Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal - Plot & Excerpts
I was feeling physically sore and a little angry, not for any particular reason, just because. However, Fred managed to cheer me up by ramming his head repeatedly into the dog, who was begging for peanut-butter toast at the dining room table. The focus of both was inspiring, Renfield in his large-eyed begging technique and Fred in his determination to go through the dog. Finally he yelled, “Bad DOG!” and I gave in to the begging. When Renfield had his toast I picked up Fred and bounced him on my knee. “And what makes you so angry today?” He howled and glared at me. Toddler rage is something special, something different, very incoherent and diffused, very pure in its own way, and right now he was mad at me. So I tickled him until he was out of breath from laughing and then read him the first chapter of Moby-Dick while he piled blocks on top of each other. By the time Claire and Smiley were back I was in a fine mood. So was Fred, but both Claire and Smiley seemed preoccupied, and neither of them would tell me why.
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