“No.”
“You will,” I said. “It’s a difference I’m going to help you learn.”
CHAPTER 16
The next morning I woke Paul up at seven.
“Why do I have to get up?” he said. “There’s no school.”
“We got a lot to do,” I said.
“I don’t want to get up.”
“Well, you have to. I’m going to make breakfast. Anything special you want?”
“I don’t want any.”
“Okay,” I said. “But there’s nothing to eat till lunch.”
He stared at me, squinting, and not entirely awake.
I went out to the kitchen and mixed up some batter for corn bread. While the bread was baking and the coffee perking, I took a shower and dressed, took the corn bread out, and went into Paul’s room. He had gone back to sleep. I shook him awake.
“Come on, kid,” I said. “I know you don’t want to, but you have to. You’ll get used to the schedule. Eventually you’ll even like it.”
Paul pushed his head deeper into the sleeping bag and shook his head.
“Yeah,” I said. “You gotta. Once you’re up and showered you’ll feel fine. Don’t make me get tough.”
“What’ll you do if I don’t,” Paul muttered into the sleeping bag.
“Pull you out,” I said. “Hold you under the shower. Dry you, dress you, Et cetera.”
“I won’t get up,” he said.
I pulled him out, undressed him, and held him under the shower. It took about a half an hour. It’s not easy to control someone, even a kid, if you don’t want to hurt them. I shampooed his hair and held him under to rinse, then I pulled him out and handed him a towel.
“You want me to dress you?” I said.
He shook his head, and wrapped the towel around himself, and went to his room. I went to the kitchen and put out the corn bread and strawberry jam and a bowl of assorted fruit. While I waited for him I ate an orange and a banana. I poured a cup of coffee. I sipped a little of it. I had not warned him against going back to bed. Somehow I’d had a sense that would be insulting. I wanted him to come out on his own. If he didn’t I had lost some ground. I sipped some more coffee. The corn bread was cooling. I looked at his bedroom door. I didn’t like cool corn bread.
The bedroom door opened and he came out. He had on jeans that had obviously been shortened and then let down again, his worn Top-Siders, and a green polo shirt with a penguin on the left breast.
“You want coffee or milk?” I said.
“Coffee.”
I poured some. “What do you take in it?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I never had it before.”
“May as well start with cream and sugar,” I said. “Calories aren’t your problem.”
“You think I’m skinny?”
“Yes. There’s corn bread, jam, fruit, and coffee. Help yourself.”
“I don’t want anything.”
I said, “Okay,” and started on the corn bread. Paul sipped at the coffee. He didn’t look like he liked it. After breakfast I cleaned up the dishes and said to Paul, “You got any sneakers?”
“No.”
“Okay, first thing we’ll do is go over to North Conway and buy you some.”
“I don’t need any,” he said.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “We’ll pick up a newspaper too.”
“How you know they sell them over there?”
“North Conway? They probably got more flashy running shoes than aspirin,” I said. “We’ll find some.”
On the ride to North Conway Paul said, “How come you made me get up like that?”
“Two reasons,” I said. “One, you need some structure in your life, some scheduling, to give you a sense of order. Two, I was going to have to do it sometime. I figured I might as well get it over with.”
“You wouldn’t have to do it if you let me sleep.”
“It would’ve been something. You’d push me until you found out how far I’d go. You have to test me, so you can trust me.”
“What are you, a child psychologist?”
