The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy

     Clarissa’s father asked me what I would like to drink. Everything seemed so urbane that I thought he was actually asking me what kind of cocktail I would like. “Oh, nothing for me, thank you,” I said, not so much because I thought that I shouldn’t drink a cocktail, but because I was trying to be polite, and I knew that one of the rules of polite behavior was to refuse everything the first time it was offered. He asked Clarissa what she would like. She looked as if she were considering a long list of drinks and then finally said, “I’ll have a Shirley Temple.”     “All right,” said her father. “Sure you wouldn’t like something, Peter?”     “You know,” I said, thrusting my hands into my pockets, “I guess I could use a Shirley Temple.”     Mr. Bud chuckled at this, and I chuckled back, as if I had intended the remark to be funny, but I hadn’t, and I felt like a fool. I tried mightily from then on to show Mr. and Mrs. Bud that I was quite grown-up for my age. I attempted some grown-up talk, drawing on what I heard from my parents. I tried several topics. The first was business.     “How’s the by-product business, Mr. Bud?” I asked, rocking on my heels and taking a swig of my Shirley Temple.     Mr. Bud raised an eyebrow, glanced at Mrs. Bud, and grinned. “Not bad, Peter,” he said. “How’s school?”     Next I tried local politics.     “Do you think there’s a chance that the mayor will come to his senses sometime soon?” I asked, as my father did when he was reading the paper.     Mr. Bud looked startled. “What on earth do you mean?” he asked.     At dinner, I praised Mrs. Bud’s cooking. “Yessir,” I concluded, quoting from a Western I’d seen, “this is the best meal I’ve had in weeks.” This seemed to be pretty well received, so I pushed on, figuring to make the most of the one topic that seemed to be a success. There wasn’t anything else that I could take from the Western, so I borrowed my mother’s highest praise for someone else’s cooking. “You must give me the recipe for these mashed potatoes,” I said. This brought down the house, and Mr. Bud said, “You’re a regular comedian, Peter.”     So I attempted to tell a joke. I began while Mrs. Bud and Clarissa were clearing away the dinner plates and serving dessert. As soon as I had introduced the main characters, three rabbits called Phhht, Phhht-Phhht, and Phhht-Phhht-Phhht, just at the moment when I had succeeded in capturing everyone’s attention, I realized that I had forgotten the punch line. While we ate our dessert, I stretched the joke out with details of the home life of these rabbits, their forebears, the rabbit village where they lived, their hobbies and favorite meals, and the mysterious illness that led to the death of the youngest of them, Phhht, and then struck the middle one, Phhht-Phhht, while my mind raced ahead to try to recover the end of the story.     Mr. Bud finally said, “Peter, maybe you and Clarissa would like to be excused.”     “Sure,” I said. “I’ll finish the joke for you later.”     Clarissa and I went into the living room and sat on the sofa. I felt that I had made an ass of myself, and when I heard laughter come from the dining room I was sure of it. To my surprise, Clarissa didn’t seem to think so at all. She slid over beside me on the sofa and linked her arm with mine.     “That was a wonderful story,” she said. “It’s amazing how relaxed you are. I would think it must be hard for you to be in the position you’re in, having to pick the boys and girls to play the parts,” she said.     “It is,” I said. “It really is. In fact—”     “Yes,” she said with a sigh, “it must be terribly hard. I think that I’d just want to crawl into a hole and hide if I had to say to someone I knew, someone I liked, ‘Sorry, but I gave the part to someone else.’”     “Yeah,” I said.     “I sure know I’d hate to hear it. It makes me wish I hadn’t tried out for the part of Cordelia,” she said.     “I thought you just did it for fun,” I said.     “Oh, yes,” she said. I felt her shudder, and she reached across me to take her muff from the end table. “But I don’t even know why I bothered,” she said. “I know I wasn’t as good as the others.”     “Oh, don’t say that,” I said. “You were great.”     “Do you really think so?”     “Oh, yes.”     “But you probably want somebody prettier.”     “Oh no, not necessarily,” I said, too quickly. “Uh, that’s not what I mean,” I added.     “I’ll bet you’d like to have Veronica McCall play Cordelia,” she said.     “Veronica McCall?” I said. “Well, I have to think about everybody who tried out, you know. I have to be fair. I have to think about Veronica, and I have to think about Spike O’Grady.”     “Spike O’Grady?” said Clarissa.     “Of course,” I said. “She tried out, too.”     “Well, I guess you do have to give everybody a fair chance,” she said. Then, after a long pause, she said, “Well, I’ve made up my mind!” After another long pause and a deep breath, she announced, “I’d like to drop out of the competition for Cordelia.”     “Drop out?” I said. “But I thought you weren’t even—”     “Yes,” she said, with a sigh. “That would make your job easier, wouldn’t it?”     “Well, yes—” I began. She turned from me suddenly and buried her face in her muff. I heard something that sounded like a sob, a muffled sob. “Clarissa?” I said.     There was a pause. Clarissa pulled a tissue from her muff and blew her nose. “Yes,” she said, in the smallest of voices.     “Did I hear you crying?” I asked.     “Oh, no, no,” she said, still facing away from me. “Don’t worry about me.” She made a small choking sound.     “Maybe you’re getting a cold,” I suggested.     “Maybe,” she blubbered.     “Peter!” called Mr. Bud. “Your father’s here!”     About halfway home, I remembered the end of the joke. Phhht is dead, and Phhht-Phhht is gravely ill. In a voice cracking with emotion, Phhht-Phhht-Phhht says to the doctor who is examining Phhht-Phhht, “Oh, doctor, you have to save him—I already have one Phhht in the grave.”

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

23

WHEN MY MOTHER AND FATHER and I sat down that night to eat our own dinner, I told them about Clarissa’s invitation. My mother was enchanted. She acquired a rosy glow, and she hugged me several times when she had gotten up to serve a dish or clear the table. My father made several remarks that made him chuckle and made my mother giggle and blush and say, “Oh, stop it, Bert.”     While my mother and I were doing the dishes, I said, as casually as I could manage, “Do you think I should wear a suit?”     My mother stopped working at once. “Of course!” she said. “Of course you should wear a suit! Oh, how cute you’ll look!”     We went into the living room and proposed the idea of my getting a suit to my father, who was sitting in his favorite chair drinking a beer and watching television. He thought, and said, that getting a suit just to go to dinner at a girl’s house, no matter how pretty she was, was going too far. My mother suggested a sports jacket. My father said that I would probably never wear such a thing again for months, and the next time I had a use for it, I would have outgrown it.    “Why can’t he wear the things you just got him?” my father asked.     “All right, but how about a necktie?” my mother asked. “Come on, Bert,” she said, when he hesitated.     “Sure,” said my father, grinning. “I’ll lend him a necktie.”     The next evening, there was lots of excitement over polishing my shoes, putting on my new corduroys and shirt and sweater, and tying my tie. My mother was teary-eyed when I was ready to go, and I wondered if there was something wrong with my outfit. My father drove me to Clarissa’s house.     Riding in the car, going off to dinner at a girl’s house, I felt for a short time like a young sophisticate. The feeling began to fade when my father said, as I got out of the car, “Now, be polite, Peter,” and it vanished completely as soon as Mr. Bud opened the door.     “Well!” he said. “You must be Peter!”     “Yes,” I said. We shook hands. I hoped that he didn’t notice that my hand was trembling.     “You look as if you’re ready for Christmas!” he said. Then he added “Ho-ho-ho!”     There was a mirror in their hall. As Mr. Bud and I walked past it, I took a look at myself. For the first time, I realized that except for my white shirt and brown shoes I was dressed entirely in red and green.     Mr. Bud led me into the living room, where Clarissa and her mother were waiting. Clarissa’s father was a genius of sorts, a restless genius whose innovative ideas for making useful and profitable products from garbage had landed him a spot at Bivalve By-products. It was he who suggested the “Clampact” that was to become so popular: a pair of empty clamshells, gilded, rejoined by a metal hinge, a mirror glued inside one valve, the other filled with face powder. The Buds’ house was larger than ours, and much fuller. Wherever it was possible to have an end table, an occasional chair, a picture, or a piece of ceramic statuary, there was one.     Clarissa and her mother were sitting on the sofa, wearing identical dresses. Clarissa’s mother was wearing stockings, but Clarissa was wearing anklets with her girl-size high-heeled shoes. All of this—Mr. Bud’s manner, his position at Bivalve By-products, the house, the decorating scheme, the matching dresses—made me feel completely out of my league.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

22

I WALKED HOME QUICKLY, through back yards and along lightly traveled streets. The sky was dark, and the wind had begun to rise. If it had been a summer afternoon, I would have said that the rumble in the distance was thunder. When I got home, I dashed inside and went directly to my room, where I sat on my bed holding my camera and wondering what to do.     I heard the phone ring downstairs, but I made no move to answer it. I didn’t want to speak to Spike or Veronica or anyone else who was after a part. My mother came to the foot of the stairs and called up to me. “It’s for you, Peter,” she said.     “It’s not Spike, is it?” I asked.     “Noooo,” she said.     “It’s not Veronica, is it?” I asked.     “Noooo,” she said. She was wearing a playful smile. “It’s Clarissa Bud. She seems very eager to talk to you.”     “Oh,” I said, relieved. “Clarissa.” I went to the hall and picked up the phone. “Hello,” I said.     “Oh, hello, Mr. Leroy,” said Clarissa. “I wanted to speak to Peter.”     “This is Peter,” I said.     “My goodness!” said Clarissa. “I didn’t recognize your voice. You sound so grown-up on the phone. Say something else.”     “Uh—what should I say?”     “That’s amazing!” she declared. “You sound so strong and firm. Of course, that’s the way you sounded this afternoon, when you were on the stage. I was really impressed. I think everybody else was, too.”     “Really?” I asked.     “Oh, yes,” she said. She delivered the words with lots of air, making herself sound out of breath, as if she’d been running. “Well—how have you been?”     “I’m still okay,” I said.     “What do you mean, you’re still okay?” she asked.     “Huh?” I said. I felt as if I’d heard her for the first time. I realized that I’d been preoccupied with the idea of Spike’s breaking my foot with a brick or Veronica’s showing up at the back door with my underpants in her hand. “Oh,” I said. “I—I mean nothing happened to me on the way home from school or anything.”     “Oh, that’s good,” Clarissa said. She sounded bewildered. Then she took a deep breath, and with even more air than before she said, “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. I’ve missed you.”     “You’ve missed me?” I asked. “You mean since three o’clock?”     “I feel as if I haven’t seen you for days,” she said. “I miss your smile. You have that cute little dimple.”     “I do?” I said. I tried to drag the phone over to the hall mirror.     “Oh, yes!” she said. “In fact, you have one-and-a-half dimples. One on the right side, and a half on the left.”     “Is that bad?” I asked.     “Oh, no,” she said. “I think it’s cute.”     “Hold on a minute, Clarissa,” I said. “I want to go look in the mirror.”     I started to put the handset down, but I heard her calling to me. “Peter, wait. Don’t go away. I want to invite you to dinner.”    “Dinner?” I asked, and I brightened at once.     “Tomorrow night,” said Clarissa. “I hope you’re not doing anything then.”     “Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not doing anything.”

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

     Biff jumped up, ran to the stage, and began auditioning for the part of Lear, too.     “‘O, let me be not mad, not mad, sweet heaven!’” he bellowed, tearing at his hair and stumbling around the stage. He lurched downstage toward me and delivered the next line right in my face: “‘Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!’”     “Never, never, never, never, never,” muttered Matthew.     Clarissa walked to the edge of the stage, took Biff by the arm, and led him to the stairs at the side. “You have wonderful enthusiasm, Biff,” she said. Biff left the stage a happy boy.     I sank into my seat and avoided looking at the stage from then on. Clarissa found something nice to say about everyone, but Matthew’s comments on the performances grew more bitter as the auditions progressed. He exercised his most cutting sarcasm on anyone who tried out for the part of Lear. As the afternoon went on, Matthew’s gestures and his bitter laugh grew wilder and wilder, his hair flew out in all directions, his shirt came out of his pants. He seemed to be going nuts.     I occupied myself with writing furiously on a pad that Clarissa had put onto a clipboard for me, keeping my head down and maintaining, I hoped, the appearance of an intense concentration that should not be interrupted, while in fact I was just writing a description of my camera. Nearly everyone in the fourth grade must have tried out for at least one part, and Wilbur Carpenter, whose mother showed up to watch the auditions, tried out for six, including Kent, the Fool, Edmund the B*****d, and all three daughters. I had come to think of the auditions as an endless torture. I didn’t realize that they were over until Matthew shook me.     “Peter! Peter!” he said. “Everyone’s waiting to hear who you picked!”     I looked at him beseechingly, and thought of begging for more time, but Clarissa was on the stage and already beginning to speak in her tiny voice. “Peter is going to announce his choices for the various parts,” she said.     I stood and made my way to the stage. I faced the audience.     “Well—” I said.     I looked at my notes.     “Well—” I said, again. I just stood there for a while, hoping that we might have a fire drill.     “Well what?” Biff called out.     “Well—ahhhhhh—well done!” I said.     I looked at my clipboard and flipped through the pages. I said, “Um—you know—ah—while I was watching the auditions—I—uh—couldn’t help thinking that—that watching people try out for parts is—um—a lot like taking a roll of snapshots.     “You really can’t be sure which of your snapshots is the best one on the roll until you get the film back from the camera shop, isn’t that true?” Since they were disposed to agree with anything I said, there was a lot of enthusiasm for this idea. I thought of saying a few words about the intriguing X-ray machine down at the Buster Brown store, which let you see a picture of the bones in your feet right through your shoes, but I couldn’t come up with a way to tie it in, so I let it go, with some reluctance.     “What I’ve decided to do,” I said, pointing to my head, “is take this roll of film home and spend the weekend developing it to see which snapshots are the best.” There were a lot of puzzled looks at this. “In other words,” I said, speaking rapidly and starting for the stairs at the side of the stage, “I’ll go through the notes I took on your auditions and think about them very carefully and then announce my choices next week.” I began moving down the aisle as quickly as I could without actually running. I waved my clipboard at the crowd and said “Thanks for coming, everybody.” I let myself out the door, and then I did start running.     Mrs. Graham burst through the doors and called out to me. “Peter! Peter!” she called, in that voice full of pleasure and excitement that was beginning to send chills down my spine. “Oh, don’t run off, Peter, don’t run off. Come here to me.”     I stopped running and turned toward her.     “Oh, Peter, Peter,” she said. “Isn’t this exciting?”     “Oh, yeah,” I said.     “I noticed that you were taking lots of notes,” said Mrs. Graham. “Why don’t we look through those together?”     “Uh—well,” I said, squirming.     “Oh, you’re right,” she said. “We don’t have much time. Here: I made a list of everyone who auditioned. I’ll just read through my notes with you quickly.”     The bell rang, so Mrs. Graham had no time to read through her notes with me. She gathered her things quickly and followed me outside. She fumbled in her briefcase, spilling homework papers onto the driveway, and found the notes she had taken. She gave the notes to me, and I started off for home as quickly as I could. When I looked back over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me, I saw Mrs. Graham and several boys and girls running around gathering up the homework papers.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

21

MRS. GRAHAM and I walked down the hall together. The line of boys and girls waiting for the auditions stretched from the auditorium doors down the hall nearly all the way to the cafeteria. As we walked past, I tried not to look anyone in the eye.     We passed Veronica. She was wearing the sort of thing that she usually wore, one of those clingy knit dresses, but she had added a wide black patent leather belt, she had a sheer red scarf knotted around her neck, and she had drawn a beauty spot on her cheek with a pen. She stood with her back against the wall and her head tilted to the left. Her right shoulder was raised, her left shoulder dropped. Her eyes were half shut, and her mouth was half open. “Hello, Peter,” was all she said, but it was enough to make my face turn red and my knees grow weak.     Spike was right at the front of the line, waiting at the auditorium doors. She was passing the time playing jacks. She was down on the floor, scooping up jacks with remarkable dexterity, apparently immune to the tension that filled the hall. Behind her were Biff, Studs, Chuck, and Knuckles. When I reached her, Spike snatched up the jacks, stood up, and called out, “Okay! Here’s Peter! Now we’ll find out ‘who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out—’” She stood there grinning at me, waiting for me to acknowledge that I recognized the line. I smiled weakly and nodded my head. She flung the door open for me, and I saw Clarissa standing just inside the auditorium, holding a clipboard.     “Peter!” she said. “Where have you been? We’ve got to get started! We’re running about ten minutes behind schedule.”     My legs were wobbly, and I felt a little sick. Mrs. Graham must have noticed that I was shaky: she grabbed me under the left armpit and lifted me so that my left foot was hardly touching the floor. Clarissa reached out for me, and together, one holding me up on either side, she and Mrs. Graham dragged me into the auditorium, letting the door swing shut behind us.     They led me to a seat in the front row. I sat there, staring at the empty stage. It took a while before I realized that Clarissa was talking to me.     “—and—before the rest of the boys and girls come in—I—well—” she said.     Clarissa stood silently for a moment, her hands moving nervously inside her fur muff, her head down. When she raised her head and looked me in the face, her eyes were as wide and startled as they had been when we first met. She parted her lips ever so slightly, as if she were going to speak, but then she closed them, swallowed, and looked downward. When she spoke at last, she spoke to the floor.     “Do you think it would be all right if I tried out for Cordelia?” she asked. “I know I won’t be good enough, but I’d like to try. I’m usually shy in front of people, and it might help me to try out for a part in the play.”     “Gee, Clarissa,” I said, “I—”     “Of course, I haven’t had a lot of time to practice, you know,” she said quickly. “I’ve had other things to do.”     “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m sure—”     “I’m just going to try for the fun of it,” she said. “I don’t even want you to pay any attention to me. Promise?”     “All right,” I said.     “I could never really play Cordelia,” she said. “I shiver just thinking about it, so you don’t have to worry about me.” She took a deep breath and giggled, and then she dashed over to the doors and swung them open. At once, she was back in the role of director’s assistant, keeping a tight hold on her clipboard and her muff and meekly asking the boys and girls to file in silently and fill alternate rows and alternate seats.     “Look at them,” Matthew said, taking a seat beside me. “Some of these kids would do anything for a part—anything.”     I sat, stunned, while the auditions began. Clarissa asked for silence in a small voice that I wouldn’t have thought anyone could hear. The auditorium hushed at once. She looked at her clipboard and said, softly, “Bobby Swanson, please.”     Bobby Swanson walked onto the stage, struck a histrionic pose in front of me, making his eyes bulge out and pulling at his hair, and cried, “‘Doesn’t anybody here know me?’” He looked quite mad. He beat his chest and bellowed, “‘This is not Lear!’”     “You’re telling me,” muttered Matthew.     “Okay, Bobby,” said Clarissa. “That was very interesting—especially the way you made your eyes bulge out.”     “Don’t you want me to do some more?” asked Bobby.     “Oh, no,” said Clarissa. “That’s enough, I think. It was—uh—very interesting the way you made your eyes bulge out. Thank you, Bobby. Let’s see Biff Parker next.”

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

20

BY LUNCH TIME I was a nervous wreck. The entire fourth grade was abuzz about the auditions. It seemed to me that everybody wanted one part or another. Even one of the boys who had already taken a job as a stagehand buttonholed me to explain that he was sure he could play Edmund the B*****d and still work the curtain if I could just rewrite the script so that Edmund didn’t have to be onstage at the opening of acts I, II, or V. I told him I’d have to think about it and dashed off to the boys’ room.     When I got back to the cafeteria, the place was empty. I dropped my uneaten lunch into the trash can and started for the door, thinking that if I could just get to the nurse’s office unseen I might be able to get her to send me home right away. Mrs. Graham was standing at the door.     “Oh, there you are Peter,” she said. “It’s just about time for the auditions. Isn’t this exciting? I’ve never seen such excitement over one of these productions. You’re a born leader, do you know that?” She stopped and looked at me for a moment. “Are you all right?” she asked.     “I’m not sure,” I said.     “Are you going to faint?” she asked.     “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure. I’ve never fainted before.”     She made me sit down and put my head between my legs. She held her hand on my forehead for a while, and then she got a paper napkin and wet it with cold water and held it to my forehead. “How do you feel now?” she asked.     “I feel better,” I said, “except for my stomach.”     “Did you eat lunch?” she asked.     “I didn’t feel like eating,” I said.     She made me drink a container of milk, and that made my stomach feel better. “Okay, Peter,” she said. “It’s time. Don’t worry. This is going to be great fun.”

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

19

MANY, MANY of my fourth-grade classmates had signed up to try out for parts, and I was going to have to choose among them. When I announced which ones I had chosen, I might make a few friends, but I was likely to make lots of enemies.     The auditions were held on a Friday. I didn’t sleep well the night before, and I didn’t have much appetite at breakfast. My uneasiness had no real focus; it was like the feeling that some people have about ocean bathing: they know that there are nasty creatures under the water somewhere; they don’t know which ones might get them, so they’re afraid of all of them. I got to school by stealing from cover to cover, slinking along behind hedges, ducking behind parked cars, dashing from telephone pole to telephone pole. As soon as I reached the school, I ran up the stairs and along the hall. When I got to the door to Mrs. Graham’s room, I heard my name, so I stopped outside to catch my breath and listen to what was being said about me.     Clarissa was speaking. “I’m sure Peter’s going to have a hard time choosing someone to play Cordelia,” she said. “It’s such an important part. I think Cordelia’s even more important than King Lear. It scares me just to think of playing her, doesn’t it scare you?”     “Oh, no,” said Veronica. “My mother told me that she was sure I would do a wonderful job as Cordelia.”     “Oh, how I wish I had your self-confidence,” said Clarissa. “Every time I think of playing Cordelia I shiver. I’m glad I’m working behind the scenes. I’d be scared to death if I had to play one of the big roles. I just don’t think that I could do a good enough job, do you?”     Veronica spoke again, but she spoke as if she had stopped listening to Clarissa. She said, “My mother played Cordelia once, and she said she was just wonderful. She told me, ‘Veronica, you go after the part of Cordelia and if you don’t get Cordelia, you just forget the whole thing. The other two daughters are real snots and everybody will hate you if you play one of them.’”     Clarissa said, “I think Cordelia is just wonderful, don’t you? She’s kind and shy and quiet. Whenever I think of playing the part I get goose bumps all over my arms. I’m sure I could never do it. It’s just such an important role. It would be too much for me.”     Spike spoke, but she too seemed not to be listening to Clarissa; she was responding to Veronica. “My mother said pretty much the same thing, but not in words that I can repeat, so I figure that I better get that part. I wish Peter would get here. I want to—um—talk it over with him.” She snickered and cracked her knuckles.     “Oh,” said Clarissa, “I’m sure that Peter wouldn’t be influenced by—”     Veronica spoke right over her. “That’s not going to work, Spike,” she said. “My mother has always told me that the boys buzz around the honey, if you know what I mean.”     “Gosh,” breathed Clarissa. In a small, hesitant, distracted voice, she asked, “Do you think that Peter would be influenced by—”     I’d heard enough. In a cold sweat, I turned and started to tiptoe down the hall. I felt a powerful hand on my shoulder, and Spike shouted, “Hey Peter! There you are! How come you’re tiptoeing down the hall like that?” She turned me around to face her and looked at me with something like concern. She slowed her gum-chewing and stared into my eyes. “You’re not sick or anything are you?”     “Uh, no,” I said.     “Hey, that’s great!” said Spike. She turned to one of her pals: Studs or Chuck or Knuckles or whatever his name was. “Isn’t that great?” Spike asked him.     “Yeah,” said, let’s say, Studs.     “I wouldn’t want you to be too sick to pick the kid who’s gonna play Cordelia,” she said, chewing her gum with a big wide-open smile that allowed me to see not only the wad of gum but all her teeth, her tongue, and her uvula. “You get me?” she asked, and she nodded upward, pointing her chin at me.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

18

IN THE MORNING, Veronica called. “Peter,” she said, giggling, “I think you have something of mine.”     “Yes,” I said. “I do. They’re in my sock drawer. Do you have mine?”     “Yes,” she said. “I’m wearing them.”     “What!” I exclaimed. In a hoarse and trembling whisper, I went on: “Veronica, are you crazy? What if somebody sees them?”     “Who’s going to see them?” she asked. Then there passed a period of silence. It was a significant pause, and its significance was not lost on me. Veronica said, very softly, “—unless I show them to somebody.”     “Look,” I said, quickly, “we can switch them in school on Monday.”     “You know, Peter,” said Veronica, “I really want to play Cordelia.”     “You do?” I asked.     “Oh, yes,” she said. “I really do.”     “Well—”     “I wonder what your mother would do if she knew that I was wearing your underwear?” Veronica whispered.     “Me too,” I said.     “I’ll see you in school, Peter,” said Veronica. In her huskiest voice, she added, “I can’t wait to find out who gets to play Cordelia.”     “Me too,” I said.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

17

WHEN MY MOTHER came to pick me up, she was excited and talkative. She had been shopping for Christmas, and among other things she had bought me a new outfit to wear during the holidays: new pants, shirt, socks, and sweater. She insisted that I try everything on as soon as we got home. She followed me upstairs to my bedroom in the attic, talking happily about how cute I was going to look and how much fun Christmas would be. I hung my coat up and took my sweater and shirt off while she spread the new things out on the bed. I unbuckled my belt and started to unzip my fly. The zipper stuck, and I glanced down at it. I could see, jammed in it, a bit of cloth, a bit of pink cloth. My hands grew cold at the fingertips. Goose bumps spread across my back. I pulled the waistband of my pants out enough so that I could see inside. I was wearing Veronica’s underpants.     “What’s the matter, Peter?” asked my mother.     “Uhhhhh,” I said. My mind was entirely occupied by terror; there was no room for thought. “Uhhhhh,” was all I could say.     “Do you feel all right?” she asked. “You look pale.” I’m quite sure I did. “Maybe you should go to bed early tonight. You don’t want to get a cold now, with Christmas coming.”    “Uhhhhh,” I said.     “What on earth is wrong?” she asked, wrinkling her brow. Then she started, as if surprised by something. Her mouth fell open a little, and she smiled a smile that was equal parts girlish and motherly. “Oh, I know what’s wrong,” she said.     “You do?” I asked, smiling, scared to death.     She chucked me under the chin. “I knew it would happen someday,” she said.     “You did?”     “Of course,” she said, slowly and tenderly. “The day had to come when you’d be embarrassed to get undressed in front of me. That’s it, isn’t it?”     “Yes,” I said, “that’s it.” I was surprised to find that in fact that was exactly it.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.

16

THE SKY WAS QUITE DARK on the day that Veronica invited me to her house to play. It was a Saturday. Veronica called at noon. My mother drove me to her house and said that she would be back to pick me up before dinner. After I had taken my hat and coat and gloves off and said hello to Mrs. McCall, Veronica led me to the playroom in the basement.      “This is the playroom,” she said.     “It’s nice,” I said.     The floor was covered with red and white squares of linoleum tile. A bar made of blond wood was at one end of the room, and a number of stools stood in front of it. A small pool table was in the center of the room, and to one side was a card table with four folding chairs set around it. We played Monopoly for a while, and then we worked on a picture puzzle. Veronica’s mother brought us some milk and cookies and said that she had to go out to do some shopping. Veronica followed her upstairs. I drank my milk and ate a couple of the cookies. They were the kind with a small amount of peanut butter encased in a crunchy beige cookie, the two halves of which could be pried apart so that the peanut butter could be removed with the tip of the tongue. I heard the front door close, and I heard the car start and drive off. Veronica came back down the stairs. She closed the playroom door behind her and stood with her back against it and her hands behind her back. She tilted her head to one side.     “What shall we play now?” she asked, and she tossed her head just enough to make her hair swing.     “How about pool?” I suggested.     “How about Clothes Closet?” she suggested.     “Clothes Closet?” I said. “How do you play that?”     She walked across the room to a door and opened it. “First we go into this closet,” she said.     I went into the closet. It was used to store toys and games and sports equipment and brooms and mops. There wasn’t a lot of room. When Veronica came in and closed the door behind her, the two of us were squeezed pretty close together. It was very dark.     “Now what?” I asked.     “Now we take off our clothes,” she said.     “Wow,” I said. I started unbuttoning my shirt. A thought struck me. “What if your mother comes back?” I asked.     “Oh, don’t worry—she won’t,” Veronica said. “You can’t just take off your clothes all at once, you know. You have to follow the rules—”     “But what if your mother forgot something?” I asked.     “Don’t worry,” she said. “You have to take off what I say. Are you ready?”     “Well—”     “Take off your—shoes!” ordered Veronica.     “Veronica—”     “Are you taking off your shoes?”     “Well, yes, but—”     “Now you take off your sweater, and I’ll take off my dress. Go!”     “I haven’t got my shoes—”     “Hurry up, Peter. You have to keep up with me. Now I’ll take off my undershirt, and you take off your shirt. Go!”     “Was that a car?”     “Hurry!”     “Yeah. I’m hurrying.”     “Now you take off your pants, and I’ll take off my socks. Go!”     “Maybe we should start putting our things back on, Veronica. I—”     “Oh, don’t worry so much, Peter. Have you got your pants off?”     “Yes, but—”     “Good. Now what have you got left on?”     “Socks and underpants,” I said. “Maybe we should start putting—”     “I only have underpants on, so you should take your socks off.”     “Why don’t we save this game for—”     “Peter, a lot of boys have asked me to play Clothes Closet with them, you know.”     “Yeah, I guess—”     “Take your socks off.”     “I am.”     “Good. Now we’ll take our underpants off,” she whispered. “Ready?”     “Well—” I said.     “I’m taking mine off,” she said. “Are you taking yours off?”     From the way she was wiggling around, I could tell that she really was taking her underpants off, and it seemed to me that it wouldn’t be fair not to do as she was doing, so I said yes and pulled mine off, too.     “Do you have everything off?” she asked.     “Yes,” I said.     “Here,” she said. “Give me your hand.”     When she groped for my hand, she touched my belly. I swallowed and reached toward her.     “Honey!” called a voice from upstairs. “I’m home!”     “It’s my father!” said Veronica.     “Oh, no,” I said. I began grabbing wildly for my clothes.     “Don’t worry,” she said. “He won’t come down right away. He never does.”     “Oh, what are we going to do?” I whined. “What are we going to do? What’s this? Is this my shirt? This is your dress. Oh, if your father catches us like this—”     “Don’t get all upset,” Veronica said. There was an edge to her voice, but many years passed before I realized that the tense and breathless quality was caused not by alarm but by excitement, that part of the thrill of Clothes Closet for Veronica—perhaps all of the thrill, come to think of it—came from flirting with the danger of being caught by her father, of having him fling open the closet door, gasp, grab the nasty little boy with one hand and Veronica with the other, throw the boy out the front door, drag Veronica to her bedroom, throw her over his knees and spank her bare bottom.     “Oh, these aren’t my socks,” I wailed. “Here! They’re yours. They don’t fit me.”     “Peter, the best thing to do is to stop for a minute and take a deep breath, calm down, and then just get dressed the way you do in the morning.”     “In the morning, I’m not in a closet with you!” I said.     “Hello-wo!” called Mr. McCall again. “Where’s my little honeybunch?”     “He’s going to come down in a minute,” said Veronica. “Are you ready?”     “Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”     When Mr. McCall opened the door to the playroom an instant later, he found Veronica taking aim at the four ball while I stood holding a cue and praying silently that he wouldn’t notice that my shirttail was out and my sweater was on backwards.     “There you are!” said Mr. McCall. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”     “Oh, sorry, Daddy,” said Veronica. “I was teaching Peter how to play—pool. I guess we didn’t hear you.”

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

* You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

* You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

* You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

* At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” and “Take the Long Way Home,” the first seven novellas in Little Follies.

* You’ll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.