couldn't hear what they were saying. Then she reached out a hand to
Brian. I held my breath to see what this woman who did bad things
inside the Green Lantern was going to do to him. She put her hand on his
head and ruffled his hair. Grown-up women always did that to Brian,
because his hair was red and he had freckles. It annoyed him; he usually
swatted their hands away. But not this time. Instead, he stayed and talked
with the woman for a while. When he came back across the highway, he
didn't look scared at all.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing much," Brian said.
"What did you talk about?"
"I asked her what goes on inside the Green Lantern," he said.
"Really?" I was impressed. "What did she say?"
"Nothing much," he said. "She told me that men came in and the women
there were nice to them."
"Oh," I said. "Anything else?"
"Naw," Brian said. He started kicking at the dirt like he didn't want to
talk about it anymore. "She was kinda nice," he said.
After that, Brian waved to the women on the porch of the Green Lantern,
and they smiled real big and waved back, but I was still a little afraid of
them.
OUR HOUSE IN BATTLE MOUNTAIN was filled with animals. They
came and went, stray dogs and cats, their puppies and kittens,