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"I care about myself," I said and stood up and brushed myself off. He sat there watching me.

"Yeah, well, nobody worries about that stuff, at least nobody our age where I come from. You think it's going to be different for me here?" he asked. Then he shook his head. "I forgot. You wouldn't know. Does anyone else about our age live nearby, any normal person I could become friends with?"

"I don't know... I said. "The next house is about a half mile down toward Sandburg, but I think the children living there are all about four or five. And I'm more normal than you are."

"Yeah. right, Home school, weird things on your front door, fish and garden all day. Very normal."

"You don't know anything," I said.

"You're really not bored? You're happy just hanging out with a dog?" he asked, still amazed.

"I'm very busy. There's a lot to do on our farm. I don't have time to be bored," I told him.

"Man, you are weird."

"So stay away from me," I snapped at him and started back to the stream. He got up and followed alongside.

"I'm sure my father wishes I was bored like you," he said in a more casual tone. I didn't walk as fast because he was talking about himself now. "My sister wasn't the only one getting into hot water. I cheated on a final exam and failed social studies last year. Had to go to summer school to make it up, which meant I couldn't get a summer job. Dad wasn't going to let me get my license this year. so I had to be sure I at least passed everything. Actually. I'm glad he wanted to move, because he had to offer something to get me to go along. That's how I got him to agree to the car. Betsy was giving him a really hard time about it. I knew I had him over a barrel after a while."

I stopped and looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"You don't sound like a family. You sound like combatants." I said.

"Combatants?" He crrimaced.

"It means adversaries. Belligerents? Enemies? You know what that means, at least?"

"Oh. You are smart," he said.

We walked back toward the stream. Cleo following right behind us now and not rushing off to investigate some hole in the ground as usual.

"Maybe your mother did some magic thing to make you that way," he added with a wry smile. "Maybe she could do it for me, too. huh?"

"There's only one magic thing to do to get smarter. Elliot, study, read, pay attention to

instructions, and work."

"Right," he said smugly. "You know, my last girlfriend was pretty smart: always on the honor roll. And she was a junior varsity cheerleader, too, for the basketball team."

I saw him smile. but I said nothing. I didn't want him to stop talking. What was it like to be a cheerleader and to go to school games?

"She was very competitive. The only thing I could beat her at easily was ring toss. Of course," he added. we played strip ring toss. I invented it," he added with a twist in his lips.

"What's that?" I asked unable to stop myself.

"Simple. Whoever lost a round had to take off some-thing. I usually got her naked in less than ten rounds."

I felt my breathing quicken.

"She was nicely built. too. She wasn't the first girl I did it with. though. I did it when I was only twelve." he boasted. "We had these neighbors. the Brakfists, who had a daughter named Sandra. Everyone teased her and called her Sandra Breakfast. She was a brain, too," he added glancing at me. "The truth" he said in a whisper. "was she knew more about the old birds and the bees than I did. Once in a while. I did homework with her because I was such a lousy student."

We broke out of the forest and approached the stream again. My pole was lying over some rocks, the line carried out by the rushing water. During our rough-housing, the can of worms had been la-locked over, and most of it had spilled. I knelt down, scooping as much as I could back.

"Don't you want to hear what happened-- or are you gay or something?" he asked. annoyed I could get distracted. I wasn't. I just didn't want to show how interested I really was.

"Well?"

"Okay, what happened?"