dazzling configurations of the sun that poured through the attic skylight, he looked like a descending angel-a tiny but fiery god, sent to adjudicate the errors of our ways. When Hester screamed, she frightened Owen so much that he screamed back at her-and when Owen screamed, my cousins were not only introduced to his rare voice; their movements were suddenly arrested. Except for the hairs on the backs of their necks, they froze-as they would if they'd heard a cat being slowly run over by a car. And from deep in a distant part of the great house, my grandmother spoke out: 'Merciful Heavens, it's that boy again!'
I was trying to catch my breath, to say, 'This is my best friend, the one I told you about,' because I had never seen my cousins gape at anyone with such open mouths-and, in Hester's case, a mouth from which spilled much purple thread-but Owen was quicker.
'WELL, IT SEEMS I HAVE INTERRUPTED WHAT-
EVER GAME THAT WAS YOU WERE PLAYING,' Owen said. 'MY NAME IS OWEN MEANY AND I'M YOUR COUSIN'S BEST FRIEND. PERHAPS HE'S TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT ME. I'VE CERTAINLY HEARD ALL ABOUT YOU. YOU MUST BE NOAH, THE OLDEST,' Owen said; he held out his hand to Noah, who shook it mutely. 'AND OF COURSE YOU'RE SIMON, THE NEXT OLDEST-BUT YOU'RE JUST AS BIG AND EVEN A LITTLE WILDER THAN YOUR BROTHER. HELLO, SIMON,' Owen said, holding out his hand to Simon, who was panting and sweating from his furious journey on the sewing machine, but who quickly took Owen's hand and shook it. 'AND OF COURSE YOU'RE HESTER,' Owen said, his eyes averted. 'I'VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT YOU, AND YOU'RE JUST AS PRETTY AS I EXPECTED.'
'Thank you,' Hester mumbled, pulling thread out of her mouth, tucking her T-shirt into her blue jeans. My cousins stared at him, and I feared the worst; but I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace. My cousins were both small-towners and outsiders; they had not grown up with Owen Meany, who was so strange to them that he inspired awe-yet they were no more likely to fall upon him, or to devise ways to torture him, than it was likely for a herd of cattle to attack a cat. And in addition to the brightness of the sun that shone upon him, Owen's face was blood-red-throbbing, I presumed, from his riding his bike into town; for a late November bike ride down Maiden Hill, given the prevailing wind off the Squamscott, was bitter cold. And even before Thanksgiving, the weather had been cold enough to freeze the freshwater part of the river; there was black ice all the way from Gravesend to Kensington Corners.
'WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE COULD DO,' Owen announced, and my unruly cousins gave him their complete attention. 'THE RIVER IS FROZEN, SO THE SKATING IS VERY GOOD, AND I KNOW YOU ENJOY VERY ACTIVE THINGS LIKE THAT-THAT YOU ENJOY THINGS LIKE SPEED AND DANGER AND COLD WEATHER. SO SKATING IS ONE IDEA,' he said, 'AND EVEN THOUGH THE RIVER IS FROZEN, I'M SURE THERE ARE CRACKS SOMEWHERE, AND EVEN The Armodiifo PLACES WHERE THERE ARE HOLES OF OPEN WATER-I FELL IN ONE LAST YEAR. I'M NOT SUCH A GOOD SKATER, BUT I'D BE HAPPY TO GO WITH YOU, EVEN THOUGH I'M GETTING OVER A COLD, SO I SUPPOSE I SHOULDN'T BE OUTSIDE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN THIS WEATHER.'
'No!' Hester said. 'If you're getting over a cold, you should stay inside. We should play indoors. We don't have to go skating. We go skating all the time.'
'Yes!' Noah agreed. 'We should do something indoors, if Owen's got a cold.'
'Indoors is best!' Simon said. 'Owen should get over his cold.' Perhaps my cousins were all relieved to hear that Owen was 'getting over a cold' because they thought this might partially explain the hypnotic awfulness of Owen's voice; I could have told them that Owen's voice was uninfluenced by his having a cold-and his 'getting over a cold' was news to me-but I was so relieved to see my cousins behaving respectfully that I had no desire to undermine Owen's effect on them.
'WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT INDOORS WOULD BE BEST, TOO,' Owen said, 'AND UNFORTUNATELY I REALLY CAN'T INVITE YOU TO MY HOUSE, BECAUSE THERE'S REALLY NOTHING TO DO IN THE HOUSE, AND BECAUSE MY FATHER RUNS A GRANITE QUARRY, HE'S RATHER STRICT ABOUT THE EQUIPMENT AND THE QUARRIES THEMSELVES, WHICH ARE OUTDOORS, ANYWAY. INDOORS, AT MY HOUSE, WOULD NOT BE A LOT OF FUN BECAUSE MY PARENTS ARE RATHER STRANGE ABOUT CHILDREN.'
'That's no problem!' Noah blurted.
'Don't worry!' Simon said. 'There's lots to do here, in this house.'
'Everyone's parents are strange!' Hester told Owen reassuringly, but I couldn't think of anything to say. In the years I'd known Owen, the issue of how strange his parents were-not only 'about children'-had never been discussed between us. It seemed, rather, the accepted knowledge of the town, not to be mentioned-except in passing, or in parentheses, or as an aside among intimates.
'WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT WE COULD PUT ON YOUR GRANDFATHER'S CLOTHES-YOU'VE TOLD YOUR COUSINS ABOUT THE CLOTHES?' Owen
asked me; but I hadn't. I thought they would think that dressing up in Grandfather's clothes was either baby play, or morbid, or both; or that they would surely destroy the clothes, discovering that merely dressing up in them was insufficiently violent -therefore leading them to a game, the object of which was to rip the clothes off each other; whoever was naked last won.
