“Did you expect us to bring back the turntable and the sign post and the drawbridge and a couple of West Shore trains?” I asked him.
“In my patrol you have to prove all tests,” he said.
“That’s easy,” I told him, “because no one in that patrol ever passes any tests. All they know how to pass is the eats. Some of them don’t even know enough to pass the time of day.”
“You think you’re so smart,” he said. “Which is better? Some crullers or a scout?”
“Is it a riddle?” I asked him. “Why is a raving raven like a cruller? Because he’s twisted. Ask me another. What’s that got to do with taking tests?”
“When you took Test Four for a second-class scout,” he said, “you tracked half a mile and took a scout with you. I went alone. I tracked half a mile to Johnson’s Bakery and bought ten cents’ worth of crullers for proof. A witness might lie but crullers don’t lie.”
“How many witnesses did you have in the paper bag when you got back?” Garry wanted to know.
“Every test I ever took I brought back the proof,” the kid said. “I don’t bother with witnesses, I don’t.”
I said, “Sure, when he had to tell the points of the compass he went and brought home the North Pole and the South Pole and the East Pole and the West Pole to prove it.”
“Silent witnesses are best, that’s what our patrol leader says,” the kid shouted. “That’s the way we have to do in our patrol.”