ood? Where's that?" So I explain to her about the Indian arrowheads,
and we get out the classified phone book and look at the subway map, which
shows there's an IND train that goes right to it.

"I get sort of restless myself, with nothing to do," says Tom. "We just
figured we'd do a little exploring around in the woods and get some
exercise."

"Why, yes, that seems like a good idea." Mom looks at him and nods. She
seems to have decided he's reliable, as well as respectable.

I see there's some leftover cold spaghetti in the icebox, and I ask Mom to
put it in sandwiches. She thinks I'm cracked, but I did this once before,
and it's good, 'specially if there's plenty of meat and sauce on the
spaghetti. We take along a bag of cherries, too.

"Thanks, Mom. Bye. I'll be back before supper."

"Take care," she says. "No fights."

"Don't worry. We'll stay out of fights," says Tom quite seriously.

We go down the stairs, and Tom says, "Your mother is really nice."

I'm sort of surprised--kids don't usually say much about each other's
parents. "Yeah, Mom's O.K. I guess she worries about me and Pop a lot."

"It must be pretty nice to have your mother at home," he says.

That kind of jolts me, too. I wonder where his mother and father are,
whether they're dead or something; but again, I don't quite want to ask.
Tom isn't an easy guy to ask questions. He's sort of like an island, by
himself in the ocean.

We walk down to Fourteenth Street and over to Eighth Avenue, about twelve
blocks; after all, exercise is what we want. The IND trains are fast, and
it only takes about half an hour to get up to Inwood, at 206th Street. The
park is right close, and it is real woods, although there are paved walks
around through it. We push uphill and get in a grassy meadow, where you
can see out over the Hudson River to the Palisades in Jersey. It's good
and hot, and we flop in the sun. There aren't many other people around,
which is rare in New York.

"Let's eat lunch," says Tom. "Then we can go hunting arrowheads and not
have to carry it."

He agrees the spaghetti sandwich is a great invention.

I wish the weather would stay like this more of the year--good and sweaty
hot in the middle of the day, so you feel like going swimming, but cool
enough to sleep at night. We lie in the sun awhile after lunch and agree
that it's too bad there isn't an ocean within jumping-in distance. But
there isn't, and flies are biting the backs of our ne