ce putting Cat back in the wicker hamper to see if I can keep him
in that sometimes, but he meows like crazy. That'd drive Pop nuts in the
car, and it certainly wouldn't hide him from any motel-keeper. So I just
sit back and hope for the best, but I got a nasty feeling in the bottom of
my stomach that something's going to go haywire.

Pop's pretty snappish anyway. He's working late nearly every night,
getting stuff cleared up before vacation. He doesn't want any extra
problems, especially not Cat problems. Mom's been having asthma a good
deal lately, and we're all pretty jumpy. It's always like this at the end
of the summer.

Tuesday night when he gets home, I ask Pop what's happened about Tom.

"We'll work something out," he says, which isn't what you'd call a big
explanation.

"You think he can get back into college?"

"I don't know. The Youth Board is going to work on it. They're arranging
for him to make up the midyear exams he missed, so he can get credit for
that semester. Then he can probably start making up the second semester at
night school if he has a job.

"Apparently the Youth Board knew his father had skipped--they've been
trying to trace him. I don't think it'll do any good if they find him. Tom
had better just cross him off and figure his own life for himself."

You know, I see "bad guys" in television and stuff, but with the people I
really know I always lump the parents on one team and the kids on the
other. Now here's my pop calmly figuring a kid better chalk off his father
as a bad lot and go it alone. If your father died, I suppose you could
face up to it eventually, but having him just fade out on you, not care
what you did--that'd be worse.

While I'm doing all this hard thinking, Pop has gone back to reading the
paper. I notice the column of want ads on the back, and all of a sudden my
mind clicks on Tom and jobs.

"Hey, Pop! You know the florist on the corner, Palumbo, where you always
get Mom the plant on Mother's Day? I went in there a couple of weeks ago,
because he had a sign up, 'Helper Wanted.' I thought maybe it was
deliveries and stuff that I could do after school. But he said he needed a
full-time man. I'm pretty sure the sign's still up."

"Palumbo, huhn?" Pop takes off his glasses and scratches his head with
them. He looks at his watch and sighs. "They still open?"

They are, and Pop goes right down to see the guy. He knows him fairly well
anyway--there's Mother's Day, and