I went back to Janie. She just looked up at me. She wasn’t scared. I told her, ‘I got to go to the john.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Why’n’t you say so?’
Suddenly I grunted and grabbed my guts. The feeling I had I can’t begin to talk about. I acted as if it was a pain, but it wasn’t. It was like nothing else that ever happened to me before. Something went splop on the snow outside.
‘Okay,’ Janie said. ‘Go on back to bed.’
‘But I got to—’
‘You got to what?’
‘Nothing.’ It was true. I didn’t have to go no place.
‘Next tune tell me right away. I don’t mind.’
I didn’t say anything. I went back to my blanket.
‘That’s all?’ said Stern. I lay on the couch and looked up at the grey ceiling. He asked, ‘How old are you?’