“So—he cares.”
“Huh.” I’m not very ready to buy this, but then I remember Tom’s father, who doesn’t care. It makes me think.
“Besides,” says Tom, “half the reason you and your father are always bickering is that you’re so much alike.”
“Me? Like him?”
“Sure. You’re both impatient and curious, got to poke into everything. As long as there’s a bone on the floor, the two of you worry it.”
Mr. Palumbo comes back to the shop then, and Tom gets busy with the plants. I go home, wondering if I really am at all like Pop. I never thought of it before.
It’s funny about fights. Pop and I can go along real smooth and easy for a while, and I think: Well, he really isn’t a bad guy, and I’m growing up, we can see eye to eye—all that stuff. Then, whoosh! I hardly know what starts it, but a fight boils up, and we’re both breathing fire like dragons on the loose.
We get a holiday Washington’s Birthday, which is good because there’s a TV program on Tuesday, the night before the holiday, that I hardly ever get to watch. It’s called Out Beyond, and the people in it are very real, not just good guys and bad guys. There’s always one character moving around, keeping you on the edge of your chair, and by the time it all winds up in a surprise ending, you find this character is not a real person, he’s supernatural. The program goes on till eleven o’clock, and Mom won’t let me watch it on school nights.
I get the pillows comfortably arranged on the floor, with a big bottle of soda and a bag of popcorn within easy reach. The story starts off with some nature shots of a farm and mountains in the background and this little kid playing with his grandfather. There’s a lot of people in it, but gradually you get more and more suspicious of dear old grandpa. He’s taking the kid for a walk when a thunderstorm blows up.
Right then, of course, we have to have the alternate sponsor. He signs off, finally, and up comes Pop.