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Show "You'll come around to it," said the father. "Every boy needs a pet." From time to time the father hired housekeepers to stay with the boy, but the boy pasted peanut butter along the edge of the table, or chased the cat through a pile of freshly ironed laundry, making it look like an accident. The housekeepers all quit. "Because of the child," he heard them all say to his father as they stalked off, but he never heard the father's reply. So the boy went back to hunting about the building, and in time ventured into the basement. At first he would ride the elevator to the basement and not get off, but push the u£ button as soon as it stopped. Then he learned to pause a bit and look out the door, picking out the shape of the room behind the furnace. Gradually, he dared to get off the elevator and sit; he was calmer now, and he could hear the old man moving about inside the room, chipping away at blocks of wood or soldering together some lengths of pipe. He found a place where he could squat down beside a pillar, and he sat nearly an hour just listening to the old man. He would see the cats walking around the basement, but they did not interest him so much anymore. In the evening he went back up to the apartment his father lived in, and submitted to the reading lessons his father had begun to give him. It was the only time the father spoke to the boy; he was always gone in the mornings, and in the evenings he was busy. The boy associated reading lessons with liver and broccoli, but could not figure out why. The father grew angry |
