Boys Life

were twelve candles. And sometime during the cake-eating, Dad put my birthday present on my desk in my room.
    Before I found it, Johnny had to go home. His head still hurt him sometimes, and he had dizzy spells. He had brought me two fine white arrowheads from his collection. Davy Ray had brought me an Aurora model of the Mummy, and Ben’s gift was a bagful of little plastic dinosaurs.
    But on my desk, with a clean sheet of white paper gripped in its roller, was a Royal typewriter as gray as a battleship.
    It had some miles on it. The keys showed wear, and Z.P.L. was scratched on its side. The Zephyr Public Library, I later learned, had been selling some of their older equipment. The E key stuck, and the lower-case i was missing its dot. But I sat at my desk in the deepening twilight of my birthday, and I pushed aside my tin can full of Ticonderoga pencils and, heart pounding, laboriously typed out my name on the paper.
    I had entered the technological age.
    Soon enough I realized typing was going to be no simple task. My fingers were rebellious. I would have to discipline them. I kept practicing, long after the night had thickened and Mom said I ought to go to sleep. COERY JAT MACKEMAON. DAVY RSU CALKAN. JIHNMY QULSON. BEM SEARS. REBEL. OLF MOSES. THE LADT. BURNUNG CROSD. BRAMKINS. GREEN-FEATHRED HAT. ZEPHIR. ZEPHTR. ZEPHYR.
    I had a long way to go, but I sensed the excitement of the cowboy heroes, Indian braves, army troops, detective legions, and monster squads within me, eager to be born.
    One afternoon I was riding Rocket around, enjoying the steam that rose from a passing shower, and I found myself near the house where Nemo Curliss lived. He was out front, a small figure throwing a baseball up in the air and catching it as it hurtled down again. I eased Rocket onto its kickstand, and offered to throw him a few. What I really wanted was to see Nemo in action once more. A boy with a perfect arm, no matter how frail that arm might look, surely had been touched by God. Soon I was encouraging Nemo to aim for the knothole in an oak tree across the street, and when he zoomed that ball right in and made it stick not once but three times, I almost fell to my knees and worshipped him.
    Then the front door of his house opened with the ringing of chimes and his mother came out onto the porch. I saw Nemo’s eyes flinch behind his glasses, as if he were about to be struck. “Nemo!” she shouted in a voice that reminded me of the stinging wasp. “I told you not to throw that ball, didn’t I? I’ve been watchin’ you out the window, young man!”
    Nemo’s mother descended the porch steps and approached us like a storm. She had long, dark brown hair, and maybe she’d been pretty once but now there was something hard about her face. She had piercing brown eyes with deep lines radiating out from their corners, and her pancake makeup was tinted orange. She wore a tight pair of black pedal-pushers, a white blouse with big red polka dots, and on her hands were a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Her mouth was daubed crimson, which I found peculiar. She was all fancied up to do housework. “Wait’ll your father hears about this!” she said.
    Hears about what? I wondered. All Nemo was doing was playing outside.
    “I didn’t fall down,” Nemo said.
    “But you could’ve!” his mother snapped. “You know how fragile you are! If you broke a bone, what would we do? How would we pay for it? I swear, you’re not right in the head!” Her eyes swept toward me like prison searchlights. “Who’re you?”
    “Coryth my friend,” Nemo said.
    “Friend. Uh-huh.” Mrs. Curliss looked me over from head to foot. I could tell by the set of her mouth and the way her nose wrinkled that she thought I might be carrying leprosy. “Cory what?”
    “Mackenson,” I told her.
    “Your father buy any shirts from us?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Friend,” she said, and her hard gaze returned to Nemo. “I told you not to get overheated out here, didn’t I? I told you not to throw that ball, didn’t I?”
    “I didn’t get overheated. I wuth jutht-”
    “Disobeyin’ me,” she interrupted. “My God, there’s got to be some order in this family! There’s got to be some rules! Your father gone all day and when he comes home he’s spent more money than he’s made and you’re out here tryin’ to hurt yourself and cause me more worry!” The bones seemed to be straining against the taut flesh of her face, and her eyes had a bright