++++++++++

The two friends carried their burger combos outside to eat on the patio in the early summer sun, only one more week of junior high before real summer began. One week, one Friday and the rest of Thursday afternoon, to be accurate.

Carmody, the bigger boy opened his bag and took out a double-double bacon burger and a large bag of fries. "You're what? Five-foot-nine and you weigh like 100 pounds?" Carmody asked his friend.

"It's 108. So?" Nelson didn't like people asking about his weight. He pushed a lock of pale blond hair out of his face and glared at his dark-haired friend.

"You're just too skinny, man." Carmody shook his head. "Don't you eat at all?" He took a slurp of his large caramel shake through the extra wide straw.

"I eat," Nelson protested. "I just don't eat as much as you do." His bag contained only a regular hamburger and a small bag of fries and he'd got only a cup of water to drink.

"Well, I'm telling you," Carmody said. "You're never going to make the football team this fall if you don't put on some weight."

"Why would I want to be on the football team?"

"Dude! The football players get all the girls!" Carmody looked astonished that Nelson did not know this. "Skinny guy like you, turn sideways, they won't even see you."

Nelson looked at his friend who certainly would not disappear if he turned sideways. "They want fat guys on the football team?"

"Not fat guys, big guys," said Carmody. "You need some muscle, too, but you ain't gonna muscle up eating like a girl." He pointed at Nelson's meager lunch.

Nelson frowned. He and Carmody had known each other since they started kindergarten and in three months they would be going to high school together. As friends, they stuck together, had adventures, watched each others' back, provided alibis when needed and got along better than brothers would have. "Maybe I'll go out for track," Nelson suggested.

"They don't have track in the fall, it's cross-country and you hate to run, why would you go out for something that involves running?"

"You have to run in football," said Nelson.

"Not all the time! You do other things, like catch the ball, kick the ball, tackle guys."

"Get tackled. Get knocked down. Break arms and legs and necks."

"Wuss," said Carmody.

"Ape," said Nelson.

"Look," said Carmody. He opened his mouth and showed Nelson a half-chewed mass of burger meat, cheese, bread, condiments and fried potatoes.

Nelson turned away. Carmody had used this trick to win arguments since he discovered Nelson's weak stomach back when they drank milk that had sat on the window sill too long in Mrs. Winterfree's kindergarten class.

"You going to eat those fries?" Carmody asked.

"Not now," said Nelson, pushing the rest of his lunch over to his friend. "I'm just not hungry."

Carmody laughed. "You're just too skinny," he said.

"And who's fault is that?"

++++++++++

"Well," his mother asked him that night, "do you think you're too skinny?"

"I don't know," Nelson said. "I asked you."

His mother thought about it. "I suppose we could ask the doctor. You've got a checkup coming tomorrow morning so you can go to camp next month."

"Oh yeah," said Nelson. "So no school tomorrow?"

"You can go to your afternoon classes."

++++++++++

"I just don't get hungry," Nelson explained to Doctor Weiss.

"He doesn't eat much," agreed Nelson's mother.

The doctor nodded. "Why don't you wait for Nelson in the outer room, Mrs. Frederick?" he suggested.

"So you can ask him things he might get embarrassed about in front of his mom?" Mrs. Frederick grinned. "Okay." She got up and left.

"So," said the doctor. "You're healthy, no blood chemistry problems, no evidence that you're doing anything stupid like throwing up to avoid gaining weight."

"Huh?" said Nelson. "No, I told you. I just don't get hungry."

"Anything bothering you? Trouble at home? Trouble at school? Girl trouble? Boy trouble?"

"Huh?" said Nelson again. "I don't think so. Things are fine, it's just, I get teased about being too skinny."

The doctor looked at some papers in a folder then consulted a chart he pulled up on the little computer on his desk. "You're about average height for your age," he said. "But you're in the lowest 5% for weight."

"Is that bad?" asked Nelson.

"Well, no, not necessarily. You don't have any health problems I can find that might explain it and you don't seem to have any problems it might be causing–other than this teasing. At school?"

"Uh, I'm out of school next week–for the summer."

"So, your friends?"

Nelson nodded.

"Your voice hasn't changed yet," the doctor commented. "Have you started noticing girls?"

Nelson blushed. On his fair skin, it looked like the result of a sudden high fever. The doctor put two fingers to his mustache to hide a smile.

Nelson shook his head. "Everybody seems to think I ought to but I just don't see it. Why make things complicated?"

"Complicated," the doctor repeated. "Well, that's one way to put it." He did smile this time. "Do you like girls?"

"I guess so," said Nelson. "I mean, I used to have some girl friends but they all moved away. I hang out with Carmody Michaels, he's my best friend and I guess he talks about girls just about all the time, enough for both of us." He rolled his eyes. "More than enough."

"Is he the one that teases you about being skinny?"

"Yeah, but it's just teasing. It's not mean or anything."

"I'm going to ask you something else," said Dr. Weiss. "Don't get upset, it's just a question."

"Huh?" said Nelson.

"Do you like boys? Do you feel attracted to boys?"

Nelson blinked, blushing again. "I don't think so," he said after a moment. "That would be even more complicated, wouldn't it?"

"Probably," agreed the doctor. "You're only fourteen, maybe you're not ready for complications yet."

"I don't have any body or face hair, my voice hasn't changed," Nelson said. "I guess I'm just a really tall little kid, still."

"Those things happen on their own schedule," said the doctor. "You're not unusually late developing but if it doesn't happen by the time you're sixteen, we can do some tests."

"Can you do some tests, now, find out why I'm so skinny?"

The doctor nodded. "Sure. But they cost money and I'd have a hard time justifying it when you don't have any other health problems."

"Oh," said Nelson.

"If I had a pill I could give you that would help you gain weight, would you want to take it?" asked the doctor.

"Well, yeah?" said Nelson. "I know I'm too skinny."

"Hmm, hmm," said the doctor. He pulled his prescription pad over and scribbled on it. "I'll give you something that might work. You'll have to take it twice a day. But you'll have to eat, too."

Nelson nodded.

"I'm serious. Put cheese on your burgers, gravy on your potatoes, sugar in your tea. And eat three meals a day." He tore the sheet off the pad, "The nurse at the front desk can fill this for you, we have samples."

He'd written "Dextronilactivon," in his trademarked doctor's scrawl – dextrose (sugar) that does nothing – a placebo. The sugar pills themselves were about 2 dietetic calories apiece; he could be honest when he said they might help Nelson to gain weight. They'd be more likely to if the boy swallowed fifty at a time, though.

Nelson took the script and smiled.

++++++++++

Later in the car, on the way back to school, Nelson asked, "Did you get my pills?"

"What pills?" asked his mother.

"Oh, I forgot to give you the prescription the doctor wrote. They're supposed to help me gain weight." He pulled the paper out of his pocket and handed it to his mother.

"Nelson!" she said. "Well, we can stop at the pharmacy."

"Dr. Weiss said they had samples."

Mrs. Frederick didn't want to admit that she had forgotten to pick up the pills, too, since the doctor had called her aside and told her that they were actually harmless sugar pills. "I'm sure they have them at the pharmacy and our co-pay is only $5.00. Cheaper than turning around and having to pay for parking again."

After letting Nelson out at the gates of the school for his afternoon classes, Mrs. Frederick dropped the prescription off at the busy drugstore nearest her house, telling the pharmacist's clerk that her husband would pick up pills on his way home.

++++++++++

"Dexo-what?" asked the pharmacist. "Never heard of it. I'm going to have to call the doctor on this one."

But the doctor had gone home on a Friday afternoon, so the druggist left a message. The pharmacist's clerk pored over a big book of medicinal compounds. "Maybe it's this one?" he suggested, showing the page to his boss.

"Dexandrolactisone?" The druggist read with interest and then researched the chemical on the internet. "It's an artificial hormone, used to start puberty in girls who are late developing. Hmm. The dosage is not quite right, 250 mg twice a day for three months, it's usually only taken once a day for a month to start."

The clerk checked. "This is for a child, Nelson Frederick, age 14. Nelson? What kind of name is that for a girl?"

"They're giving girls all kinds of names these days. I suppose they call her Nellie," said the pharmacist. "Well, set the pills aside but we won't fill the prescription until we get a call back from the doctor."

"Yes, sir," said the clerk. But then he and the druggist both went home at five-thirty, replaced by the night crew.

++++++++++

Mrs. Maggie Frederick called her husband, Horace, and told him about the placebo the doctor had prescribed. They both had a small laugh but felt that the otherwise useless therapy might actually help if Nelson believed it would. Horace promised to pick up the pills on his way home.

Mr. Frederick had to work late, then got caught in the traffic for the first game of the crosstown classic. He didn't get to the pharmacy until after six. The clerk told him it would be only a few more minutes and soon returned with a rather large container labelled with Nelson's name and address.

Mr. Frederick took the bottle of capsules while the clerk rang it up. "Sixty dollars? I thought our co-pay was only five?"

The pharmacist's clerk explained. "For drugs on the insurance formulary, it's ten, or just five for generics. For things not on the formulary, it's twenty. And that's per month, this is a three month supply."

"Oh," said Nelson's father. He worked for a big national firm with a bureaucratic mindset and could actually believe that sugar pills were not considered an approved drug by insurance companies. "That'll teach us to take the samples when the doctor offers them, huh?"

++++++++++

Mrs. Frederick clucked her disapproval at the unexpected expense but agreed that she was at fault. "But," she added, "I'm serving lasagna tonight. Your favorite."

"Give Nelson his pill before dinner," suggested Horace. "Maybe he'll have seconds."

++++++++++

Nelson weighed himself before dinner, still just 108, and took his first pill. He drank milk instead of his usual water and ate a large helping of lasagna though he didn't ask for seconds.

"We've got ice cream for dessert," his mother suggested.

"Not right now, Momma," said Nelson. "May I be excused?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Frederick. "You and Carmody cooking something up?"

"Sort of," Nelson admitted. "Put the dishes in the sink and I'll do them before I go to bed."

"Well, aren't you sweet," said Mrs. Frederick to the boy's disappearing back. "Horace, did you hear that? Nelson offered to do the dishes."

"Vicky used to do the dishes all the time before she went away to college and got pregnant," said Mr. Frederick, referring to Victoria, their daughter, six years older than Nelson.

"Going away to college did not cause her to get pregnant," said Mrs. Frederick. It sounded like something she had said before.

"Well, she never got knocked up while she was living at home," he said. He stood up and helped his wife stack dishes for the trip to the kitchen sink.

"She had a scholarship," said Maggie.

"Lot of good that's going to do the kid," said Horace.

"We're going to be grandparents before Christmas," she said.

"Christmas! I won't be forty until January!"

Maggie stacked the dishes in the sink and ran water on them. "You knocked me up while we were away at college," she said.

"And I wouldn't have been able to do that if you'd been living with your folks."

Mrs. Frederick giggled, remembering.

++++++++++

Carmody waited for his skinny friend on the sidewalk at the top of the first hill. Nelson trudged up, already regretting a little how much lasagna he had eaten. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"You'll see," Carmody promised. He didn't wait for Nelson to catch his breath but started off right away. "Hurry, it's going to be getting dark in an hour or so."

"Wait up," complained Nelson. "I ate too much."

That actually caused Carmody to pause. "You? What? You had a second carrot?"

"We had lasagna. I ate a big piece and some salad and a glass of milk."

"Your mom's lasagna is good unless she puts something weird in it like eggplant or spinach," said Carmody. He made a face to show what he thought of vegetable filler in lasagna.

"Nothing weird this time, meat and cheese and noodles."

"Mm-mm," said Carmody. "Maybe we can stop at your house on the way back and have some of it."

"You just ate!"

"Yeah? And in an hour or two, I'll be hungry. I'm a growing boy!"

"You're going to get fat like your uncle Roger," said Nelson.

Carmody didn't respond immediately, his uncle was fat. "Well, at least Uncle Roj still gets the babes."

"Oh? You mean your new Aunt Tan? What's she, number three?"

"Yeah and she's even prettier than Aunt Bev and Aunt Lor. And they were pretty. I still get cards from them, too."

"He keeps getting married 'cause he's rich, not 'cause he's fat. I mean...." Nelson tried to work out how to say it so it came out as an insult to Carmody. Not that he disliked his friend's uncle, Roger was kind of cool; he always had the neatest new video games and gave them to Carmody and sometimes even to Nelson.

"He keeps getting married 'cause these pretty women want to marry him," said Carmody.

"'Cause he's rich! It's not because he's fat."

"Ah, but how come he's rich?"

"That's not because he's fat either," said Nelson.

"No, it's 'cause he writes really neat video games," said Carmody. "And that's what made him fat."

"Huh?" said Nelson.

"How do you write video games?" Carmody asked. "Sitting down. And sitting down all the time makes you fat. So the same thing that made him rich and gets him all the babes is what makes him fat, too. Hipsy does it."

"That's just stupid."

"No, it's not. You have to be really smart to write video games."

"I meant you're stupid, and you're getting fat," said Nelson.

"Well, you're skinny and you're getting stupid," said Carmody.

They grinned at each other, a good insult fight always got them revved up.

"Well, we're here," said Carmody as they reached the top of another small hill.

"Where's here?" Nelson asked, looking around.

"Faith Springs Physical Culture Center."

"Huh?"

"The tennis club attached to that swanky religious college," explained Carmody. "Lookit." He gestured toward several tennis courts where lights had already been turned on in the deepening twilight.

"So?" said Nelson. "What are we doing here?"

"Babes," said Carmody settling down in a patch of grass with a good view of the lighted courts. "Babes in short dresses jumping around and making that squealing noise."

Nelson looked. Four pairs of young women in white tennis clothes did indeed seem to be running around the courts, swinging rackets, leaping and jumping, and squealing with excitement.

He looked back at his friend. Carmody had a blissed-out expression. "We could get closer," Nelson suggested. The grassy patch beside the sidewalk had a good view of the whole court area but some picnic tables closer to the fence would have offered a better vantage of the nearer pair of players.

"No, no," said Carmody. "This is fine. If we get closer, they might tell us to leave."

Nelson settled down, sitting with his knees up where he could rest his chin on them. Carmody had lain down, full-length on his stomach, holding his head in his hands. They watched the girls play tennis.

After a bit, Nelson commented. "I didn't know you liked tennis."

"I don't," said Carmody. "Stupid game. Hit the ball so someone can hit it back. Repeat until nauseous or someone misses and you have to chase the ball. Only game more stupid than golf."

"Well," said Nelson.

Carmody turned to look up at him. "We're here to watch the girls, not the game."

"Huh?" said Nelson. "I don't get it."

Carmody sighed and went back to watching the games being played. "Don't you think they're pretty?" he asked.

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"And those shorts and skirts show off their legs so nice, and sometimes when one of them moves just right her skirt flips up and you can see how round her butt is."

Nelson blinked. "Yeah, I kind of like how the skirts sort of swish around their legs. It looks cute. Like they're having fun."

"There you go," said Carmody. He settled down, his blissful expression returning.

Nelson got comfortable, too, though he thought watching the girls and hoping one of them would flip her skirt up and show off her butt was sort of rude.

They watched for about half an hour, with Carmody making comments about the girls' looks and Nelson sometimes noting some detail of how a girl had accessorized her outfit or done her hair.

Neither of them said anything about how well or poorly any of the girls played tennis. It didn't look as if anyone were keeping score, anyway.

Finally, Carmody got up to go. "We got to get out of here," he said. "It's dark and they'll be turning off the lights at nine. We don't want to be here when that happens."

Nelson stood, too. He'd finally gotten into the activity and actually began to enjoy himself. "Why?" he asked.

"When they turn off the lights, all the bugs that have been flying around them start looking for dinner," Carmody explained. "Besides, with the lights off, the girls go home."

"Huh, yeah," agreed Nelson. They walked toward their homes, trading mild insults in their continuing game.

"Thought you were going to go down and ask that girl in the–what did you call it? fluted skirt?–if you could try it on," Carmody accused.

"Nah," said Nelson. "I might have asked if I could borrow her towel, though, so I could mop up all the drool you kept leaking."

"To add to your collection?"

"Oh, gross!" Nelson objected.

++++++++++

Back at the Fredericks' house, Nelson's parents made an early night of it, heading up to their bedroom before nine o'clock. "I sent the paper Dr. Weiss signed off to the camp, dear," Maggie told Horace. "So in two weeks, Nelson will be able to leave on his summer vacation."

"And us on ours," he agreed. "Though we don't actually have to go anywhere–I think we had planned to visit your sister? That's not till the end of the month, though?"

"Monica, yeah," agreed Maggie. "Let's not spend too long there, huh? It's always so hot in the summer."

"We'll use the three-day-old fish rule," agreed her husband. "Then we can go up to Branson for a week and do some sightseeing on the way home. And still have several weeks alone before Nelson comes back from camp."

"Hmm," she said.

"Mm-mm," he replied.

++++++++++

Carmody turned off toward his house on the way back from the tennis expedition after Nelson mentioned that he still needed to do dishes. "You're not roping me into helping with that, even for a slice of your mother's lasagna."

"I'm actually kind of hungry," commented Nelson, surprising himself.

"Well, good for you. Maybe you'll start putting on some weight and stop looking like toothpick. See you in the morning."

Nelson let himself in the back door. His parents seemed to have already gone to bed so he got a bowl from the cabinet and took two scoops of chocolate ice cream from the container in the freezer. He didn't really want lasagna that he would have to heat in the microwave.

He ate slowly, enjoying the richness and the slight bite of the double dutch cocoa flavor. "Maybe I'll have ice cream before going to bed more often," he thought. "That ought to help me gain some weight." Then he rinsed the dishes thoroughly, loaded the dishwasher and left it running as he went up to his bedroom.

He stripped off down to his underwear and paused in front of the long mirror in the bathroom to examine himself. Long skinny arms and legs with no more shape than a six-year-old had. A tubular body with a slightly indented area under his ribs, each of which he could almost count just by looking. Bony-looking shoulders and hips. Even his face looked thin.

He sighed. "I am too skinny, but maybe these pills will help. I did feel hungry tonight."

He decided to take his shower in the morning since his bathroom was right against his parents' bedroom wall. He didn't want to wake them up, so he trudged down the hall to his own bedroom.

"Carmody is just getting weird," he told himself as he put on his pajamas after brushing his teeth. "All he thinks about anymore is girls." He didn't want his friend's new fascination with females to affect their relationship but he felt sure that it would, sooner or later.

He went to bed and dreamed of playing tennis doubles with Carmody against teams of pretty girls in short skirts.

++++++++++

On Saturday morning, Nelson took his second pill then ate his usual breakfast of Cheerios with fruit and milk. This time he added sugar to his cereal, something he wasn't sure he liked.

His mother, Maggie, cooked him a hard-boiled egg, too; just the way he liked it, five minutes so it had no gooshy, disgusting parts. She sliced it, buttered, salted and peppered it and Nelson ate it all.

"That wasn't so hard," she said to him. "I remembered not to mash it up this time."

"It was very good, Momma," said Nelson. "I enjoyed it."

"I think you'll be able to get hard-boiled eggs for breakfast at camp, since you don't like fried ones," she said. "I'm going to make rice tomorrow for breakfast, with brown sugar and cinnamon."

"Sounds good," said Horace, looking up from his paper. "Cut a sausage up into mine and skip the brown sugar, I'll add an over easy egg, some tobasco and be set."

Nelson made a face, reminding himself not to watch his dad mix the squishy egg into the rice, sausage, hot sauce and cinnamon. How could his father eat something so disgusting?

He sipped a small glass of orange-pineapple juice while waiting for his mother to finish eating. No one left the table at the Fredericks' house until everyone was done. Nelson liked the rule since it made sure they kept each other company for at least a few minutes every day. His sister had hated it when she was home, he remembered, always in a hurry to rush off and do something.

"What's the plan for the weekend, punkin," Horace asked his son, taking a sip of his black coffee.

"I've got an English paper due Monday, and studying for History and Math," said Nelson. "Carmody is gonna help me with the paper and I'll help him with the Math and we'll quiz each other on History."

"Don't say 'gunna'," his mother commented, taking a last bite of her toast with peanut butter. "You sound like a kid someone raised in a box in the garage."

Nelson did not point out that he hadn't said 'gunna', he'd said 'gonna'. It had been more than two years since he made that mistake. "Yes, ma'am," is what he said.

His mother refilled her coffee cup and topped off Horace's. Nelson took the funny pages from his father who had moved on to the sports section. Maggie retrieved the discarded front page and read about the people starving in Africa because the price of rice had doubled and felt sad and a little guilty for planning to have rice for breakfast tomorrow. She decided to go through her cabinets later in the day and cull canned goods to send to the downtown mission.

The loud knocking at the back door surprised none of them. They'd all heard Carmody running up the path that led over fences and through several yards to his own back door on the other side of the block. "Nelson!" he called through the screen.

"C'mon in, Carmody," Horace called out. "It's not latched."

"Would you like some peanut butter on toast? Orange juice? Milk?" offered Maggie.

"No, thank you, Miz Frederick," said Carmody. "I need to talk to Nelson – outside."

Horace nodded so Nelson put down the funnies, finished his juice and followed Carmody out into the backyard. They walked out past Maggie's flower garden and climbed on the old curved concrete bench under the grapefruit tree, sitting on the back with their feet on the seat and their heads up among the branches.

Carmody had said almost nothing even though he seemed bursting with some sort of news.

"Huh?" said Nelson, hoping to prompt his friend to tell him what this was about.

"Mom says we can't afford for me to go to camp this year," Carmody finally mumbled.

"Wow," said Nelson.

"We've gone to camp almost every year. And we've always gone together," said Carmody. "What am I going to do for eight weeks with you gone?"

"I dunno. What am I going to do at camp without you? I won't know what to do by myself."

Carmody's face worked as if something hurt him somewhere. He blinked rapidly, frowning then squinting, then frowning again. Nelson wanted to reach out and give him a hug, like Momma did when someone was hurt, but he was afraid they would both end up crying. He looked away.

"Are you going to camp?" Carmody asked.

Nelson nodded. "My folks are planning to drive back east to see relatives and do stuff on the way. I can't stay here, 'cause no one will be here."

"Craptastic," said Carmody. "Just fucktardo."

Nelson stared at one of the low-hanging clusters of fruit, green globes about the size of oranges but not ripe yet. The broad leaves of the grapefruit tree made a kind of darkened room, green and sweet-smelling though not without dangers. A wasp drifted through the branches and both boys flinched away but the little hunter-killer left them alone.

"How much, how much does it cost?" Nelson finally asked.

"It's over $3000, and that's with some kind of a discount figured in. With Geoffrey and Alexander in college and Millie needs braces – Mom says I can go to day camp every day all summer long for less than $800 and Millie can go too." Geoff and Alex were five and eight years older than Carmody, Millicent was three years younger.

"Wow," said Nelson. "That's like a lot more than I thought." He felt his own face begin to twitch and his eyes burned. He didn't want to think about a summer without his best friend.

"Mom says Dad had promised to pay for it but then Clunkerbell got into an accident and wrecked her car and broke a nail or something. So, now he says he doesn't have it." Clunkerbell was Carmody's private name for his stepmother, Clarissa.

"Don't they have insurance?" Nelson asked.

"I don't know," said Carmody. "Maybe my Dad is just lying 'cause he wants us to be miserable because he's miserable living with the Enchanted Toad Princess." Another pet name for the stepmother. "And the worst of it is both Mom and Dad knew this for weeks and no one told me. I'm just a kid. I had to faggin' find out from Millicent who listened in on a phone conversation!"

He jumped off the bench and paced around the tree, dodging again as the wasp went by on some insect-sized business. He had to dodge under a low hanging limb at every circle, too. "When were they going to tell me, a week from next Friday when I tried to line up for the bus?"

"Grownups," said Nelson. "I still don't know why we ever agreed to let them run the world."

Carmody smiled at that even though a tear trickled down his cheek. Both boys turned away and used the backs of their hands to wipe their eyes.

"Fucktards. Crapulent pissholes. Hodiggers. Creeping socialists." Carmody put some effort into cursing. He didn't actually know what 'creeping socialism' meant but his grandfather blamed it for having to live in a rest home. He wasn't sure what a 'hodigger' might be either.

"Don't give up," said Nelson. "We'll think of something."

"Neither of us have that kind of money," said Carmody. "Even if we sold our computers and our games we couldn't get $3000 dollars for them."

"We don't have to," said Nelson. "We only need $2200."

"Huh?"

"Your mom is willing to spend $800."

"Oh, yeah, well, make it $2295 then, cause it's $3095, all of it, after the discount."

"Who's giving the discount? Maybe you can get a second one?"

"I don't know," said Carmody. He smiled. "Maybe?"

"We'll think of something," said Nelson. "Your dad ought to be able to pay part of it, even if he can't pay all. So maybe all we need is $1000."

Carmody stopped smiling. "That's still a lot of money. It's not kid money."

"Don't be such a gloomer puss," said Nelson.

The boys stopped talking to think about ways to raise money. Nothing useful occurred to either of them, and the buzzing started again.

The wasp had returned and this time settled on Carmody's neck, just below his left ear. He heard the buzzing, then the quiet, then the buzz, buzz, buzz as the wasp settled down.

He didn't move. "It's still on me?" he asked in a strangled sounding voice.

Nelson nodded.

"What's it doing?" whispered Carmody.

"He's just doing that thing wasps do, cleaning his antlers and his wings," said Nelson. "Stay still and he'll fly away again." Neither boy moved for a long minute.

"I can feel him crawling around," said Carmody. "I'm going to scream in a minute here. Where is he now?"

"He's, uh, he's on your face. He's – crawling toward your mouth. Don't scream, you might swallow him."

"He's a gawdamn New Yawker liberal wasp," muttered Carmody, not opening his mouth much.

"Shh. He's a wasp, he's probably a Republican," said Nelson. He couldn't help grinning.

Flying up in front of Carmody's eyes suddenly, the wasp buzzed the equivalent of "booga-booga." Both boys screamed. Nelson jumped down from the back of the concrete bench, flailing his arms and yelling.

Carmody turned to run, forgot about the low hanging limb and managed to duck at the last moment just enough to catch himself across the forehead. His feet went out from under him and he sat down on a garden rake someone had conveniently left under the tree. The tines were pointing down, though, saving him from anything nastier than a bruise.

The wasp escaped, unconcerned with the actions of beings large enough to be features of the landscape.

"Am I stung? Am I stung?" asked Carmody, feeling his face, his ears, his arms and his backside.

"How would I know?" asked Nelson. "You screamed like you got stung."

"I only screamed 'cause you screamed."

"You screamed like your kid sister when we tied that knot in her jumprope."

"Well, you screamed like a lonesome hodigger with a ripe pomegranate stuck where the sun don't shine!"

Nelson laughed and wheezed. "What the – what the – what the heck does that mean?"

"I don't know," Carmody admitted, lying on his back under the grapefruit tree, wheezing and laughing. "It's something my granddad said once."

Maggie Frederick appeared at the edge of the flower garden. "Are you boys all right? I heard screaming."

"Yeah, momma," said Nelson. "Carmody didn't get stung by a wasp and it was funny."

"Well, he'd better get up out of that dirt. There's red ants under the grapefruit tree."

"Oh! Squarepants!" Carmody rolled over and over till he reached the patch of grass near the path. "Are there any on me? Get'em off!"

Nelson laughed so hard he had to kneel beside the bench then pry himself up to go help his friend look for "squarepants". "We've got to find you that money, Carmody," he said. "I can't go all summer without laughing like that."

++++++++++

"It's pretty hopeless," Carmody said. "We're never going to raise enough money for me to go to camp with you."

"You always give up too easy," Nelson said. "We've got $800 from your mom, I'm sure your dad can probably come up with that much so we're more than halfway there." They'd worked on their homework for a couple of hours and took a break to try brainstorming.

"So that's like almost $2000 we have to raise? In less than two weeks? There's probably some kind of deadline to meet, too, so it's probably less than two weeks."

"It's only $1500, or $1495," Nelson corrected. "And I think your Dad had to put up a deposit to begin with, and they won't give all of that back, so maybe we can count part of that, too." Nelson looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I could talk my parents into chipping in?"

++++++++++

Maggie approached Horace in the den. "Carmody's parents aren't going to be sending him to camp this year. I overheard the boys talking outside."

"What?" Horace looked up from the computer, startled. He'd been searching the web for interesting side trips for their vacation and ended up reading about the formations in Monument Valley. "Oh, that's too bad. Nelson's going to be almost as upset as Carmody, I bet."

"Mmm," said Maggie.

"Uh-oh, now what?" said Horace.

"Well, you know that those two have been friends since forever. Nelson's going to be heartbroken if Carmody can't go."

"So," Horace looked at her more closely. "Are you suggesting that we should pay Carmody's way, too. That's a lot of money for someone else's kid, sugar."

"Well," she said. "Maybe we could help?"

"Nelson's camp ticket was $4495. And we had planned to give him $200 in spending money. I don't think we could...."

"Well, we won't have to go that far, I'm sure."

"Funny," said Horace. "I'm not."

++++++++++

"It's just not fair," complained Carmody.

"Sure," said Nelson, rolling his eyes. "That's a lot of help."

"Dad runs off to be with Miss Hygiene, Mom decides it's time to go through The Change, whatever that is, my brothers go off to college, Millicent needs braces and I get stepped on. Everybody's getting something they want except me."

"Millicent probably doesn't want braces, she remembers you looking like Radiator Man. And I don't think your mom wanted the Change, exactly."

"Don't fool yourself," said Carmody. "It means she can't have more kids and she claimed that was good enough, 'after raising five'."

"She's only got four kids."

"I think she was counting Dad just then."

"We ought to call your father and find out how much he can kick in. If he knows how important this is to you..." Nelson began.

"Oh, don't let Clunkerbell find out that! She'll make sure he doesn't pay a dime. Anything to make life difficult for us, you know."

"Hmm," Nelson said. He had very little experience with adult malice, being mostly concerned with the sort of junior-grade bullies who picked on skinny kids. His own knowledge confirmed that not all adults loved all kids but Carmody's pessimism stretched his credulity. Then again, a businessman leaving his wife and family for a dental hygienist seemed unlikely and Mr. Brad Michaels had indeed done that the year before. "We still ought to call him and find out."

++++++++++

Horace had the same idea. "Well, if you're not going to talk to Debbie," Carmody's mother, "how are we going to find out anything without talking to Brad?"

"I don't know," admitted Maggie. "It would just be too embarrassing to talk to either one of them. Debbie feels so bad when she gets in a financial bind, the rest of her family is well-off, you know – and I'm just not prepared to pretend to be friendly with Brad after the divorce."

"It's not going to embarrass me," said Horace, picking up the phone.

Maggie fretted while Horace dialed. "I meant embarrassing to them."

"Tough, let's see if Brad is in," said her husband. "Hey, Brad. How's the golf swing?"

Maggie moved toward the hallway, reluctant to listen to half of an embarrassing conversation and even more reluctant to miss anything. She ended up dithering in the doorway, like a malfunctioning bird in a cheap cuckoo clock.

"Yeah, uh-huh," said Horace. "No, I haven't been lately. Yeah, the greens fees on the good courses keep going up, huh? You play City or go out to one of the club courses?" Horace winked at Maggie.

She saw what he was doing and admired her husband for his wit and brass; she would never have thought of tempting Brad into bragging about an expensive hobby and if she had, she doubted she could have done it.

"Huh, yeah, huh, yeah," Horace said several times. "Does Clarissa play? Oh, yeah?"

Now Maggie grinned at Horace and gave him a thumbs-up. He smiled back but turned slightly away to keep his amusement from showing up in his voice.

"Get her a set of ladies' clubs? Yeah? No, Maggie won't do anything that involves walking and carrying anything unless it's in a mall." Horace flashed a grin at Maggie and she gave him a mock scowl.

"Wow, $400 for a set of beginner clubs, huh? Not bad. Got them on the internet? Yeah. So how much are green fees at the Scooter Club? Hmm. $30 weekdays. Oh, but you got her an associate membership for how much was that? $2000? Oh, uh-huh?" Horace gave Maggie the okay sign.

He continued. "Then I guess Carmody must have misunderstood something? Huh? Yeah, no. Carmody told Nelson, this almost broke Nelson's heart, you know what buds the boys are, huh? Yeah, no? Not true? So, he's going. That's definite, huh? Well good, Nelson will be so relieved."

Horace beamed and winked at Maggie who clasped her hands above her head in a victory salute.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, well, I'll have to get out there one weekend with you, maybe drag Maggie along to keep Clarissa company, huh? Or, well, maybe I should bring my girlfriend?"

His eyes twinkled as he grinned at his wife.

"Yeah, no, you met her, you've known her a long time. Huh? Oh, yeah, I've been seeing Debbie on the sly now since, well, when did you get divorced?" Horace suddenly pulled the phone away from his ear. He turned to Maggie, grinning. "He hung up."

They both laughed. "You rat," she said. "You lured him in, tricked him and then insulted him."

"I sure did, and didn't he deserve it?" said Horace. "But his pride won't let him back out of it because he knows I'll tell and that people will believe me instead of him. It's just like getting a contractor to put in a bid that's below the price he wanted to offer."

"Uh-huh," said Maggie. "For a man with a truthful reputation, you sure hung a lulu on him there at the end."

Horace arched a brow at her. "Now did I?"

She laughed again, coming over to press up against him. "Yes, you did, you rat. You think I don't know where and when you could have ever got together with Debbie? I don't leave you enough time to fool around."

"Hmm," he said.

"Hmm," she said, wriggling a little. "You foxed him good and he knew it."

He smiled down at her, picking up her arms to hang them around his neck. "To keep a reputation as a truthteller, lie only to a liar and only when he knows you're lying and doesn't dare tell anyone."

"Hmm," she said.

"Hmm," he said, wriggling just a little.

++++++++++++

Nelson put the phone extension in the kitchen down. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop but had picked up right while his father was dialing, just as the phone started ringing. He'd started to hang up when he heard Horace say, "Let's see if Brad is in," and realized that his father was calling Carmody's father.

After that he had to listen in, hardly daring to breathe. Carmody, standing near the back door, had started to say something several times but Nelson had shushed him with gestures. Now that the phone had been hung up, there would be no stopping the questions.

An excited, "Who was talking to who?" was only the start. Carmody looked as if he might burst with curiosity.

Nelson told his friend everything, leaving out only Horace's remarks about Debbie at the end. Carmody had no sense of humor about his mom, Nelson knew, and would likely misinterpret what was probably only Horace's desire to twist the barb after setting the hook into poor Brad Michaels.

By the end of the recitation, neither boy could stop grinning. "So, you're going to camp," Nelson finished. He got a pop out of the fridge, handed one to his friend and twisted his own open.

"Oh, wow, we won't have to try to rent Elmer out for breeding fees," said Carmody. Elmer was the Michaels family goldfish.

Nelson had been about to take a swig and carefully lowered the bottle. "You realize that four seconds later you would have been wearing orange soda?"

Carmody nodded, grinning. "Who says I never learn anything from you?"

They solemnly touched pop bottles, snickered and took large drinks. "Those pills you got from the doctor working yet?"

Nelson glared at him. "When did I tell you about the pills?"

"You didn't. Your mom told my mom and Millie listened in and told me."

"Nobody can keep a secret around here, everyone is an eavesdropper," complained Nelson which struck Carmody as funny.

"So, you gained any weight yet?"

"Well, not in just one day. They're not magic. But look, I'm drinking pop instead of water, how often do I do that? And I'm actually thinking it may be time for lunch soon."

"I'll drink to that," said Carmody, holding his bottle out for another clink.

They took more normal-sized sips this time, the thirst from battling ants and wasp already abated.

"You know," said Nelson. "If worse had come to worser, your uncle Roger would have put up the camp fees for you."

Carmody shook his head. "We're not supposed to ask him for money. It's like a big rule. He's generous but we don't want to take advantage of him."

"I never agreed to such a rule," said Nelson. "You think he'd want his favorite nephew moping around the house all summer, driving his sister crazy saying, 'There's nothing to do'."

"Whose sister? Millie?"

"I meant your mom, Uncle Roger's sister."

"There's that," agreed Carmody. "I just couldn't ask him."

"What are friends for?"

Maggie came into the kitchen just then, planning on starting to make lunch. "Well, you boys look like...." She paused. They didn't actually look all mopey like they had outside after the hilarity of the squarepants incident had worn off. "You feel like hearing some good news?" she asked.

Both boys nodded. "Sure," Carmody chirped.

"Horace called Brad and it was all a misunderstanding. You are going to go to camp," she said.

"Wow, cool," said Carmody.

"Told you it would work out," said Nelson. "When's lunch?"

That clinched it for Maggie, she knew they had listened in on the extension. Rather than admit that she knew and have to think of an appropriate punishment, she scowled at them. "Lunch is soon enough, and don't you two have some homework to do?"

++++++++++

Nelson took a pill with dinner, had a second helping of green beans in butter with his pork chops and a single scoop of ice cream for dessert. Maggie and Horace felt pleased to think that the placebo had improved his appetite.

After dinner, Nelson met Carmody for a bike ride across the hills behind their subdivision where quiet roads helped one forget the busy city less than half a mile away all around them.

"This is probably going to be our last year as just campers, going to camp," said Carmody as they pedaled along Fireflower Drive.

"Huh?" said Nelson, thinking about something else. An algebra problem had got him wondering about how to figure the distance of stars and whether the width of the Earth's orbit would be wide enough to work a quadratic equation for the answer. He thought it might work for nearer stars but for ones really far away, you would have to figure some other way to calculate the distance.

"Next year, we'll probably have to sign up as counselors, you know?"

"Counselors?" said Nelson. "You're kidding, right? We're just kids." They rode on the grassy verge of the lane, watching out for debris like tree limbs and discarded tires.

"Not this year, next year, we'll be in high school, tenth graders, you know?"

"Uh, no. Counselors tell other younger kids what to do, right? I don't want to do that."

"I think it would be neat," said Carmody. He turned onto Crestline Drive, along the ridge toward a nearby hill.

Nelson followed, he liked this route, you could see lights on either side of the ridge, houses one way, including his and Carmody's and the freeway the other, across Quail Creek. And further off, the shopping mall on the edge of the city itself. That would be a long ride on a bike, he thought, but there were shops and a suburban downtown near their school going the other way.

He thought of something else. "Why aren't we checking out the tennis club tonight?"

"Ah," said Carmody. "They let guys play on Saturdays, I don't want to watch a bunch of guys hitting balls at my girls."

"Your girls?" Nelson snickered between puffs of breath needed to make the steeper incline leading up to the hill.

They took the bike lane turn-off and pedaled up to the overlook above the city. The lights stretched for miles, in the distance they could see the line of cars waiting to make the turn onto the twisty, hilly road to the coast. That also marked the corner of Safariland, on an early summer evening, probably a lot of people were headed there to drive their cars or take a tram through the fake savannahs and jungles of the largest open-air, private zoo west of the Rockies.

The boys parked their bikes together in the little bike rack in the overlook and walked down a slight incline to sit at opposite ends of a stone bench on another little apron of concrete. Not on the bench itself, but like they had in Nelson's backyard, they sat on the back of the bench with their feet on the seat. Amazingly, a wind brought them a hint of the ocean, miles away behind a line of mountains.

They didn't say anything for some time; it didn't seem necessary to talk. The light above the mountains west of them had begun to turn red-orange with a few clouds painted pink and purple and some gaps of the greenish sky that only showed itself shortly before twilight began.

Nelson felt something but he didn't know what he was feeling. He glanced at his friend. Carmody seemed absorbed in the scene, his eyes not quite wide open, his mouth not completely closed. For some reason, Carmody stood up on the seat, taking a deep breath. And for no reason he could comprehend, Nelson looked at Carmody's crotch, conveniently at eye-level.

The bulge there disconcerted him. Nelson knew about hard-ons, he'd begun waking up with them a few months before. And Carmody talked about them a little more than Nelson felt comfortable with. But just then, he had to know, so he asked. "What the hell are you thinking that's giving you wood, dude?" He stood up on the seat, too, putting his face level with his friend's.

"Camp," said Carmody without looking around.

"Camp," repeated Nelson.

Carmody nodded. "Yeah, we'll be there in camp, it's a co-ed camp. All those girls running around in their shorts and tees and sometimes, swimsuits. I am SO glad I am going, dude!"

Nelson had not expected that, though he didn't know just what he had expected. "You're nuts," he said.

"Dude," said Carmody.

"Dude," said Nelson.

"You mean thinking about girls wearing almost nothing doesn't do something for you?"

Nelson thought about it. "Well, maybe a little, but you're nuts."

"Dude, I'm normal," Carmody said. "I've read it in all the books about ad-low-scents, add-o-less-sense, adolescence. Guys our age are supposed to think about nekkid girls almost all the time!"

"Well, I don't," said Nelson. "I think about other things, too."

Carmody rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you've been thinking about algebra."

Nelson grinned. "Sometimes I do, and yeah, on the way up here I was wondering if they used algebra to figure out how far away stars are."

His friend stared at him. "Dude, you're the one who is crazy-coo-coo-for-froot-loops-INSANE!"

Nelson laughed. "Dude!" he said.

"Dude!" said Carmody. "Dude, sometimes I think you're gay or something!"

"Then wouldn't I be thinking about naked guys? I don't, you know."

"No, you, you're queer for numbers! That's so perverted, dude!" said Carmody.

"Dude!" said Nelson.

"Dude!" said Carmody.

"Dude, if I am, it's lucky for you or you would be flunking math class," said Nelson.

"If I did, you would flunk English," said Carmody. "You don't know an adjective from a freckle on your left elbow!"

They traded "dudes" again.

"Freckle is an adjective," said Nelson, guessing.

"Dude, no, it's not!"

"You said adjectives were words that described something," Nelson complained.

"Dude, freckle is a noun, it names something," said Carmody. He digressed. "I saw a girl once, she had freckles on her tits."

"Caitlin Hill has freckles everywhere," said Nelson, mentioning a stautesque redhead in their class at school.

"No, but this girl only had them on her tits," said Carmody.

"How would you know, you didn't see her tits. Don't tell me you saw her tits, I'd know you were lying, dude."

"I saw enough of them, in her blouse, she had big ones and they had freckles. I'm telling you, dude! Big freckled titties all pushed together so they looked like the crack of her ass on her chest!"

More "dudes."

"That doesn't sound, I don't know, cute or nothing? It looked like she had an ass on her chest?" asked Nelson.

"Dude," said Carmody, "if you saw it – huh, well, if YOU saw it, you'd probably want to count the freckles." He thought about that for a second. "Actually, that would be fun, dude."

They both chuckled.

"You'd want to connect the dots," said Nelson. "See if it made a picture."

"Dude!" said Carmody. "Would I?" He laughed. "You bet I would, use a little wet-erase and lick it off!"

"Lick the ass she wears on her chest? Dude, that's sick!"

"Dude, you're sick!" said Carmody.

They fell silent for a bit, all duded out.

They watched the sky deepen in color and the clouds brighten. In early June it wouldn't get really dark until after nine o'clock, the sky show would run longer than a movie.

"I'd lick Cait Hill's ass, see if any of those freckles would come off on my tongue," said Carmody.

"Dude, you are sick," said Nelson.

"No," said Carmody. "I'm normal, you're the weird one. I bet if we asked everyone at school, nine out of ten guys would be willing to lick Cait Hill's butt, and probably one out of ten of the girls."

"Half the school?" said Nelson, looking doubtful.

"Huh?" Carmody had no idea that 90% of 50% plus 10% of 50% added up to exactly 50%. "Well, maybe not half, maybe there are more dweebs like you than I think," he said.

"Sure a lot of pervs, according to you," said Nelson.

"Dweeb!" said Carmody.

"Perv!" said Nelson.

They watched the sky some more. Two ravens chased each other around the crown of some trees lower down the hill. The smaller raven caught up to the larger and flew straight up, only to tuck its wings and fall in a spinning tumble from a hundred feet above the treetops almost to the ground before catching itself and gliding away.

"The small one is the dude," said Carmody. "He's showing off. Doing something that looks dangerous to impress his chick."

Nelson shook his head.

"No, really," said Carmody. "With birds, the chick is usually bigger if they look the same. If they look different, like ducks, then the dude is the bigger one."

"No shit?" said Nelson. "Huh?"

"No turds, no way," said Carmody. "I read it in a bird book."

"You read a lot," commented Nelson. "Dude," he added, to take the sting of the accusation off.

"With the right book," said Carmody, "I just look at the pictures." He tried to waggle his eyebrows but Nelson wasn't looking at him, anyway.

A hawk had appeared. A buzzard hawk, its red tail glowing in the light from the sunset. It glided above the freeway far below, using thermals to keep wing-flapping to a minimum.

"Watch," said Carmody. He pointed toward the ravens who had spotted the hawk, too. They spiraled up to meet it, making the rusty gate noise that identified them as ravens and not just large crows.

"That redtail is bigger than both of them together," commented Nelson.

Both boys had seen this before. The smaller raven flew at the hawk's face while the larger maneuvered to get above it. The big brown hawk ignored them. The small raven, the dude, dashed in again, even closer to the cruel hooked beak of the hawk – just as the raven chick fell out of the sky and bounced off the broad back of the bird of prey.

Disconcerted, the hawk seemed to stumble in midair, then dodged awkwardly as the raven dude again dived at the bigger bird's head. The she-raven struck at the hawk's red tail feathers and suddenly the big brown bird had had enough.

Flapping powerfully, the redtail climbed higher and soon began to outdistance the smaller birds who kept up the harassment as long as they could.

The two dudes on the hill laughed and laughed and laughed.

++++++++++

Nelson didn't feel hungry but at his mother's suggestion drank a small glass of milk before going to bed. He wondered if he'd gained any weight yet but resisted checking the scale; the doctor had recommended that he weigh himself only once a week because daily fluctuations might give him the wrong idea about whether his weight gain plan was working or not.

In his own room, he looked himself over in his mirror. He did look skinny but had something changed? Maybe, though he couldn't say what. He scratched his chest then his butt and went to bed.

He dreamed that Carmody had cooked up a scheme to get them into the girls' locker room at the tennis club. It involved dressing as girls, of course and he resisted the idea.

"It'll be fun," Carmody insisted.

"Fun for you, dude," said Nelson in the dream. "You're the one who wants to see them naked."

"Okay," said Carmody. "We don't have to both go. You dress in the tennis outfit, go inside and you can tell me all about what they look like in the shower."

"Somehow, that makes less sense than most of your ideas," said Nelson.

"All right, awright, dude," said the dream Carmody. "You wear the tennis skirt, come over to my house and we'll both take a shower."

"Naked?" asked Nelson.

"Who takes showers in their clothes? See, it isn't a stupid plan after all?"

"Um," said Nelson. He wanted to ask if they were going to shower together but just thinking of it made him squirm enough that he woke himself up.

He lay there in the dark, a bit of moonlight falling on the corner of his dresser. Somewhere outside, maybe in the hills, a dog or a coyote howled at the silvery moon. The house around him made gentle, homey creaks and pops as it cooled and settled on its foundation.

Nelson felt as if he might have an erection. This wasn't a completely unheard of thing, he sometimes had them in the mornings but coupled with the fragments of the dream he could remember, it disturbed him.

"Just a dream," he muttered. But he resisted using his hand to find out if he really had gotten stiff. He didn't like touching it when it was all hard, anyway. Things could happen that embarrassed him to think of them.

Before he realized it, he had fallen asleep again. This time he and Carmody stood in the hot blazing sun on the bleachers at school. Everyone else seemed to be wearing graduation gowns in the gold and purple of the school colors.

Except Carmody had on the camp uniform they had worn last summer, blue shorts and a white t-shirt with the camp logo in brown and green. "Too hot to wear those dresses, dude," said Carmody.

"Yeah," Nelson agreed. Dreamlike, the scene pulled back to show himself standing next to Carmody except instead of blue shorts he had on the red ones the girls wore at camp.

"You're still too skinny, dude," said Carmody.

The scene changed again, they were lining up for P.E. class. Everyone else in blue shorts and plain white tees but Nelson knew he still had on the red shorts. Even the girls at school wore blue shorts to P.E. so it wasn't like anyone would know he had on girls' shorts. Except Carmody.

"Still too skinny," said his friend, talking out of the corner of his mouth so the coach wouldn't hear him.

They ran and shouted and played in the hot sun until the coach sent them inside to shower and Nelson found himself sitting in the coach's office, dripping wet. He still had on the red shorts.

Coach Milliken worked at his desk, ignoring Nelson who dripped on the chair and the floor, a small pool of water forming around him. Tiny figures played water sports in the pool, a miniature Carmody splashing and laughing with some itty-bitty girls wearing bikinis.

Nelson looked up at the coach who asked, "Why did you take a shower in your clothes, dude?"

"I couldn't let Carmody see me naked," said Nelson, still dreaming.

"Too skinny," said the coach, nodding.

They rode the bus up to camp, Carmody at the window seat, Nelson on the aisle with his mom and dad in the seats facing them except that the bus wasn't really arranged that way.

His parents' mouths moved and they made gestures as if telling him something very important but he couldn't hear them.

Carmody made noises beside him. "Dude, there's naked chicks playing volleyball at camp."

Nelson looked down. He and Carmody were holding hands. "Are any of the girls too skinny?" asked Nelson.

"No, dude, they've all got jugs and big round asses."

"You be sure to take your pills at camp," his mother said to him.

"And don't let Carmody," said his dad.

"Don't let him what?" Nelson asked.

"You'll know."

Nelson woke again. The moonlight made a small shape like a trapdoor on the floor. A train somewhere rattled up a hill. The house felt silent, and sounded as if it might still be dreaming.

He knew for sure this time, lying on his stomach; he had a hard-on. He rolled out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom where a tiny peanut light glowed in the dark. He still didn't want to touch it so he pulled down his shorts and sat on the toilet. He sat well back and leaned forward to aim it into the bowl.

He looked at his shorts, his boxer-style briefs around his ankles. In the darkness, they looked red. Liquid shot out from under the toilet seat and spattered on the back of his legs, dripping onto the red shorts.

"Crapulent bastard," he said, grunting. When he'd finished, he stood and pulled off his shorts to wipe things down, his legs, between his legs, the seat and the floor. He threw the shorts into the hamper and trudged back to his room.

Somehow, he'd removed his t-shirt, too but he didn't remember when. And now he had to get to his last period class without anyone finding him in the halls naked.

"Put this on," said Carmody.

Nelson put it on, a long red t-shirt, almost long enough to cover him down to his knees. No, shorter than that, it barely covered his butt.

"You're too skinny," said Carmody. "If you turn sideways, no one will notice that you're naked, dude."

"Thanks a lot," Nelson dreamed of saying, not sure just how he meant that.

Carmody laughed at him and he woke up, lying across the bed, naked. What had he done with his t-shirt?

He got up and found his underwear drawer in the dark, picking out a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt to wear. The t-shirt, instead of being extra long seemed to be too tight, especially across the chest. "Am I awake?" he asked himself.

"No," said Carmody. "You're still dreaming."

Nelson shook himself awake, sitting up with his feet on the floor. He sat there a moment, being sure that he really was awake.

A sliver of moonlight had reached the bed. Traffic on the freeway, more than a mile away, murmured and whispered, already in a hurry with daylight two hours away. Nelson heard water running somewhere in the house.

He got up and went down the hall to see if he had left the toilet trying to refill, sometimes the handle got stuck. The sound stopped and he realized it had been coming from his parents' bathroom, through the wall from his own.

He made an effort to be extra quiet, making his way down the hall and through the dining room. The elderly cat that slept in the laundry room met him in the kitchen, stroking itself against his legs.

"Quiet, Softus," said Nelson, though the cat seldom made a sound louder than a delicate purr.

Nelson got two bowls from the cabinet, and filled one with Honey-Nut Cheerios, spilling just a few into the second bowl.

When he opened the refrigerator door, the light made him blink and squint but he found the milk for himself and the non-fat cottage cheese for the cat. Softus couldn't have milk anymore, it gave her terrible gas.

Nelson spooned a bit of cottage cheese onto the sprinkling of cereal and put it in the floor for the cat then poured milk over the more generous helping for himself. He sat at the kitchen table in the dark, eating and trying not to think about his dreams.

The cat nibbled at her unexpected treat and purred like corduroy being stroked with a finger tip.

The eastern mountains, seen through the tiny bay window in the kitchen, had just the first fingers of dawn making their edges visible as a darker darkness when he washed both bowls and the spoon and put them in the drainer.

He checked to be sure he had put everything away before he went back to bed.