Rube is ten years and just a few days old when Adam leaves home. Ernest is still too young to understand why their oldest brother is so intent on leaving, so Rube doesn't even bother explaining to him. He just sits on their crooked fence and watches his father - a sturdy man, a good doctor, never anything but kind or stern - hand over the little extra money their five-person family actually has. Adam's got a calling, and Rube knows it. A quiet, serious child, he doesn't even bother to wonder why priesthood looks so tempting when they've got this nice life in Jersey
( ... )
At ten years old Dr. Cox isn't a doctor at all. He's just Perry, little Perry, the runt of his fifth grade class who makes fun of nerds and pushes around fat kids just so that no one will ignore him. At home he's someone else entirely. He's Percival and he's trying his hardest to blend in, just so neither of his parents will notice him.
A birthday's just not a birthday until you blow your candles out, and as Perry inhales hugely, there's a deafening clang followed by a huge thud. His friends scream, Paige starts crying, but Perry just looks from his unconscious father slumped on the floor to his heaving mother holding the frying pan over her head, grins, and blows his candles out.
I wish they'd just give it up already.
The rest of the kids go home shortly after that. His father stays there, asleep on the cool linoleum, and his mom decides to take a very long bubble bath with a bottle of scotch. Perry just lets Paige sit on his lap and read from one of his new books. He's used to taking care of her by now.
Jonathan is ten years old and sitting in his bedroom, a tiny figure in the middle of a dozen rumpled blankets. It's raining on and off outside, though there's sun breaking through the clouds and casting funny shadows on his floor. The rest of his class is five miles away, piling into a school bus and heading for the California Science Center.
He's fully dressed, shoes and all, hair combed neatly and backpack sitting nearby. Just in case his mother changed her mind. She didn't, of course - and even if she did, the permission slip was due a week ago. It's March, and Mrs. Manning got used to Jonathan missing out on field trips back in October.
"It might be dangerous," he hears his mom explaining to his dad somewhere below. Jonathan just kicks off his shoes and slides down onto the floor, where his NES lays in wait. The Science Center would be cool, but it's okay; he's kind of determined to beat Donkey Kong today anyway.
Simon always has his head in a book, even when he's just a young boy. Sometimes they're war stories, but most of the time it's this or that medical text his father has forced on him - though, is it really forcing if he devours them day in and day out?
"Listen to this," he says, stretched out on the floor of their study across from his sister. "Pneumonoultrasilicovolcanoconiosis." River barely looks up from her own book, so Simon goes on. "It's a disease you get by breathing in volcanic ash."
She still doesn't look up when she gently corrects, "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, silly. You'll never be a doctor if you can't even say it right." Her smile betrays her words, and Simon just flicks the page defiantly, determined to find something, anything that will eventually stump his prodigy sister.
Even at ten, Charlie's pushing away any and all banking propaganda that his father throws in his direction. His bad grades in mathematics aren't entirely purposeful, but there's a little defiance there. Numbers are just so boring. He's sure he's going to be a world famous soccer star, and he plummets down the field every day at practice, always the one who sticks it out the longest when they're running drills
( ... )
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A birthday's just not a birthday until you blow your candles out, and as Perry inhales hugely, there's a deafening clang followed by a huge thud. His friends scream, Paige starts crying, but Perry just looks from his unconscious father slumped on the floor to his heaving mother holding the frying pan over her head, grins, and blows his candles out.
I wish they'd just give it up already.
The rest of the kids go home shortly after that. His father stays there, asleep on the cool linoleum, and his mom decides to take a very long bubble bath with a bottle of scotch. Perry just lets Paige sit on his lap and read from one of his new books. He's used to taking care of her by now.
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He's fully dressed, shoes and all, hair combed neatly and backpack sitting nearby. Just in case his mother changed her mind. She didn't, of course - and even if she did, the permission slip was due a week ago. It's March, and Mrs. Manning got used to Jonathan missing out on field trips back in October.
"It might be dangerous," he hears his mom explaining to his dad somewhere below. Jonathan just kicks off his shoes and slides down onto the floor, where his NES lays in wait. The Science Center would be cool, but it's okay; he's kind of determined to beat Donkey Kong today anyway.
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"Listen to this," he says, stretched out on the floor of their study across from his sister. "Pneumonoultrasilicovolcanoconiosis." River barely looks up from her own book, so Simon goes on. "It's a disease you get by breathing in volcanic ash."
She still doesn't look up when she gently corrects, "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, silly. You'll never be a doctor if you can't even say it right." Her smile betrays her words, and Simon just flicks the page defiantly, determined to find something, anything that will eventually stump his prodigy sister.
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