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live on Venus’s-Flytrap Street than boring old Maple?” he asked.
    “I guess,” I said, “But a Venus’s-Flytrap is a plant, not a tree.”
    “Okay, but if it’s a bird street, wouldn’t it be cooler if it was, like, Blue-Footed Boobie Boulevard?” he said.
    “Sure, if there was such a bird as a blue-footed boobie,” I said.
    “There is,” he said.
    “No way,” I said.
    “Way. I’ve got a book with a picture of one in it at my house. I can show you if you want.”
    We were at the corner of my street.
    “This is my block,” I said, pointing down the street toward my house.
    “I know, but don’t you want to see the boobie?” he asked.
    “Now?” I said.
    “Sure,” he said.
    “Well, okay, I guess, but I gotta ask my mom,” I said. I hesitated for a minute. “Do you wanna come with me?”
    “Sure.”
    Fennimore and I headed down the street to my house. I stopped when we got to the front walk.
    “Listen, I have to warn you about something,” I said as we started up my driveway. “The name of my street may be boring and ordinary, but my parents are a whole different story.”
    “Is it true your mama showed everybody bare naked pictures of you at the class picnic last year?”
    I nodded.
    “Sheesh,” he said. “Is she touched?”
    “Touched?”
    “Yeah, you know, touched in the head,” Fennimore said, tapping his temple with his finger.
    “Oh, you mean crazy?”
    He nodded.
    As if to answer his question, right as we were walking up the porch steps, the back door burst open, and my mother came running out of the house wearing a bathing cap covered with green cotton balls and a piece of Astroturf with pom-pom fringe tied around her shoulders.
    “What do you think?” she shouted as she ran past us down the steps and zoomed around the backyard waving her arms like a maniac. “I’m a shrub!”
    “Holy crow!” said Fennimore, taking it all in with wide eyes.
    “I told you,” I said, watching my mother round the far corner of the yard, bank like an airplane, and head back our way.
    “Who’s your little friend, Guysie?” she said, stopping to catch her breath and joining us on the porch.
    “Mom, this is Fennimore. Fennimore…meet my mom.”
    Fennimore politely stuck his hand out.
    “How do you do, Ma’am,” he said. “That’s a very nice, uh, bathing cap you’ve got on there.”
    My mother shook his hand and laughed delightedly.
    “Well, aren’t you just as cute as a button.”
    Fennimore blushed.
    “Being as cute as you are, though, do you mind my asking what in the world possessed you to wear your hair that way?” my mother asked.
    “ Mom ,” I said rolling my eyes. She’s always blurting things out like that. She calls it “being frank.” As far as I’m concerned, whoever this Frank guy is, he’s very rude.
    “No, it’s okay,” Fennimore reassured me. “Is something wrong with my hair, Mrs. Strang?”
    “Nothing that a little trim couldn’t fix,” my mother said. “Come on inside, and I can fix you up in a jiff.”
    “I don’t think my mama would want me to get a haircut without her here,” Fennimore said quietly.
    “You call your mother mama? Oh, I just love that! It’s so, so regional . Tell you what,” my mother said. “Why don’t you call your mama up and ask her if it’s all right for you to get a little trim. Tell her she’s welcome to come watch me work my magic if she’d like to. I can trim hers too, for that matter, if she wants. We’ll make a party of it.”
    Fennimore looked at me. I shrugged.
    “She cuts mine,” I said. “And no offense, but to be honest, your hair is a little, well, flat .”
    Fennimore touched his head.
    “That’s on account of all the cowlicks,” he explained. “If I don’t plaster it down, it looks like crabgrass.”
    “I assure you, with a proper trim thosecowlicks would lie down flat without one drop of hair goop,” my mother said. “Trust me.”
    She opened the door and held it for us.
    “I’ve been