There was a small round hole in the plaster by the front door, and Mouse had once drawn an arrow to the hole and had written DROP COINS HERE BEFORE EXITING. He went out the door, looking down at his feet, taking the steps one at a time. He was trying to be late for school now that his efforts not to go at all had failed. “Mom, I’m sick, hear? I’m really sick,” he had said at breakfast. He had been sick too. “I can’t even eat, I’m so sick.” “All right, if you’re sick, show me some fever,” his mother had said, getting up from the table and going into the bathroom for the thermometer. “If you don’t have fever, you aren’t sick enough to stay home.” He had sat at the table while she went for the thermometer, thinking of how much he missed his father. Breakfast had been a different meal before his father started driving a truck. Mouse remembered suddenly the way his father used to tell his dreams at breakfast, fantastic dreams that would have Mouse hanging over his plate, too engrossed to eat.
