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and her family, as his mother had other things to do. It was Dorothy’s first. She pointed to the mountain of boxes at the far end of the field. “What are they for?” she asked Palmer.
    â€œThat’s where the pigeons are,” he told her.
    â€œWhat are they doing in there?” she said.
    â€œThey’re waiting to get out,” Palmer told her. He felt like an old pro, clueing in the new kid. “They go from the big boxes to those little white boxes there. Every little white box has five pigeons. Somebody pulls a string and a door opens and one pigeon flies out.” His father had told him these things. “Guess how many pigeons there are.”
    Dorothy gave it some thought. “A hundred.”
    Palmer smiled smugly. “Five thousand.”
    Dorothy Gruzik’s mouth fell open as her eyes rolled upward. She was imagining a skyful of pigeons. “Wow,” she said. “Then what?”
    â€œThey shoot them.”
    For a long time Dorothy Gruzik did not move. It looked as if she were waiting for rain to fall into her mouth. When she finally turned her eyes back to Palmer, he wished he wasn’t there.
    â€œWhat?” she said.
    â€œThey shoot them,” he repeated, and the words were dusty and bitter on his tongue. There seemed only one way to get rid of the bad taste, and that was to flush out his mouth with more and more words. “They go bam! bam! bam! They open up a box and the pigeon flies out and the gun goes bam! and the bird goes—” Palmer raised his hand high above his head and dived it down to the ground to show her; for sound effect, he tried out his newly learned whistle. “And then another one comes out—bam! Another one—bam!” After each bam! came a dive and a whistle. “And the wringers run out to get the pigeons, and if the pigeon isn’t dead the wringer wrings its neck.” He brought his curled fists together and snap-twisted them. “Like that .” He made the sound of a twig breaking.
    She was already running, tunneling through the crowd, bouncing off grown-ups’ legs, her mother after her, “Excuse me…excuse me…”
    Palmer bored through to the back side of thecrowd. Dorothy was running past the picnic tables, her mother chasing.
    Palmer called: “They put them out of their misery! That’s all! That’s all!”
    He discovered that he was crying.

10
    By the following year Palmer no longer cared to watch. So he spent Pigeon Day at the playground with Dorothy Gruzik. Through the day the squeak of the seesaw and the creak of the swings joined the sound of the shotguns. At this distance they sounded like balloons popping.
    While they were on the swings, a boy he knew as Arthur Dodds came by. Arthur had not yet begun calling himself Beans. He was dashing through the playground when he spotted Palmer and Dorothy and skidded to a halt.
    â€œWhattaya doing?” he demanded of the two of them.
    â€œWe’re swinging,” said Dorothy. “What’s it look like?” Even then she wasn’t afraid.
    â€œThey’re shooting the pigeons,” he said. His feet were still pointed toward the soccer field; his whole body was twitching. “Come on!”
    â€œWe’re staying here,” said Dorothy.
    Palmer was glad that Dorothy answered, butnow Arthur Dodds was heading straight for him. “What’s your name?” he growled.
    â€œPalmer.”
    â€œYour first name.”
    â€œThat is my first name.”
    â€œWhat kind of a name is that?”
    What could Palmer say? He shrugged.
    Arthur Dodds came closer. At that time he still had his baby teeth, which were as colorful as his second teeth would become. “You coming?” he said.
    Palmer did not know what to say. He looked at Dorothy. She was staring at him. Somehow her face gave him the answer. He shook his head no.
    Arthur Dodds exploded. “Sissymissy! Girl-baby!” He