FOUR: SHADOWLAND

Danny weakened and went up for his milk and cookies at quarter past four.

He gobbled them while looking out the window, then went in to kiss his mother, who was lying down.

She suggested that he stay in and watch Sesame Street — the time would pass faster — but he shook his head firmly and went back to his place on the curb.

Now it was five o'clock, and although he didn't have a watch and couldn't tell time too well yet anyway, he was aware of passing time by the lengthening of the shadows, and by the golden cast that now tinged the afternoon light.

Turning the glider over in his hands, he sang under his breath: "Skip to me Lou, and I don't care … skip to me Lou, and I don't care … my master's gone away … Lou, Lou, skip to me Lou …"

They had sung that song all together at the Jack and Jill Nursery School he had gone to back in Stovington.

He didn't go to nursery school out here because Daddy couldn't afford to send him anymore.

He knew his mother and father worried about that, worried that it was adding to his loneliness (and even more deeply, unspoken between them, that Danny blamed them) , but he didn't really want to go to that old Jack and Jill anymore. It was for babies.

He wasn't quite a big kid yet, but he wasn't a baby anymore.