f asking him doesn't he have a home or something to go back to,
but somehow I don't like to.

"Like today," Tom says. "I'd like to go somewhere. Do something. Got any
ideas?"

"Um. I was sort of trying to think up something myself. Movies?"

Tom shakes himself. "No. I want to walk, or run, or throw something."

"There's a big park--sort of a woods--up near the Bronx. A kid told me about
it. He said he found an Indian arrowhead there, but I bet he didn't.
Inwood Park, it's called."

"How do you get there?"

"Subway, I guess."

"Let's go!" Tom stands up and wriggles his shoulders like he's Superman
ready to take off.

"O.K. Wait a minute. I'll go tell Mom. Should I get some sandwiches?"

Tom looks surprised. "Sure, fine, if she doesn't mind."

I'm not worried about getting Mom to make sandwiches because she always
likes to fix a little food for me. The thing is, ever since my fight with
Nick, she's been clucking around me like the mother hen. Maybe she figures
I got in some gang fight, so she keeps asking me where I'm going and who
with. Also, I guess she noticed I don't go to Nick's after school anymore.
I come right home. So she asks me do I feel all right. You can't win.
Right now, I can see she's going to begin asking who is Tom and where did
I meet him. It occurs to me there's an easy way to take care of this.

I turn around to Tom again. "Say, how about you come up and I'll introduce
you to Mom? Then she won't start asking me a lot of questions."

"You mean I _look_ respectable, at least?"

"Sure."

We go up to the apartment, and Mom asks if we'd like some cold drinks or
something. I tell her I ran into Tom when he helped me hunt for Cat around
Gramercy Park, which is almost true, and that he sometimes plays stickball
with us, which isn't really true but it could be. Mom gets us some
orangeade. She usually keeps something like that in the icebox in summer,
because she thinks cokes are bad for you.

"Do you live around here?" she asks Tom.

"No, ma'am," says Tom firmly. "I live at the Y. I've got a summer job in a
filling station over in Brooklyn, starting right after Memorial Day."

"That's fine," Mom says. "I wish Davey could get a job. He gets so
restless with nothing to do in the summer."

"Aw, Mom, forget it! You got to fill in about six-hundred working papers
if you're under sixteen.

"Listen, Mom, what I came up for--we thought we'd make some sandwiches and
go up to Inwood Park."

"Inw