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'A pathological condition of arrested growth,' Mother repeated.

Lilly shrugged; she imitated the way the Korean girls skinned a drumstick.

When the big, blonde, out-of-breath girl was back, she looked stricken to see that Ronda Ray had cleared her plate; she handed the dictionary to her father.

'Ho!' Franny whispered across the table to me, and I kicked her under the table. She kicked me back; I kicked back at her and kicked Junior Jones by mistake.

'Ow,' he said.

'Sorry,' I said.

'Ho!' said the Finnish doctor, putting his finger on the word. 'Dwarfism!' he exclaimed.

It was quiet at the table, except for the sound of the Japanese struggling with his creamed corn.

'Are you saying she's a dwarf?' Father asked the doctor.

'Ho, yes! A dwarf,' the doctor said.

'Bullshit,' said Iowa Bob. That's no dwarf -- that's a little girl! That's a child, you moron!'

'What is "moron"?' the doctor asked his daughter, but she wouldn't tell him.

Ronda Ray brought out the pies.

'You're no dwarf, dear,' Mother whispered to Lilly, but Lilly just shrugged.

'So what if I am?' she said, bravely. 'I'm a good kid.'

'Bananas,' said Iowa Bob, darkly. And no one knew if he meant that as a cure -- 'Just feed her bananas!' -- or if he was stating a euphemism for 'bullshit.'

Anyway, that was Thanksgiving, 1956, and we careened on toward Christmas in that fashion: pondering size, listening to love, giving up baths, hoping to properly pose the dead -- running and lifting and waiting for rain.

It was a morning in early December when Franny woke me. It was still dark in my room, and the snorkling sound of Egg's breathing reached me through the open connecting doorway; Egg was still asleep. There was someone's softer, controlled breathing nearer to me than Egg, and I was aware of Franny's smell -- a smell I hadn't known for a while: a rich but never rank smell, a little salty, a little sweet, strong but never syrupy. And in the darkness I knew that Franny had been cured of taking baths. It was overhearing my Mother and Father that did it; I think that made her own smell seem perfectly natural to Franny again.

'Franny?' I whispered, because I couldn't see her. Her hand brushed my cheek.

'Over here,' she said. She was curled against the wall and the headboard of my bed; how she could squeeze in beside me without waking me, I'll never know. I turned toward her and smelled that she'd brushed her teeth. 'Listen,' she whispered. I heard Franny's heartbeat and mine, and Egg deep-sea diving in the adjoining room. And something else, as soft as Franny's breath.

'It's rain, dummy,' Franny said, and wormed a knuckle into my ribs. 'It's raining, kid,' she told me. 'It's your big day!'

'It's still dark,' I said. 'I'm still sleeping.'

'It's dawn,' Franny hissed in my ear; then she bit my cheek and started tickling me under the covers.

'Cut it out, Franny!' I said.

'Rain, rain, rain,' she chanted. 'Don't be chicken. Frank and I have been up for hours.

She said that Frank was at the switchboard, playing with the squawk-box system. Franny dragged me out of bed and made me brush my teeth and put on my track clothes, as if I were going to run wind sprints on the stairs, as usual. Then she took me to Frank at the switchboard, and the two of them counted out the money and told me to hide it in one of my running shoes -- a thick wad of bills, mostly ones and fives.

'How can I run with that in my shoe?' I asked.

'You're not going to run, remember?' Franny said.

'How much is it?' I asked.

'First find out if she charges,' Franny said. 'Then worry if you have enough.'