ng and sipping a glass of wine.

"We're going on our bikes to the ferry and over to Staten Island," Mary
says. She doesn't even ask.

"Oh-h-h." It's a long, low note, faintly questioning.

"We thought with the wind blowing and all, it'd be exciting," Mary
explains, and I think, Uh-o, that's going to cook it. _My_ mother would
have kittens if I said I was going out on a ferry in a storm.

But Nina just says, "I see," and goes back to reading her book. I say
good-bye and she looks up again and smiles, and that's all.

It's another funny thing--Nina doesn't seem to pay any attention to who
Mary brings home, like most mothers are always snooping if their daughter
brings home a guy. Without stopping to think, I say, "Do you bring home a
lot of guys?"

Mary laughs. "Not a lot. Sometimes one of the boys at school comes home
when we're studying for a science test."

I laugh, too, but what I'm thinking of is how Pop would look if I brought
a girl home and said we were studying for a test!

14

[Illustration: Dave and Mary on ferry with other people.]

EXPEDITION BY FERRY

As we ride through Brooklyn the wind belts us around from both sides and
right in the teeth. But the sun's beginning to break through, and it's
easy riding, no hills.

This part of Brooklyn is mostly rows of houses joined together, or low
apartment buildings, with little patches of lawn in front of them. There's
lots of trees along the streets. It doesn't look anything like Manhattan,
but not anything like the country, either. It's just Brooklyn.

All of a sudden we're circling a golf course. What d'you know? Right in
New York City!

"Ever play golf?" The wind snatches the words out of my mouth and carries
them back to Mary. I see her mouth shaping like a "No," but no sound comes
my way. I drop back beside her and say, "I'll show you sometime. My pop's
got a set of clubs I used a couple of times."

"Probably I better carry the clubs and you play. I can play tennis,
though."

We pass the golf course and head down into a sort of main street. Anyway
there's lots of banks and dime stores and traffic. Mary leads the way. We
make a couple of turns and zigzags and then go under the parkway, and
there's the ferry. It's taken us most of an hour to get from Mary's house.

I'm hoping the ferry isn't too