He thought he'd
figured out how to fit in, that he'd observed people to the point that
he could be one, but he was so wrong.
They watched him until Easter break, when school let out and they
disappeared back into the unknowable depths of their neat houses, and
when they saw him on the street headed for a shop or moping on a bench,
they cocked their heads quizzically at him, as if to say, *Do I know you
from somewhere?* or, if he was feeling generous, *I wonder where you
live?* The latter was scarier than the former.
For his part, he was heartsick that he turned out not to be half so
clever as he'd fancied himself. There wasn't much money around the
mountain that season -- the flakes he'd brought down to the assayer had
been converted into cash for new shoes for the younger kids and
chocolate bars that he'd brought to fill Bradley's little round belly.
He missed the school library achingly during that week, and it was that
lack that drove him to the town library. He'd walked past the squat
brown brick building hundreds of times, but had never crossed its
threshold. He had a sense that he wasn't welcome there, that it was not
intended for his consumption. He slunk in like a stray dog, hid himself
in the back shelves, and read books at random while he observed the
other patrons coming and going.
It took three days of this for him to arrive at his strategy for getting
his own library card, and the plan worked flawlessly.
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