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Show Chick Sales 2 "Stop i t , " Jack yells thickly, half asleep. "And stop hogging the covers. You're always hogging." The q u i l t barely covers Herman's thigh. He wonders why, i f he always takes the covers, he has none. He wants to kick Jack as hard as he can. He wants to curl his l i p back over his teeth, snarl at his brother, and make him afraid, but Jack w i l l pin him to the ground and make him say "Uncle" i f he does. Jack is the biggest. In the other bed, his father whispers. "Esther? Are you awake?" The cock crows. In the hollow of a warehouse, even under the high steel roof with no sun in sight, the cock s t i l l crows. Springs squeak as his father moves closer to his mother. "Not this morning, Alf," Esther says as she grabbles for the kerosene lamp, the matches, the light. She sits on the edge of the bed, brushing and braiding her long brown hair. She loops the belt on her bathrobe and pads across the floor to stuff the wood stove with f i r e. "Time to get up, l i t t l e Herman," she says as she cracks eggs into a bowl. "Your father wants you to help him take the bull up to Old Ben's." Herman burrows into the mattress and pulls a corner of the blanket around his shoulder. He sinks inward to his secret place, the pool where he talks with fish and breathes in water. When he's not d r i f t i ng or spinning through currents, he likes to s i t on the shore and slide eight fingers between ten toes. He doesn't have to be wary. He doesn't have to double his f i s t s to ward off boys with big shoulders and thick thighs. His pond is safe from slithering snakes and from his father's leather belt that cuts into his skin. |