     The Vice Principal then climbed onto the seat of a wooden chair and bellowed, “If you know which room you have been assigned to, please go to the tables designated as those rooms now-”

     Nobody had told anybody which tables had been designated as anything. The immediate confusion raised the noise level from dull roar to approaching insanity in no time.

     The Vice Principal pointed to the boy's gym teachers and pretended to blow an invisible whistle in his hand.

     Both gym teachers blew their whistles. The shorter one looked like he was losing patience. The taller, younger one looked things were becoming amusing.

     Somebody spoke to the Vice Principal, who turned and looked at the tables and complained, “Where are the signs, we had signs made?”

     The Vice Principal then bellowed, “Okay- These first four tables, nearest the hallway, This is for Homeroom number 110- Mr. Carson.- You have been assigned to Homeroom 110 if your last name begins with the letters A through D. If you are in that group, report to those tables, boys at those two tables, girls on these two tables!”

     There was a bit of a groan as students started to move, either trying to get around other students or get out of the way of other students-

     “Okay! Now these next 4 tables are for Mrs. Beckwith's Home room. Room 112. If your last name begins with E through H- you belong in Mrs Beckwith's Home room. Again, girls on this side of the room, boys on that.-

     “And now room 114, Mr. Johnson's Home Room. If your last name begins with H through M-- what- what?” Mrs Beckwith pointed out that he'd told everybody whose last name began with “H” to report to her group and Now he was telling them to report to the next group.

     The Vice principal did not look happy, he looked at Mrs. Beckwith, a pleasant looking dark haired woman who might have been in her early to mid 30's, and snarled, “You can work that out, I have to get through this list-” then he looked up and bellowed,

     “Room 114-” he realized he had already called out who was supposed to be in Mr Johnson's Home room, tried to recover his dignity with, “You should already be heading for or sitting at the third row of tables- if your last name begins with H through M.

     “Room 111- Mr Goodrich's home room, if you name begins with N as in Nancy, through Sherman-

     “Room 113, Miss MacDermott's Home Room- this is from Simmons through Smythe- That's Smythe- with a “y”-

     “And finally Mr Franklin's Home Room- If your last name begins with T as in Taylor through Z, as in- Zebra- Your home room will be number 115 and that last set of tables is for you.”

     The Vice Principal climbed down from the chair and looked like he thought he could escape and leave the teachers to deal with the students.

     Jack had tried to join Mrs. Beckwith's group. But she'd stopped him and pointed him to the next set of tables. He sat down at the last seat on the second boys' table. He turned around to notice Larry taking a seat at the sixth row of tables, almost all the way back at the windows.

     The Vice Principal walked to the teacher's dining room, down near the windows and picked up one of the phones that Jack guessed was just a glorified intercom. He looked less happy by the minute then bellowed, “Everybody Stand for the national anthem!”

     And the public address speakers crackled and hissed and more or less allowed the National Anthem to play. There was no flag in the Cafeteria and they couldn't see the one on the pole outside so, “Okay, everybody face the office, up that way and recite the pledge allegiance, “I pledge allegiance to the flag- and lowered his voice as he walked past Jack's table and stared right at Jack to make sure he was reciting the pledge, and walked on, “And to the Republicans, for which it stands-”

     Jack tried not to laugh.

     Luckily the Vice principal didn't glance back his way, didn't notice-

     But after the Vice Principal had walked past Mrs Beckwith's class, Jack caught a glimpse of a couple 'tough guys' from her class as they stepped into the aisle to jostle a student wearing black dress pants and a white suit jacket. One of the tough guys tried to trip the guy in the suit, who had to be a new guy. Then, after the new student managed to avoid being tripped a third 'tough guy' moved to the end of their table and gave the new guy a shove, blind sided him while he was looking at the two who had just shoved and tried to trip him from the other side of that table.

     The new guy lost his balance, dropped the book bag he was carrying and staggered across the way, almost knocked one of the girls over who was across the aisle from Jack, and one table back, in Mrs. Beckwith's class.

     That girl gave the new kid a shove and pushed him into somebody that Jack recognized as Peggy Harrington, who would probably be in his home room and yes, she was standing on the other side of the the table a few feet from him that would be in the direct line with his table. She fell back and landed sitting in a chair with the new guy sitting in her lap.

     With her hand still over her heart, Peggy sat there and smiled, chuckled quietly.

     One of the tough guys had jumped across the aisle and grabbed the new guy by the arm, “Don't you fuckin sit down during the National Anthem you puke!” He pulled the new kid's arm really hard and then whipped him across the aisle, right at the table Jack was at.

     Jack jumped, tried to catch the new guy and caught him just before he would have crashed into the corner of the table. The force of the whipping action the tough guy had used to hurl the new guy across the aisle knocked Jack back against the edge of the table. Both Jack and the new kid fell to the floor.

     Jack helped the new kid stand up and then managed to stand up himself.

     The 'tough guy' raised his hand to punch Jack, Jack ducked and the tough guy punched Mr Johnson in the jaw.

     Mr Johnson was dazed, reached down to steady himself against the table.

     The Vice Principal was charging at them.

     The tough guy was trying to stare Jack down, “He fuckin tried to sit down through the National Anthem-”

     “Some asshole pushed him-” Jack almost spit those words into the tough guy's face.

     That tough guy was now really angry, he squared off to swing at Jack and both gym teachers caught him by both shoulders and pulled him back.

     The tough guy was really pissed off, squirming and trying to break free, until he recognized the gym teachers, “Oh hi, coach-” then he pointed at Jack, “He started it-”

     Mrs. Beckwith helped Peggy up from the chair and was trying to ask her if she was all right when the Vice Principal got there and shook his finger at Jack, “You, have been nothing but trouble since I've known you, and I've known you since the fourth grade-”

     Peggy stomped her foot, “All he did was catch the new kid when those three were pushing him around. They could have cracked his head open on the table-”

     There was another new guy, this one was wearing a light tan sport jacket over a semi dressy dark blue shirt, He smiled at Peggy, then turned to the Vice Principal and calmly stated “I saw it, they pushed him-”

     “I saw it too-” Larry was there, beside Mr. Johnson, who still looked dazed, rubbing his jaw.

     The Vice Principal roared, “You, You, You, You and You! Report to my office NOW!”

     Then he turned to the tough guys, “And you three- into the gym and tell your coaches what just happened.”

     Mrs. Beckwith walked over to Mr Johnson, “Are you okay?”

     Mr Johnson worked his jaw, nodded slowly, “I think so-”

     Mrs. Beckwith looked her fellow teacher in the eye, must have figured he was all right, “I need to go to the office with these four- five? Can you watch over my class too?”

     Mr Johnson nodded, then tried to shake the last few cobwebs from his brain.

     Jack, Larry, the two new guys and Peggy grabbed their notebooks and anything else they'd been carrying and started down the aisle toward the hallway. Two guys who'd seen Jack stand up to the tough guys patted him on the back as he passed. Several others gave him the finger.

     Jack glanced sideways to read the name tag the new guy in the white suit jacket was wearing, “Stuart Michaelson” with a Star of David next to his name. Jack sighed, “Welcome to Lincoln Junior High School, Mr, Michaelson.”

     Stuart tried to smile, he bowed slightly, “Th- Thanks-”

     Jack had the distinct impression that the new kid could easily be what his cousin Patrick would be like in a year or two.

     As they reached the hallway Larry stepped up turned around, walked backward a couple steps, “Jack, Peggy, this other new guy is Mike-”

     “Mike Young-” the guy in the sport coat extended his hand to shake like it was an automatic reaction for him.

     Jack shook his hand, “Jack Harrison, and this is Stuart Michaelson.”

     Stuart reached sideways to shake Mike's hand as they continued walking at a more or less normal pace.

     The Vice Principal was ahead of them, climbing the half flight of steps up to the main first floor level.

     Mrs. Beckwith was walking beside Peggy. Behind the four guys.

     “I saw the whole thing, I don't think he can get away with blaming any of you for something those goons of his did.”

     “Who are those guys?” Mike asked.

     Jack grimaced, “The core of the 'best intramural football team this school ever had'.”

     “So that's why he sent them into the gym.”

     The Vice Principal reached the office, looked at the papers he was still holding in his right hand. He looked like he was upset with himself for forgetting to do or say something while he'd been in the cafeteria. Then he glanced back down the hall and saw the four guys he'd ordered to his office coming with the girl behind them. He stepped into the office and then beyond the outer office to his inner office, where he slammed the papers down on his desk and turned and stepped back into the outer office, crossed his arms and tipped his head back in a posture of judgment.

     The four guys, the girl and Mrs. Beckwith came into the outer office.

     Mrs. Beckwith looked like she had come up behind the students. The students walked up to the high metallic desk with its dark green leather counter top - the reception desk - behind which the secretaries and other support staff had their desks. The reception desk was where they met students and visitors.

     The Vice Principal was at the half door that was the same metal, the same color as the sides of the reception desk. He pushed the door partly open, took one step in their direction and pointed at the six metal chairs with leather seats that were lined up against the floor to ceiling glass panels of the wall between the office and the corridor beyond, “Sit there!”

     The students turned, looked at the chairs and moved back toward them. Mrs. Beckwith glanced at Peggy, looked at the last chair, trying to suggest that she sit apart from the boys. Peggy took the hint. Then Mrs. Beckwith, looking either defiant or confident, walked toward the Vice Principal and pointed toward his private office.

     Mr. Franklin, the tall, athletic History teacher with broad shoulders and a head that might have been longer than it should have been, entered the outer office and stepped up in front of Jack, waving his finger- “Just what do you think you were doing, young man?”

     Jack stood up and bowed in a gesture that looked like a martial arts bow, looked slightly up into the eyes of Mr. Franklin with a very calm expression, “I was trying to catch Mr Michaelson here, who'd been pushed by one of your bullies, before he hit the table and possibly broke his nose or split his head open and bled all over the cafeteria.”

     Jack sounded calm, he looked calm. Maybe Peggy and Mr Franklin were the only ones there who noticed that Jack's fists were closed and his arms slightly turned, poised at his side.

     Mr. Franklin took half a step back and fought the urge to return the bow. He glanced at the Vice Principal with an expression that conveyed something like, -We may have a bigger problem here than we thought we did.-

     Mike touched Jack's other arm, the one Mr. Franklin couldn't see.

     Jack turned his head just enough so he could keep his eyes trained mostly on the tall athletic teacher and see Mike through his peripheral vision.

     That hand was curled in the same position as the one the teacher could see.

     Mike shook his head, glanced at Jack's fist.

     Jack opened both fists and took a breath, turned back to face Mr. Franklin straight on. But as soon as he forgot about his hands, they curled into fists again.

     Mr. Franklin kept his distance, “You have an attitude problem, son-” he pointed his finger at Jack.

     Peggy stood up, closer to Mr Franklin than Jack, “He's telling the truth- Bruce Fraser pushed Stuart so hard he flew across the aisle and knocked me into a chair.”

     Mr Franklin pointed his finger precariously close to Peggy's face, “You sit down young lady, I am not talking to you.”

     Jack almost moved toward Mr Franklin with his teeth clenched.

     Mr. Franklin backed off, pointed at Jack, “You take one more step toward me and you WILL be suspended.”

     Mike stood up, turned toward Mr. Franklin and performed a formal Karate type bow, “He didn't move- You did-”

     Stuart looked very confused, “Are we supposed to be standing?” and stood up.

     Larry shrugged and stood up.

     The Vice Principal was ready to rip the door open and step closer to the students. Mr. Franklin held his hand up, like a traffic cop warning the Vice Principal to stay back. Then he took a breath and nodded, “Okay, everybody just relax, sit down and I'll just go over there and talk with Mr Geisner-” he showed them two empty palms.

     The students sat back down.

     Mr. Franklin walked past them, almost brushing the reception desk as he stayed as far away from Jack and Mike as he could. When he turned and saw Mrs. Beckwith behind the reception desk, standing outside Mr. Geisner's office, he nearly winced, but hurried toward the Vice Principal's office, stopped, gestured for Mrs. Beckwith to go in ahead of him.

     Mr. Geisner, the Vice Principal, entered his office behind the other two and closed the door behind him, with his name prominently displayed “Vice Princpal / Mr. L. T. Geisner.”

     As soon as the door closed, Mike looked around, turned to Jack when he could see that nobody was staring at them, “What did you study? Karate? Tae Kwan Do?”

     Jack shook his head, shrugged, “No-”

     Mike's forehead wrinkled slightly, “You assumed a definite martial arts posture-”

     Jack shook his head, shrugged again, “I never even heard of the second one-”

     Mike sat back, “It's Korean, has a lot of similarities with Karate.” He took a deep breath, “I studied that for six months in Australia when we lived there. After a local bully beat the heck out of me on my way home from school.”

     Jack pointed toward the Vice Principal's door, “Mr. Franklin's the guy who brags about being a black belt in Karate. He grabbed a student last year and almost lost his job over it. But he had several other teachers testify in a hearing that he had not hit the student, but wrapped him in his arms to keep the student from hitting somebody else. The other student punched the kid whose arms were pinned, gave him a heck of a black eye.”

     Mike leaned forward, nodded, then sat back and looked like he was deep in thought.

     Peggy reached across the empty chair and poked Jack, pointed to Mike and shrugged.

     “Oh, Mike, this is Peggy Harrington-”

     Peggy leaned forward and waved.

     Mike smiled back, “Margaret?”

     She shook her head, “Just Peggy. My mother liked the name and didn't know it was a nickname for Margaret-”

     Jack leaned back and turned his head toward Peggy, “I never did get the connection between Margaret and Peggy-”

     She shook her head, “Me neither-” She shrugged, realized that Mike was still smiling at her, blushed slightly and leaned back to sit up straight.

     Jack leaned forward and looked beyond Mike, “Does everybody here know everybody else?”

     Larry leaned forward from the farthest chair, waved, “Hi Peggy- I'm Larry-”

     Peggy grinned.

     Stuart almost stood up, face turning red, “Hello everyone, I am Stuart Michaelson, we moved here earlier this summer, from Manhattan where my father was a partner in a Florists shop. He bought the Florist Shop at the the north end of Parson's Corners Shopping Center-”

     Jack leaned forward, pointed, “Stuart, that is Larry Wilkenson, Mike Young, I'm Jack Harrison, and the good looking one down the end is Peggy Harrington.”

     Stuart still looked nervous, like he thought he might have to take a test and get all their names right or something, “Very nice to meet you,” his head bowed forward and moved back quickly.

     They could hear one of the men in the Vice Principal's office raise his voice with an angry tone and heard Mrs. Beckwith's voice calmly reply. But they couldn't understand the words.

     One of the senior secretaries came into the office from the hall and looked at the five of them sitting there, “Can I help any of you with something?”

     Jack pointed toward the Vice Principal's office, “One of our football heroes shoved Mr Michaelson here into Peggy, then pulled him away from her and almost smashed his head on a table, I caught Stuart, saved everybody from a nasty lawsuit and of course I'm the one in trouble.”

     The secretary looked worried, then looked at the other students, “Looks like you're not in this alone, though, are you?”

     Jack shook his head.

     Another one of the secretaries stood up and peered over the reception desk at them, smiled and sat down.

     The V.P.'s door opened. Mr. Geisner led the charge, stepped out beyond the door, or gate, and pointed at Larry, “What's your name and what was your part in this?”

     Mrs. Beckwith stepped around Mr Geisner and then stepped between him and the students.

     Larry didn't stand up, “All I did was say that I saw Bruce Fraser, Harold Gillis, and Joe Farnsworth pushing Stuart around-” he shrugged, pointed at Peggy, “Farnsworth and Gillis tried to knock him off balance and while he was looking at them, Fraser hit them from behind and knocked him across the aisle, knicked him into Peggy and they fell into a chair. Fraser grabbed Stuart's arm and pulled him up, said something about sitting down while the National Anthem was playing and threw him at a table where Jack caught him. If Jack didn't try to stop Stuart from slamming against the table, Stuart would probably have been hurt bad, maybe have broken bones or a concussion. I bet you Jack has a nasty bruise or scrape on his back to prove it-”

     Mr. Franklin looked more upset by the second, “And How is it that you saw this and I didn't?”

     “This happened while we were saying the pledge of allegiance- you were facing the wall, I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned just in time to see what happened.”

     Mrs. Beckwith turned, arms crossed in front of her chest, nodded, “That's exactly what I told you I saw. Nobody here did anything but try to save a brand new student from an attack by three bullies.”

     When she turned back toward the students, tension visible on her face, she uncrossed her arms and shook slightly as she breathed. A Star of David pendant on a silver chain was visible at her throat.

     Mr. Geisner looked like he was becoming more angry by the second. Pointed at Jack and managed not to roar at Mrs. Beckwith, “Take him to the nurse and have her take a look at his back.” He looked at Mr. Franklin with a bit of helplessness creeping into his expression, “We better talk some more-”

     Mrs. Beckwith raised her hand, “Um, should we move these four into the guidance office? They can probably hear every word you say in there-” and she moved her head toward the office.

     Mr. Geisner, with barely contained rage, finally nodded, pointed at one of the secretaries, “Good idea, take them into the guidance office.”

     The second secretary, the one who had stood up and peered over the reception desk after the first one came back from wherever she'd been, got up, smiled, and whispered to the Vice Principal.

     He nodded, “Miss Thomson here will walk you to the guidance office and explain what is happening to- Who is in the guidance office today? All of them?”

     He turned and all but stomped into his office, turned, glared at Jack- or Mrs. Beckwith, or both, then almost slammed the door after Mr. Franklin followed him inside.

     Nobody in the hall, Mrs. Beckwith led Jack across the hall and a couple doors up to the open door beneath the white metal sign that hung straight out from the wall with a red cross inside a red circle. There was a note on the interior door that said “Nurse”. The note said, “Be Right back, have a seat-”

     Jack took a seat. Mrs. Beckwith crossed her arms again as she turned around and looked down at Jack, “What did you ever do to Mr. Geisner? He never gets this angry about anybody else. Everybody knows he should have been upset with the football players, not you-”

     Jack sighed, “Long story- a couple months after my family moved to the 'nice' part of town, I was new at McKinley Grammar school? We came back from lunch one afternoon and the second biggest guy in the class was beating up on somebody smaller than him? The big guy knocked the smaller one down and jumped over his face, trying to smother him? I heard one of the girls tell me, “You've got to save him!” and I jumped and pulled the big guy off the small guy. Mr. Geisner was a sixth grade teacher then? He came up behind me as I was standing there, grabbed me from behind and he was holding me while the big guy stood up, turned around and came at me with a rock in his hand. I jabbed whoever was holding me in the ribs with my elbow and broke loose, got out of the way as the big kid just missed my face with his rock?- okay, the janitor had seen everything, came running and got in the middle and made sure nobody else got hurt?

     “Mr. Geisner had fallen to the ground and he got up, rubbing his sore rib, pointed to me and looked at the janitor, said, “You saw that- He tried to beat up this guy and when I tried to stop him, he punched me in the ribs-”

     “The janitor shook his head and said, 'No sir, I saw this young man pull that one off the smaller kid who the bigger one was suffocating. I couldn't get here fast enough to break it up, but I was trying. And then you grabbed him from behind- He might have saved that one's life.”

     Jack grinned, “I got to sit in the principal's office that day too. And when I was finally cleared, sort of, and sent back to class with a note I saw the janitor in the hallway and thanked him. The man nodded and told me that he'd just been fired for leaving his assigned duties. When I said something like, that stinks, he nodded, smiled and said there wasn't anything he could do about it.

     “I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper. They couldn't believe I was in fourth grade, but after the newspaper guy talked to me, he published the letter, edited out the part about me being in fourth grade and NAACP got into it, because the janitor was a 'colored person'- The principal got in trouble, Mr. Geisner got in trouble. Somebody at the VFW told my father I was a -quote- 'nigger lover' and I got the 'living cement' beat out of me by my drunken father when he came home at one a.m.- after the bar closed.” Jack looked like he'd been reliving the event as he described it.

     Mrs. Beckwith looked sympathetic, “Wow- I never heard about that.”

     Jack nodded, “My mother bought several copies of the newspaper, pulled out the page with my letter, and she's kept them hidden from my father since the night he almost put me in the hospital. She almost called the cops and he told her that if she dialed that phone it would be the last thing she ever did.”

     “Is she still with him?”

     Jack nodded.

     The school nurse came into her waiting room from the hall, looked at Jack and Mrs. Beckwith, “What do we have here?”

     Mrs. Beckwith answered, “Jack here caught a student who'd been pushed and may have scraped his back on a table, Mr. Geisner wants to make sure he's okay.”

     The nurse, in her white uniform and silly nurse hat walked toward her inner room and beckoned Jack to follow, “Come on in here and lets get a look at that.”

     Jack handed his notebook to Mrs. Beckwith and followed the nurse, pulling his shirt out of his pants as he did.

     Then he pulled his shirt up and leaned over slightly while she looked at it.

     The nurse looked out at Mrs. Beckwith, “He's got a nasty scrape along a couple vertebrae on his back bone here. I could paint it with Mercurochrome, do you need to see it for insurance purposes or anything?”

     Jack looked toward Mrs. Beckwith, shrugged and turned around.

     “Okay- I see it,” she spun her finger in small circles while Jack had his head turned as far as he could turn it to see her reaction.

     He nodded, took the gesture as a hint and turned around.

     Mrs Beckwith looked sympathetic again, “I think he'll live.”

     The nurse laughed as she dabbed his back with the Mercurochrome and Jack nearly jumped out of his skin.- “Well the good news is, The operation was successful-”

     The nurse laughed, “If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that one-”

     Mrs Beckwith looked confused.

     So Jack finished, “The bad news is, the patient died.”

     Mrs. Beckwith winced, then couldn't help chuckling, “At least his ghost retained his sense of humor.”

     The nurse headed for the door, took the handle, turned and faced Jack, “You can tuck your shirt back in, come on out when you're finished.” and closed the door.

     Jack didn't count, but it only took him a couple seconds to tuck his shirt into his pants and turn around and approach the door.

     Mrs. Beckwith then walked back across the hall with him, but not toward the office, she led him toward the Guidance Office instead, which did connect with the administration office via an internal corridor, that students weren't supposed to use, unless accompanied by a teacher or other staff member.

     The head of the guidance department was paying a visit that day. He was balding, looked very out of place in his gray suit, overly enthusiastic, like he was trying to inspire the students sitting in the outer part of the office, in institutional chairs with plastic upholstery that were supposed to look like leather. The outer part of the guidance office had its walls lined with bookcases. The large lower shelves looked like kindergarten cubby holes with catalogs from various colleges and universities, most of which were within, maybe, 500 miles of Springfield, Connecticut. Jack's Uncle Erik said they'd ordered a catalog to Cal Tech for him but it didn't get there until he'd graduated out of junior high and gone to the high school.

     The head of the guidance department, wearing a name tag, “Dr. H.R. Henderson / Head of Guidance Dept.” Came through the corridor from the administration office and rubbed his hands together, looked like he was about to tell everybody to get up and do calisthenics, “Well, what have we here?” He then singled out Peggy and walked toward her, leaning forward, “I'm Doctor Henderson, head of Guidance for the Town of Springfield's school system, who are you?”

     Peggy frowned, almost cringed, “Peggy Harrington-”

     “'Peggy', not 'Margaret'? Are you ashamed of the name your parents gave you?”

     She shook her head, “No, they named me Peggy, that's the name on my birth certificate.”

     Dr. Henderson frowned for a split second, then, “So what can we help you with today? Peggy?”

     Jack and Mrs. Beckwith entered the room.

     Dr. Henderson glanced toward them, recognized Jack, straightened himself to his full height, pointed at Jack, “---Sean- Right?”

     Two guidance counselors left whatever they were doing in their inner offices and stepped into the waiting room area. One of them signaled to Dr. Henderson, who entered her office and pulled the door closed. The other one smiled at Mrs. Beckwith, turned and went back into her office and left her door open.

     Mrs. Beckwith stepped in front of Jack and looked at him, “Are you all right?”

     Jack had been staring away at nothing for nearly a full minute, turned toward Mrs. Beckwith, shook his head, “I can't believe that a jerk who insists on calling everybody by their 'proper given birth name' has anybody's best interests but his own in mind.”

     Peggy looked up from the catalog she had grabbed and frowned, “He gives me the creeps.”

     Jack nodded, “Me too-”

     The thing about the corridor between the Guidance Office and the Administration Office was, you could stand in the guidance office and glance down that corridor and see into the administration office. Jack saw both boys' gym teachers walk past the other end of that corridor. The tall one turned and saw Jack standing there with Mrs. Beckwith.

     Jack sighed, “Well this year is off to a roaring start. I just saw both boys gym coaches walk toward Herr Geisner's office. They don't look happy.” he turned and saw Mike and Stuart, both of them bored, both reading catalogs for universities. Stuart was leaving through NYU's Catalog, Mike was reading something in Columbia University's, “So, Mike, Stuart, did we officially welcome you to Lincoln Junior High yet?”

     Mike looked up and grinned.

     Stuart looked very serious, “Yes, I think you actually did- Thank you-”

     Jack nodded, “You're more than welcomed-” looked around and saw the only seat open was beside a round table in the middle of the room. He walked over to it and sat down. Peggy glanced up and began to smile, saw someone coming and turned her gaze back to the catalog she looked like she was pretending to read. Jack couldn't see the cover or read anything like a university name.

     But then Jack glanced sideways and saw one of the coaches coming down the inside corridor.

     The tall coach caught Mrs. Beckwith's eye, signaled that she should come back into the V.P.'s domain. Then he gave Jack a weird smile and a wave and turned around and followed Mrs. Beckwith back down the short corridor.

     Jack closed his eyes and sighed.

     Dr. Henderson and the senior Guidance Counselor came out of her office and followed the coach and Mrs. Beckwith. The Senior Guidance Counselor had a legal pad and a pen in one hand.

     One of the younger secretaries came down the corridor with a folder and some papers, “Michael Young?”

     Mike raised his hand.

     The secretary smiled, “Here's the schedule we filled out for you, and here's a list of important information, like what you need for gym class, what time the early and late bells ring, how you need a hall pass any time you're in the hall when you should be in a classroom. Are you a bus student?”

     Mike shrugged.

     “Where do you live? Oh- wait I have that right here-” She opened his folder, read the top piece of paper and looked impressed, looked up, “I don't think that road is on a bus route- I'll have to check-”

     “I'm supposed to call home and get a ride when school is out-”

     The secretary nodded, “But, if it turns out you should get a bus to and from school- you will need a bus pass-” She turned around and walked back to the administration office. Jack, Mike and Larry watched her walk away. She was wearing a skirt that was really tight at the hips.

     Mike looked at the papers she'd handed him. They bore the distinct smell of a mimeograph machine's printing.

     Mr. Geisner raised his voice again, they could hear him even in this office. Again, they couldn't make out what he was saying, but he was angry.

     Stuart got up and returned his catalog to its shelf, then walked over near Jack to look through the catalogs in the bookcase behind him.

     Jack stood up and walked to Stuart's side, spoke quietly, “I don't know if you noticed, but Mrs. Beckwith is wearing the Star of David on a silver chain at her throat.”

     Stuart smiled and nodded, “I did notice that, I think she made sure we saw that to try to make me feel like she was on our side. But thanks, I didn't know what her name was.”

     “Another thing, two of those guys who shoved you this morning almost got expelled last year for wearing Nazi medals to school on Halloween. Not swastikas, The Iron Cross?”

     He nodded, then shook his head, “I didn't know that.”

     “You couldn't have, but wearing your name tag probably set you up as a target to those goons.”

     Stuart looked startled and glanced down, grabbed his jacket pocket, turned it up so he could read it, “I forgot that was there.”

     Jack nodded.

     Stuart began trying to unpin his name tag.

     “Need help?”

     He nodded.

     Jack took a second to figure out how it was pinned and then easily removed it from his pocket, handed it to him.

     Stuart looked at Jack more intensely than before, whispered, “You're not Jewish, are you?”

     Jack shook his head.

     Stuart smiled, “Thank you again.”

     Jack nodded, “You're welcome again,” and walked back to the chair near the table and, coincidentally, near Peggy.

     Peggy wrote something on a piece of paper she'd torn from her assignment pad and slid it across the table to Jack.

     “I heard you talking to Stuart about the goons and their Nazi medals, and about the name tag he forgot he was wearing, good idea-”

     Jack smiled at Peggy.

     She smiled back, and then shot a glance toward Mike.

     Another young secretary came down the inside corridor from the administration office, “Stuart? Is Stuart Michaelson here?”

     Stuart stood up, turned around and raised his hand, “I'm over here.”

     “You all feel like sitting down at the table for a second, I have your schedule all worked out here-” She looked around, “There's supposed to be chairs at this table-”

     Jack stood up indicated that the chair he'd been sitting in was available.

     “You don't have to move away for me-” the secretary said. “There were three more chairs at this table this morning.”

     “Y'all from the South?” Jack matched her accent almost perfectly.

     She beamed at him, “Charleston, South Carolina? You?”

     He shook his head, “Not even the south end of Springfield, I'm just good with accents.”

     She tried very hard to frown at him, “I should be angry with you for that-”

     Jack looked like he was afraid she might hit him with a mean right hook or something, “I didn't mean to sound- I didn't mean to make you angry.”

     Mike and Larry went into one of the empty inner offices and brought out two metal chairs with the leather seats, placed them at the table.

     “Why thank you, gentlemen-” the secretary sounded like she was impressed, then she leaned forward a bit, spoke close to Jack's ear, “I didn't think you were making fun of me or anything, I just thought I heard a friendly voice and got my hopes up-”

     Jack almost blushed, “I can fake it if you want me to-”

     She grew a wide smile, “Why thank you. It might not be quite the same as the real thing, but if I get desperate, I'll let you all know.”

     Stuart sat at one of the chairs that had just found their way back to the table and the secretary sat at the other, She put one piece of paper down in front of him, “Now this is your new schedule, and this is a list of important information, like what time you should arrive, when the late bell rings, emergency phone numbers in town. Which radio station to tune to on a day when school might be called off due to snow or something like that-”

     She told Stuart everything the other secretary had told Mike, not long ago, but she said it a way that was much more – charming? And it wasn't just the accent, it was her inflection and the tone of her voice.

     It was probably a little after nine fifteen in the morning when the five of them were ordered to the principal's office.

     It was after eleven thirty when Mrs. Beckwith, looking like she'd been through a wringer, came back into the Guidance department's outer waiting area. She closed her eyes and sighed before she actually stepped into the room, “Well- It took all this time to get Mr. Geisner and Mr. Franklin to even consider the idea that the three young men from the football team actually caused what happened. Stuart cannot be charged with inciting a riot for wearing a suit to school-” she smiled at him, noticed the name tag was gone and nodded. Then she looked at Jack, “I want to thank you, Jack, for rising to Stuart's defense- I know we could be facing a much worse outcome here. Yes, it looked like if you didn't catch him his head could have split open on that table's edge. And I want to personally thank each of you for sticking up for someone you don't even know-” she sighed again, “Jack, have you ever taken Karate lessons?”

     Jack shook his head, “I had a neighbor who was dating a Karate teacher, he did his warm up exercises in her back yard and-” Jack shrugged, “I guess I was impressed- but I never set foot inside a Karate studio. Never wanted to.”

     She nodded, “Mr Franklin was trying to say you threatened him with a Karate stance.”

     Jack winced, “Mr. Franklin almost got his butt fired last year for grabbing a student after bragging to several classes that he had a black belt in Karate.”

     Mrs. Beckwith nodded, “I remember that- one of the reasons they don't like to see me get involved with anything like this is because I did see what he did, after I had heard him brag about being a black belt- and I would not retract my statement. They know that I won't back down-” She sighed again, “And strangely enough, one of the coaches was with me on this. He saw what happened and they were much more inclined to believe a gym teacher than me. But he told them just about exactly what I told them and almost exactly what you told them. Those three guys are facing disciplinary action, and they will probably be kicked off the team. They have been told they have no one to blame but themselves, and if they go near any one of you they can be expelled and their parents could be facing real legal problems.”

     Jack winced.

     “What is it, Jack?”

     He shook his head, “Did I stir up a wasps' nest on the first day of school?”

     “Jack, it isn't your fault. You tried to keep someone from being hurt by bullies. It's their fault.”

     “Yes, but what if they decide in a couple months that things have quieted down enough to follow one of us home or ambush us on the way to or from school?”

     Mrs. Beckwith subtly shifted her stance from slightly leaning to one side to slightly leaning to the other- “Jack, I'll tell you what I've told others in a similar situation. Try to walk home in a group. Bullies don't like it when the odds are not overwhelmingly in their favor, those three might gang up on one of you. But three of them against two of you- or more? I doubt it.”

     She turned to Stuart, “You live on the north end of Parson's Corners?”

     Stuart nodded.

     “That's still too close to warrant a bus pass, I think you might be two blocks from the line.”

     Jack caught her eye, “I could walk him to and from school, at least for the first couple weeks. It's a little out of the way, but-”

     “So can I-” Larry added. “I do have a bus pass, but I almost never use it. Too many bullies ride the bus.”

     Mrs Beckwith looked mildly surprised, “I didn't think you looked like someone any bully would take a chance might hit him back-”

     “I wasn't born six feet tall-” he looked like he was remembering painful incidents, “And that's part of the equation. There will always be older, bigger kids who will pick on the younger, smaller kids.”

     Mrs. Beckwith looked like she hadn't wanted to be reminded of that, nodded, “Okay, thank you Larry-”

     She hadn't glanced toward Mike, but he volunteered, “I live up on a road in Roosevelt Park? I think all our neighbors send their kids to private schools. I don't think a bus goes anywhere near there, so I kind of have to depend on a ride from home, and I'm supposed to call and tell my mother when to pick me up. Can I use the pay phone? I saw one in the hall-”

     Mrs Beckwith moved far enough to look into the vacant inner office, there was a phone on the desk, “Just a second-” she held up one finger and walked over to the office with the open door where the guidance counselor inside was reading through a pile of documents, copying lines from some, crossing out lines from others.

     Mrs. Beckwith knocked on the door.

     The counselor looked up, smiled, “Yes?”

     “Can Mike Young use the phone in the other office to call home and tell his ride when to pick him up?”

     The guidance counselor looked thoughtful, “I'm not sure that phone works, let me try it-” She got up, walked from her office to the one next door, picked up the phone, frowned, dialed a number and smiled, hung up the phone, “Dial “9” and wait for the dial tone-” She looked at the students in the waiting room, “Mike?”

     Mike looked up, smiled.

     “You can use that phone, dial nine and wait for the tone, then dial your number. If your ride comes to this side door on Union Park Drive,” She pointed, “It would be much better than trying to compete with the buses at the front, and you can leave at ten minutes after twelve today. The rest of you have to wait until twelve fifteen.”

     Mike nodded as he stood up, “That's where I was left off this morning, at the side door.”

     He walked into the open office, picked up the phone, dialed nine, waited, smiled, dialed his number, waited, “Hi Mom, yes, you can come to the same door you left me off at? I can leave at ten minutes after twelve, because no buses come to our street and I'm far enough away to qualify, they're treating me like a bus student and letting me go five minutes ahead of almost everybody else. Okay, see you then- Good bye-” He hung up.

     The secretary from South Carolina and one of the maintenance guys who had been working on the floors in the ninth grade Home room and history and social studies wing came from the administration office and into the empty office as Mike rejoined the other 4 students.

     Mike looked around, found Mrs. Beckwith, “Thank you-”

     “Your welcome.-”

     The secretary and the maintenance guy looked at several forms and papers that were on the desk in the office that Mike had just left.

     The worker smiled, almost blushed, "We were supposed to tell-” he glanced toward the students and decided to be more formal than he might have, otherwise, “-the vice principal - what time we finished with the floors? They're all set. They would have been fine before today, but that water that got in when it rained the other night- nobody could have seen that one coming-"

     The older secretary came in and joined them, "So that whole area should be open tomorrow morning, it doesn't have to dry for another twenty four hours more or anything?"

     "Nope- it's finished drying and freshly buffed up right now. Don't tell any students, they might go down there, take their shoes off and see how far they can slide on the nice shiny new slick floors-"

     "Sounds like fun to me-" the secretary with the southern accent smiled.

     The maintenance guy nodded.

     Two more maintenance guys came into the guidance office.

     “I don't suppose you all want to sign up for classes-” the young secretary smiled at them, “We just found the forms that were left on this desk this morning- Is everybody all finished and ready to go home now?”

     "Yep, just now- everything's packed up and we're outta here-"

     The older secretary gazed at the three maintenance guys over her glasses, picked up some of the papers and headed back down the little corridor.

     The young secretary seemed to be a lot more relaxed with the older one gone, "Okay- let me get that sheet you all can sign or initial next to your names, and write down the time, I'll put my life on the line and sign as your witness and then you can go-"

     "We thought we left that sheet on that desk this morning-" one of the guys pointed.

     The first maintenance guy looked through the papers he was reading and signing, “Yup, it's here-” and the other two maintenance guys went into the office, read the forms, signed their initials, had the secretary initial and looked around.

     "We heard there was a little bit of, um, a little bit of confusion in the cafeteria-" one guy said.

     "Hope no one thinks its our fault-" another added

     "No- Not at all-" the young secretary said, looked through all the forms and copies she had in her hands. She frowned and began tearing forms apart on their dotted lines, “You know which color copies each one of you all needs to take with him?”

     Maybe a minute or two later, each one of them their color coded copies of what everybody hoped was the correct form in their hands.

     “If anything is missing, or if anything is checked in the wrong place, we'll be here tomorrow morning and every school day morning until next June-” the secretary was trying to put forms and papers in their proper order in a pile she was building.

     “Were you the temporary replacement here?”

     “I was- but we found out yesterday that I've been hired permanently-”

     The guy who had asked smiled, “That is good news, because it's been a lot easier and more pleasant working with somebody who knows what she's doing and doesn't give us a lot of- um,” he sighed, “-Nonsense?- like your predecessor did. Everything she misplaced was our fault-” he looked like he was happy things had improved, but something before had left a 'bad taste' in his mouth.

     “Why, thank you- There have been a number of days when I could have used a compliment-”

     The maintenance guy nodded, smiled, gritted his teeth, turned and left with his buddies.

     The secretary looked at the clock, grinned, “Yesterday I looked at that clock while somebody was adjusting the time. I almost thought I was coming down with something when the hands of the clock began moving around so fast-”

     She realized that the students were all looking at her, every one of them was smiling. She glanced down and began to blush, then remembered, “I think there's going to be an announcement of the public address system in a couple minutes and then I think you will all be able to leave from here-”

     Mrs. Beckwith was reading a letter that looked like some kind of announcement on official school letterhead paper, looked up, “Can we get you to put your life on the line one more time? I've been thinking that we need to make a note that these students were present today so nobody back in the cafeteria marks them absent and their parents get calls tomorrow?”

     Jack tore a blank page from his notebook, wrote in printed letters, the date at the top of the page and then beneath that, his name, homeroom number, and the time in and out of the 'guidance office', then signed it, passed the note to Peggy, who was closest.

     All five of them put their information on the sheet of paper and Mrs Beckwith printed her name out, then signed it and showed the secretary, who read it and signed it.

     Mrs. Beckwith looked thoughtful, “I think I'll hang on to this, just in case.”

     The secretary smiled, “I'll make myself a note, oh wait a minute,” she looked at Jack, “You wouldn't have another piece of paper that you all can write your names on for me? Would you?”

     Jack nodded, tore another piece of paper out of his notebook printed the date at the top again, wrote, “Students in the guidance office all morning/ half a day of school, first day, September 4, 1963.” then printed his name and homeroom number, passed the piece of paper to Peggy, who added her name and home room and passed it to Mike, who filled it out and passed it to Stuart, who took more time than any of the others, trying to make the letters perfect- and finally Larry added his name and homeroom to the list and handed it to the secretary.”

     “So tomorrow, you all go to your regular home rooms unless somebody has another reason to block off that section- I shouldn't even think of things like that-” she smiled, checked the piece of paper, made sure she could read it, smiled, “I hope you all have a better evening that your morning turned out to be-” she turned and walked up the corridor with the four male students staring at her back the whole way.

     Peggy cast a 'knowing' glance toward Mrs. Beckwith, who shook her head and said nothing.

     The public address system crackled and hissed to life, “Attention all students, this is Vice Principal Geisner. We'd like to once again, welcome you to the beginning of another great year here at Lincoln Junior High School and I'm glad to see we've all gotten off to a great start- Tomorrow's a full day, and we have been assured that the ninth grade homeroom hallway floors have been finished and passed inspection, so tomorrow will be a normal day here at Lincoln Junior High. Home room period may be extended a short time to accommodate assigning lockers et cetera to the ninth grade students who were not able to do that this morning. Bus students will be dismissed promptly at ten minutes after twelve noon, that's ten minutes from now. Everyone else will be dismissed at twenty minutes after twelve. - Please observe all the rules as you exit the building, remember, no running in the halls, no walking on the grass- you should all know this by now- and the use of fowl language within the school boundaries WILL get you suspended. We are sure you will all live up to the highest standards of behavior and academic achievement this year, That is all- Have a good night and come back tomorrow morning well rested and ready to get to work.”

     Jack grimaced and shook his head, “We're off to a fine start- don't-cha think?”

     Peggy tried to keep her laughter silent.

     Mrs. Beckwith finished frowning at whatever official letter she'd been reading and turned to Larry and Jack, “You will be walking Stuart home, right?”

     They nodded.

     The institutional analog clock read 12:05- small hand on the 12, big hand on the 1-

     Mike had his notebook and the information the secretary had handed him together in front of him as he sighed and waited for those last five minutes to pass.

     Those five minutes eventually did pass. Mike stood up with his notebook and papers and held his free hand up, “It's been very nice meeting all of you- See you tomorrow-”

     Larry waved, “You'll be in my homeroom-”

     Mike nodded, smiled at Mrs. Beckwith, “Thanks for all your help-” sort of bowed, then turned and almost made it to the door, pointed, “That way, right?”

     Jack and Larry nodded.

     Mrs. Beckwith nodded, “That's Union Park Drive, just outside the doors-” she then stayed with the other four students until well after the dismissal bell rang, when she turned to Peggy and, “Good night, have yourself a safe and hopefully uneventful walk home.-”

     Peggy grinned, “I'll try-”

     The teacher then kept the last three young men in the guidance office until the halls were empty, told Jack and Larry one more time that she really appreciated what they were doing for Stuart, then walked them to the side door and saw them pick their way through the crowd that hadn't thinned out much, saw them safely cross the street at the crossing guard and straggle on down the sidewalk along the street that wound its way, eventually to main street.

     She turned around and was almost startled to see the young secretary standing there.

     "Are you all taking this to the union?"

      Beckwith slowly nodded her head.

     "Good for you- If there's anything I can do to help, you let me know."

     Mrs. Beckwith smiled. The cute newly permanent secretary might just be an ally she might someday be able to depend upon.

     Jack, Larry and Stuart attracted a couple stares after they'd crossed the road, then turned back around and stood on the other side, looked back at the school.

     Mrs. Beckwith was still visible in the doorway.

     A trio of guys on bicycles came around from behind the shops wing.

     Larry was the one who asked the question, “Kids ride bikes to school?”

     Stuart looked like he was afraid Larry might have asked him.

     “Yeah-” Jack nodded, “I did, about ten times last year, when I was late- or would have been.”

     Stuart watched clumps and clusters of Junior High School students heading both ways on this side of Union Park Drive. Guy groups, girl groups, mixed groups. A couple groups that looked like they might be family groups. Two pairs of twins (all of them young women), probably both in the eighth grade, with a reluctant younger boy, probably a seventh grader, and then an older boy, who was probably one of the twin's boy friend- seemed to be a little more confident than most clusters of friends or siblings- they headed off north- on the non-park side of Union Park Drive.

     Jack pointed, “There's a kind of courtyard behind the shops here-”

     Larry nodded, “I know what you mean-”

     “There's a bike rack back there.”

     “There is?”

     Jack nodded, “Used to be two- somebody hit one of them with a car a couple years ago- after school. Some kids from Springfield High got drunk and thought they'd terrorize the guys from Scott High, and when they realized they were outnumbered, they tried to get away by charging around this school. Nobody got hurt. I think one of the guys from 'that other high school' had a cop for a father- I heard that somebody had threatened to make all the guys in the car that got smashed up come to drivers' ed and confess to their stupidity while the teachers show photographs of their smashed up car.

     “I never learned to ride a bicycle. I'm from the city- nobody had a bike in our neighborhood, they'd all get stolen.” Stuart announced, then looked down like he was wondering if he had spoken out of turn.

     Jack turned to Stuart, “Do you want to know anything about this area? Or should we just hurry up and get you home?”

     Stuart stuttered as he began to answer, “M- muh- my parents-” he clamped his eyes shut, thought about what he was about to say, then looked relieved that Jack and Larry weren't disgusted with him for stuttering, “-don't know for sure when I'm coming home. We thought I had half a day, so they said I'd get there when I get there.”

     Jack pointed up the road on the side where the school was, “Union Park- One town manager was pro union and started that project, the next one was anti-union and cut off the funds. Just behind the school, there's a swamp. There are a lot of young trees and a lot of muck and bug breeding water- In the winter, it's a great place to learn how to ice skate, with a lot of short straight-aways and lots of trees with low branches to hang onto if you haven't quite gotten your balance yet. Great place to fall on your butt without an audience. Over there- north of the swamp, there's the pond they created when the built a silly excuse for a dam, maybe to try to create a place where area kids could go swimming? But so many sewer overflows, and even raw sewage flows into the creeks that feed the pond, the health guys would never approve it for swimming. Some kids come fishing when the weather is nice, nobody's stupid enough to eat what they catch. Every once in a while somebody brings a canoe or a small rowboat and goes out there. But what are you going to do? Paddle or row to one of the rocks that stick up in the middle? Learn to paddle a canoe? There is one kind of old time barbecue thing where kids light fires while they're trying not to freeze to death while skating in the winter. And there's one stone fireplace farther up that way where all they can do is light a fire. I never saw anybody try to cook anything on the grill. I don't think I'd want to eat anything that was cooked on it-

     “On the other side of the pond there's an area that I think they used to cut the grass and keep it looking like a park, but then the town stopped paying guys to do that, so now it's starting to grow a new crop of trees. There's a hill, with a couple paths up the hill, to where I used to go and sit on this rock under a tree up the top and look out at all the ugly rubber stamped houses on this side.”

     Stuart let out a nervous laugh.

     Jack grinned, “Behind the tree up there, there's an old farmer's field that nobody's worked for, ten or twenty years? So there's a wide open field with several paths through tall grass, and a couple clumps of trees that get bigger every year- Nobody I ever asked about it knows anything about what farm that used to belong to. One guy said his father thought somebody bought the farm to put in a new housing development, but the people at the town hall didn't like this guy, so he went broke before he came up with enough money to buy the permits. Up that way- beyond the pond, there's a path on each side that leads to Partridge Street that connects Union Park Drive here to Trumbull Road. There are four? I think four streets that run almost parallel almost straight north from Bridgeport Avenue- Remington Avenue, Trumbull Road, Old Farm Road and then Main Street- Old Farm Road is shorter, doesn't make it all the way down to Bridgeport Avenue- and farther up Main Street, there's another road, the comes off at an angle and runs north, up to the eastern side of Roosevelt Park, which was one of the make work projects that got everybody out of the depression, or was supposed to, there's a park ranger stationed up there. There's the very exclusive section around Beaver Dam Lake, Anybody who tells you they're from Beaver Dam is probably a millionaire- There's a blocked off road from almost the dead end of Beaver Dam Road that used to go through the the Park. Some people call it a park, some people call it a forest.- I used to take my bicycle up there all the time.”

     “I never learned to ride a bicycle-” Stuart winced when he realized he'd already explained that once.

     Jack pointed, “There are a dozen east and west roads between Union Park Drive and Old Farm Road- some of them are more direct than others, like maybe they started from both ends and didn't quite get the measurements right, might have been off by ten or twenty feet? And-” He turned around, “The most direct route to Parson's Commons is that way-” he pointed south, “Pleasant Hill Lane wiggles through there and comes out on the edge of the Green, Just south of the Synagogue-”

     Stuart grinned, “I know where that is. And my family's florist shop is on the Northern edge of Parson's Commons.”

     Jack nodded. They started walking south, toward a road that didn't quite connect with Lincoln Avenue. They turned the corner and walked down the north sidewalk on a road where loads of students in their new school clothes were straggling toward home on a fairly hot September afternoon.

     “Did you say you lived in New York City?” Larry asked Stuart.

     “The Lower East Side-” Stuart nodded, glumly, then brightened, “My older brother and my cousin used to take me on rides all over the city on the subway-” Then he darkened again, “They're both away at nice exclusive universities-”

     “And your parents made you wear a suit on your first day of school?”

     He looked like he'd rather not be reminded of that, “They don't know better – that's what they wore when they went to school. They don't believe that's not what we're supposed to wear now.”

     “Yeah,” Jack grimaced, “Parents can be like that-”

     Stuart looked like he very much appreciated the sympathy.

     Pleasant Hill Lane went more or less straight down a very gradual hill for a couple blocks, then began to turn, and 'wiggle' around the hill that may have given the road its name. And then it turned again and swooped around a lower, rockier hill and turned back to almost due east beyond that. They were now of fairly flat land and Stuart could look ahead and recognize the parking lot to the Synagogue.

     When they reached Old Farm Road they were almost at the outside edge of the shopping area that had adopted the name of the village green from old colonial days, Parson's Commons.

     Nobody remembered whether it was named for the parson to the old Baptist Church that more or less hid away behind some very old trees maybe five hundred yards south of the Synagogue. The Synagogue sat proudly on a hill with no trees around it. The Baptist Church looked like it was hiding. You couldn't miss the Synagogue. You could easily miss the church.

     Where Pleasant Hill Lane reached Old Farm Road did not quite line up with Bakery Place. They crossed Old Farm Road and turned left, walked about five yards and turned right, walked in the shade of tall maple trees. On the south side of Bakery Place there were two big old houses, then a smaller, newer, ranch style home. The biggest old house on the corner was a wooden apartment house. It had a driveway and a two car garage, almost always had sadly used cars parked in front of the garage doors. There was a little bit of a grass strip and then a curb between this driveway and the next one, which started out just as wide as the two car driveway, then at least felt like it narrowed on its way to the one double wide garage set back at least sixty feet from the road. This next house was a large older house with a dutch style, gambrel roof with dormers on each side. The dormers also had gambrel roofs. There was a large porch on the front of the house, facing the street, and what may have been a smaller screened in porch on the second story, which was now closed off, with windows all around. The building was a dull grey with white trim. The third house was surrounded by a chain link fence. The fence had a double swinging gate that opened or closed on a garage-less driveway that ended at a hedge. There may have been room there for two cars to park tightly, nose to tail, if the first car was right up against the hedge. The house was set way back in the yard with a very long sidewalk that curved from the driveway to the front steps. It had a very small front porch beneath a metal awning. There were two young maple trees near the front of the house. Along the long eastern side of the chain link fence a hedge was growing unchecked, along with three or four more, nearly mature maple trees -not as big and old as the trees out by the road- And there were thorny rose bushes planted all along the inside of the chain link fence out by the sidewalk.

     Beyond the hedge and the fence was a driveway, more like an alleyway, behind the Bakery that gave the street its name. There was a smallish, off the road parking lot in front of the Bakery. A small soda-fountain, lunch counter had grown up beside the bakery and a news stand-magazine and comic book store beside that. Then there were six storefronts in one building parallel to Bakery Place- coming in from Main Street, there was a small grocery store, which was twice as wide as most of the stores in this group. A card and gift shop called Cards Etc. was next, Then a Real Estate office with photos of houses for sale in their window. Then there was a vacant store with a sign in the window saying “Future home of Novak's Floristry Shoppe” then an insurance office, and then, in the corner, a store calling itself Parson’s Corners Jewelers. Six or eight cars could park facing the Bakery depending on which sets of fading lines you chose to park between. Eleven parking spaces had their lines painted on an angle to the sidewalk on the Parsons Corners Jewelers to the Parsons Corners Grocery store. Because there was an outlet onto Bakery Place there were only 9 official parking spaces along the street side of the parking area, with only enough room for a motorcycle to park beyond the line closest to Main street. There was a sign down there, in that last half-wide parking spot, “Police Parking Only.”

     Jack pointed to the empty store advertising itself as a future 'floristry' shoppe, “That's not you?”

     Stuart shook his head.

     “They must be your nearest competition-” Larry added.

     Stuart shook his head, “We met them- they came to talk to us, they're talking about specializing in things we won't carry and asking us to do the same, and they're wondering if one of their customers wants something we carry and they don't, should they call over to our store and have us run something over to them, bring it to their back door and they'd make like they just had somebody in a back room put it together. And they would do the same for us.”

     “Cooperation instead of cut throat competition-” Jack mumbled.

     Stuart smiled.

     They crossed Bakery Lane before they reached the corner -No vehicles coming either way- and waited for the traffic light before crossing Main Street.

     As they crossed the road, to a cement esplanade that kept the parking area separate from Main Street, Jack glanced past the Lion's Den Tavern and the delicatessen, the laundromat and the package store, past the Shell station and saw the sign on the house across Short Street from the Shell Station- “Michaelson's Florists” he pointed, “You're home- I thought it was farther up Main Street-”

     “No, that's it. That's both our home and our business.”

     They didn't have far to walk from there- And as they reached the Shell Station, a bright red Avanti coup growled up from behind them, turned through the Gas Station and pulled to a stop between them and the Florists shop.

     Jack looked like he was about to say something, either negative about sporty coupes or something rye, or facetious- but a blond woman in a pants suite climbed out of the driver's side of the Avanti and Mike Young climbed out of the passenger's seat.

     Jack laughed. Mike and the woman who was most likely his mother, were almost all the way to the door of the Florists shop when Mike glanced back long enough to recognize them, “Hey!” he quietly waved.

     His mother turned around, looked at the three young men, turned back around, “Friends?”

     “The one in the suit is the other new kid, You know what? I think this is his family's flower shop-” he looked at the sign and tried to remember if that was Stuart's last name. “The taller guys-that aren't wearing suits- the one with the slightly darker hair is Jack Harrison and the taller one with the reddish hair is Larry something. Larry will be in my homeroom”

     They waited at the door.

     Jack and Larry smiled. Stuart looked nervous.

     “Hi Jack, this is my mother- Mrs. Young-”

     “Oh, don't call me that, call me Arlene-” she smiled, “Mrs. anything sounds so old and stodgy-”

     Mike smiled, “And Mom, this is Stuart Michaelson, the other new guy I told you about-”

     Arlene pointed to the sign over the door-

     Stuart nodded before she could ask the question.

     “And this is Larry- -”

     Larry smiled, “Wilkenson, -unless they change their own rules over night, we'll be in the same homeroom- It's alphabetical-”

     Mike sighed, “I have all that in the car, the room number I'll be in and the schedule they worked out for me- They did say we're supposed to report to our real home rooms tomorrow.”

     Larry and Jack both nodded.

     “Unless they change their minds overnight.”

     “Things were confusing-”

     “Go to the office first if you're worried about it-” Then Jack shifted into a perfect southern accent, “Then y'all can listen to Miss Thomson's accent and start the day off kind of right and inspired-”

     “Is that her name? Miss Thomson?”

     “That's the name on the desk she went to- I could be wrong-”

     Mike's mother laughed, “We don't have to stand here all evening, Michael-” She turned to Stuart, “You are open for business aren't you?”

     Stuart nodded, “Excuse me-” and reached around Mike to turn the door knob and open the door. A bell inside rang, Stuart stepped back, “Please, walk right in-”

     “How charming-”

     Jack's eyebrows furrowed, like he wondered if she meant that or was poking fun at Stuart.

     Mike let his mother in first, then gestured for Stuart to follow, and glanced at Jack and Larry- “Coming in?”

     Larry went ahead of Jack who let Mike stand there holding the door-

     The place smelled good. Maybe more like a florists shop than most, maybe the smell was richer than usual? Jack followed his nose toward several potted flowers near the door, beside a display of delft pottery. Larry moved off toward a counter where Mike and his mother were standing, while a shortish man with dark hair and a permanent smile stepped from behind a curtain to greet them, “Good day, good day- and are you looking for something special?” He then noticed Stuart, “Do you know my son?”

     “Hi dad, this is Mrs Arlene Young, and her son Michael, and these are Jack Harrison and Larry Wilkenson who made sure I got home okay.”

     “Of course you got home okay, why wouldn't you?”

     Jack tapped his own chest at about the exact spot where Stuart had been wearing his name tag, “Is there a word in Yiddish for bigoted football players? Philistines?”

     “What do you know from Yiddish?”

     Jack shrugged as Stuart interjected, “They stood up to defend me when three big football players tried to trip me, then pushed me, tried to knock me down.”

     “And why would they do something like this?”

     “Why would these three stand up for me?”

     “Why would the football players push you like that?”

     Jack shook his head, “Because he was the only student in the school wearing a suit? And he wore a name tag with the Star of David.”

     “You think there is a problem with prejudice here?”

     Jack nodded, “Not as blatant as in the south, maybe- but yes- just below the surface in a lot of places.”

     Stuart's father looked worried, then he turned back to Mike and his mother, “I am sorry- I did not mean to ignore you- this is worrisome. I thought this was a warm and welcoming community we moved to.”

     Arlene spoke first, “It is, mostly, but a couple bad apples can spoil the whole day for anyone.”

     Stuart shook Larry's hand and then Jack's, “Thank you for everything you did for me today, thank you.”

     Jack and Larry smiled back, “You're welcome-”

     Jack added, “Do you want me to swing down this way on my way to school tomorrow? There is strength in numbers.”

     “Where do you live?”

     “Old Farm Road-” He pointed, “Up past the Synagogue.”

     “That's out of your way?”

     Jack shrugged, “I had a couple friends who went out of their way to do the same for me. Larry knows my cousin, Ben, he's over six feet tall and looks like he can pick up a truck in each hand?” Jack raised his hand to indicate Ben's height, “And when he was around, nobody even thought about picking on me. So I kind of owe it to my former self to do the same for somebody else?”

     “Are you leaving?” Mike asked.

     Jack shrugged.

     Mike's mother smiled, then noticed that Stuart's father was waiting for her to answer the earlier question – was there anything special she was looking for- smiled, “Um, we're looking for a plant to send my daughter off to School with- and maybe a nice bouquet for a surprise party we're giving her tonight.”

     “Do you have an idea what sort of plant she might like?”

     Jack shrugged as he, Larry and Mike took a few steps from the counter, “Larry lives all the way down by the river- I was kind of getting the impression that Stuart's father thinks we're interfering with business here.”

     “Well, wait- don't go yet-” Mike stepped back closer to his mother while Larry took a couple steps closer to the door.

     Stuart was attentively helping his father.

     “Maybe we should go?” Larry asked quietly.

     “Mike just asked me to wait a minute, I think he means both of us.”

     Mr. Michaelson smiled, waiting to hear what kind of plant Mike's sister might prefer.

     Stuart had already picked out a potted plant, in a rectangular pot designed to look like it was made of ceramic leaves, “This plant is hardy, it doesn't mind if you don't water it very often, it doesn't care if you give it too much water now and then. Its leaves come in red and green and mature to yellow and green, and the flowers are tiny and have nice color-”

     And Stuart's father had an assortment of floral arrangements for all occasions, and Mike told his mother that one of the smaller arrangements was a lot like one his sister had really liked when she'd taken him shopping and needed to get some flowers for a friend who'd asked for something for a centerpiece for a dinner she was cooking for her future mother and father in law-

     After paying for the plant and the flowers, Arlene turned around and, “Would you two like a ride somewhere? I think Mike just told me one of you lives all the way down by the river-”

     “That would be me-” Larry looked toward Jack like Jack would know better than he did whether he wanted a ride or not.

     Arlene looked at Larry's legs, “We don't have the biggest back seat in the world, but you should both fit-”

     Jack pointed back toward where they'd walked from, “I just live a block or two up that way, on Old Farm Road-”

     Stuart walked to the door with them, “Thanks again. And if you think it would be a good idea, yes, I think I would take you up on the offer to walk with me to school tomorrow morning.”

     “Meet you here at about a quarter after eight?”

     Stuart nodded, “And thanks for telling my father that I might get picked on for wearing a suit- that might help me convince them that I should wear more human clothes,” he nodded while he spoke and looked like he was terrified that he might say the wrong thing.

     Jack nodded, “You're welcome-”

     They stepped outside.

     Arlene waited until they were almost all the way back to her Avanti before she turned and spoke to Jack, “You want to know from Yiddish?” she asked in some kind of odd New York City accent-

     Jack looked worried.

     Arlene grinned, “I grew up the only protestant girl in a neighborhood that was half Jewish and half very Catholic, Italians and Irish- and nobody talked to anybody. But the Jewish girls were nicer to me than the Italians or the Irish- I wasn't Catholic enough for them. I should give you a book- Do you read much? You strike me as someone who loves to read.”

     Jack pointed to himself, “Me?”

     She laughed, “No- that other guy across the street behind you- yes you. My friends would call you a 'mensch'- a likable do-gooder who probably sometimes does too much for others and not enough for himself. - That was nice what you did for that young man-”

     “Thanks-” Jack and Larry looked into the back seat and guessed they'd be sitting a bit sideways. The big heavy seat belts looked a bit daunting.

     “Should I invite them to our party for Ginny tonight?”

     “You probably have to, now that you mentioned it in front of them.”

     Mike grinned, “We're having a surprise party for my sister tonight, tomorrow they drive her back to college.”

     “Sister?”

     “Virginia- she's nineteen years old and studying at Cornell, in New York State-”

     “Studying what?”

     “I probably can't go-” Larry said.

     “You're the one who lives by the river?” Arlene asked him.

     “More like a swamp where our house is.”

     “Now that's interesting- We have a swamp in this town?”

     “Acres and acres of swamp, near the river-”

     “Yeah, sure, If your sister wouldn't mind having a stranger at her going away party.”

     “Need to check things with your parents first?”

     “How far up Old Farm Road do you live?”

     Jack made sure Stuart wasn't around, near enough to hear, “Half a mile?”

     Arlene looked at Mike, “How far up do we live?”

     “About three miles up-”

     They were still all standing around the red sporty car, Mike holding the plant, his mother with the bouquet.

     “Michael- Why don't you ride in the back with Jack and let Larry with the long legs sit in the front? He'll get out first, I think- Then you can change, if you need to-”

     “Okay,” Mike opened the passenger's side door and held the front passenger's seat forward so Jack could climb in the back and get over behind the driver's seat, then he climbed in and sat on the passenger's side in the back.

     Arlene sat in the driver's seat, buckled up, “I don't feel right if I can't feel the seat belt- we don't force anybody to wear one, but it's probably a good idea. This overpowered little buggy is made out of fiberglass-”

     Jack winced and pulled the pieces of the seat belt on his side together and locked them shut.

     Mike flipped his seat belt over his lap and didn't buckle.

     Larry climbed into the front passenger's seat, turned around and looked like he felt guilty about something.

     Arlene handed the bouquet to Larry while she tested her seat belt, Checked the rear-view mirror, then turned the key-

     After staring at the seat belt for a few seconds, and not figuring out how to buckle the belt while holding the flowers, Larry passed the bouquet back to Jack and buckled himself.

     Arlene turned around and saw Jack with the bouquet and Mike with the plant, smiled, turned to Larry, “Don't they look uncomfortable as all heck with those flowers?” She grinned, turned to look straight forward, shifted into gear and eased forward as she glanced sideways and checked all the mirrors as they moved.

     This was the first time Jack actually saw Hawthorne Street in the daylight. Sitting low in the Avanti gave the impression that you were speeding faster than you actually were, rumbling along with a lot of power 'under the hood'.

     Larry pointed to the only house on the left hand side of the street beyond the new street that was a left turn past the first several houses on the left, “Everybody pulls into the driveway- It's easier to back out and turn than struggle with a curb to curb three point turn here-”

     Arlene signaled and turned into the driveway, rumbled to a stop.

     “Thank you-” Larry took a second to figure out how to unbuckle himself, then a minute longer to figure out how to open the door and then wasted no time climbing out, standing up and waving to his sister who was walking down the street behind them.

     Arlene backed out and turned.

     Carol gave them a quizzical look and focused on Mike as he smiled at her with the plant still in his lap. Then she looked farther, saw her brother, and looked like she was really disappointed that Larry got home before she did.

     Arlene reached the end of Hawthorne street, “Are we taking you home from here? What's the best way?”

     Jack leaned forward, “You want the easy way or the fun way?”

     Arlene wrinkled her forehead, “What's the fun way?”

     “Left here, next right, next left, next right, goofy straight-away, right turn, wait for traffic, then up the hill, left at the top, bend with the road and right turn on Old Farm Road, It's a long block, I live on the third to the last house on the right before the next little side street.”

     She looked stunned, “You expect me to remember that?”

     “No-”

     Mike laughed, “Left here-”

     Mike did remember all the directions.

     “Right-”

     “Left-”

     The straight-away was a really odd divided road in the middle of a lot of roads that went off at angles to it.

     There was a stop sign on their side of the road just after the two halves came back together.

     “Right-” Mike grinned.

     He mother nodded and turned right. This was a short street and it ended in a slight hill at a stop sign at a wider than usual street that was quite busy with traffic going both ways.

     “This is Main Street-” Jack called out.

     “This is where you stop and look for traffic.” Mike grinned.

     “Figure you can see pretty well- but there are crazy drivers out there who want to take this stretch at about sixty miles an hour from the dead stop back before the florists-”

     Arlene eased forward, looked both ways, almost went, almost had a carload of high school guys take her fender off as they shot by trying to do more like seventy- luckily she'd seen them coming and threw the shifter into reverse, backed up just enough and sat there laughing, “You think this is fun?”

     Jack shrugged, “I like all the weird twists and turns- It's not quite so much fun on a bicycle.”

     She almost laughed, eased forward, saw a large hole in traffic and shot out and across the road.

     Up the hill, left onto the side street, that went straight for a bit, then turned to the left, then turned to the right, then another slight right and came out on Old Farm Road near a small neighborhood store, “Mickey's Market”

     “Right turn, third house from the next little side street on the right.” Mike announced.

     “There are a lot of streets on the left, nothing on the right until that one.”

     After they'd passed three streets on the left she nodded to herself.

     “You can either pull up onto the planting strip or keep your eye on traffic when you stop at that white house with the blue shutters, there-” Jack pointed.

     There wasn't exactly a curb at the edge of the road, it was a molded slight hump of asphalt, and there were tire tracks where a car habitually pulled up onto the 'planting strip' in front of Jack's home.

     Arlene pulled up onto the planting strip and stopped. “My aunt parked in the road when she came to drop something off to my mother and had some crazy doing about eighty almost knocked her car into that telephone pole-” Jack pointed. The pole was at least twenty yards farther up the road, “He claimed he lost concentration when a bee flew in his window, he's allergic to bees. I don't think a fiberglass car would do so well in an argument with a telephone pole.”

     Jack had a notebook with him. Arlene just noticed that, “Mike- give him our phone number and get his, one of us can come pick him up later, maybe we can use that as an excuse to get your sister out of the house and you with her to pick him up for dinner-”

     Jack scribbled his name and phone number on a piece of notebook paper and tore that out of the notebook, handed it to Mike, wrinkled his forehead, then offered Mike the notebook and the pen.

     Mike took the notebook and wrote in pretty good script, his name and phone number, then he climbed out, and held the seat for Jack to climb out. Jack traded the bouquet for his notebook and Mike, with both the plant and the bouquet, climbed into the front seat.

     Remembering that Arlene looked pleased when Larry thanked her, he bent down and, “Thanks for the ride-”

     Arlene smiled, one hand on the wheel, the other on the shifter, “You're welcome-”

     Mike managed to buckle himself in with the plant and bouquet across his lap, “See you in a couple hours.”