'In other parts of the world,' Dr. Larch wrote, 'delirious happiness is thought to be a state of mind. Here in St. Cloud's we recognize that delirious happiness is possible only for the totally mindless. I would call it, therefore, that thing most rare: a state of the soul.' Larch was often facetious when he discussed the soul. He liked to tease Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela in the operating room, where the subject of the soul could catch the dear nurses off-guard.

Once, with a body open on the table, Larch pointed dramatically to a smooth, maroon shape beneath the rib cage and above the belly's viscera; it looked like a, threepound loaf of bread, or a slug with two great lobes. 'Look!' Larch whispered. 'You rarely see it, but we've caught it napping. Look quickly before it moves!' The nurses gaped. 'The soul,' Larch whispered reverentially. In fact, it was the body's largest gland, empowered with skills also ascribed to the soul-for example, it could regenerate its own abused cells. It was the liver, which Larch thought more of than he thought of the soul. {46}

But whether the delirious happiness of the Winkles was a state of mind or a state of the soul, Wilbur Larch wished that some of it could rub off on Homer Wells. The Winkles had always wanted a child-'to share the world of nature with us,' they said, 'and just to make a child happy, of course.' Looking at them, Dr. Larch had his own ideas as to why they could not successfully breed. Lack of the essential concentration, Larch thought; Larch suspected that the Winkles never stopped moving long enough to mate. Perhaps, he speculated, looking at

Billy Winkle, she is not really a woman. Grant had a plan. He has no face, Dr. Larch noticed, trying to discern the man's blunt features, somewhere between his blond beard and his blonder hair. The hair was cropped in bangs, completely concealing a low forehead. The cheeks, or what Larch could see of them, were a ridge, the eyes hidden behind them. The rest was beard-a blond underbrush that Dr. Larch imagined Billy Winkle needed her machete to hack through. Grant's plan was that they borrow Homer for a little moose-watching. The Winkles were going on a canoe trip and portage through the northern State Forest, the principal fun of which was to see moose. A secondary pleasure would be introducing Homer Wells to a little white water.

St. Larch felt that such a trip, in the massive hands of the Winkles, wouldn't be dangerous for Homer. He felt less sure that Homer would want to stay with these people, to actually be adopted by them. He hardly worried that the Winkles' craziness would bother the boy, and it wouldn't have. What boy is troubled by perpetual adventure? What Wilbur Larch suspected was that the Winkles would bore Homer to tears, if not to death. A camping trip in the State Forest-white water now and then, a moose or two-might give the boy an idea of whether or not he could stand Grant and Billy forever.

'And if you have a good time in the woods,' Grant Winkle told Homer cheerfully, 'then we'll take you out {47} on the ocean!' They probably ride whales, Homer imagined. They tease sharks, Dr. Larch thought.

But Dr. Larch wanted Homer to try it, and Homer Wells was willing-he would try anything for St. Larch.

'Nothing dangerous,' Larch said sternly to the Winkles.

'Oh, no, cross our hearts!' cried Billy; Grant crossed his, too.

Dr. Larch knew there was only one road (hat ran through the northern State Forest. It was built by, and remained the property of, the Ramses Paper Company. They were not allowed to cut the trees in the State Forest, but they could drive their equipment through it en route to the trees that were theirs. Only this-that Homer was going anywhere near where the Ramses Paper Company was operating-troubled Dr. Larch.

Homer was surprised at how little room there was in the cab of the homemade safari vehicle that the Winkles drove. The equipment it carried was impressive: the canoe, the tent, the fishing gear, the cooking miscellany, the guns. But there was little room for the driver and the passengers. In the cab, Homer sat on Billy's lap; it was a big lap but strangely uncomfortable because of the hardness of her thighs. Homer had felt a woman's lap only once before, during St. Cloud's annual three-legged race.

Once a year the boys' and girls' divisions amused the town with this race. It was a fund-raiser for the orphanage, so everyone endured it. The last two years Homer had won the race-only because his partner, the oldest girl in the girls' division, was strong enough to pick him up and run with him in her arms across the finish line. The idea was that a boy and a girl of comparable age fastened his left leg to her right; they then hopped toward the finish line, on each of their free legs, dragging the miserable so-called third leg between them. The big girl from the girls' division hadn't needed to drag Homer- she cheated, she just carried him. But last year she had {48} fallen at the finish line, pulling Homer into her lap. By mistake, trying to get out of her lap, he'd put his hand on her breast and she'd sharply pinched what the private school boy in Waterville had called his pecker.

Her name was Melony, which was, like several of the orphans' names in the girls' division, a typographical error. Melony's name had been, officially, Melody – but the girls' division secretary was a terrible typist. The mistyping was a fortunate mistake, actually, because there was nothing melodious about the girl. She was about sixteen (no one really knew her exact age), and there was in the fullness of her breasts and in the roundness of her bottom very much the suggestion of melons.

In the long ride north, Homer worried that Billy Winkle might pinch his pecker, too. He watched the houses disappear, and the farm animals; other cars and trucks were gone from the roads. Soon it was just a road, a single road-most often, it ran alongside water; the water ran fast. Ahead of them-for hours, it seemed- loomed a mountain that had snow on the top, although it was July. The mountain had an Indian name.

That's where we're going, Homer!' Grant Winkle told the boy. 'Just under all that snow, there's a lake.'

'The moose are crazy about the lake,' Billy told Homer, 'and you'll be crazy about the lake, too.'

Homer didn't doubt it. It was an adventure. Dr. Larch had told him he didn't have to stay.

The Winkles stopped for the night before it got dark. Between the single road and the rushing water, they pitched a tent with three rooms in it. They lit a cookstove in one of the rooms, and Billy did one hundred sit-ups in another room (Homer held her feet) while Grant caught some brook trout. It was such a cool evening, there weren't any bugs; they kept the lamps running long after dark, with the tent flaps open. Grant and Billy told adventure stories. (In his journal, Dr. Larch would later write, 'What the hell else would they tell?')

Grant told about the sixty-year-old lawyer who had {49}hired them to show him a bear giving birth. Billy showed Homer her bear scars. And then there was the man who had asked the Winkles to cast him adrift at sea in a small boat-with only one oar. This man had been interested in the sensation of survival. He wanted to see if he could find his way back to land, but he wanted the Winkles to observe him and rescue him if he was getting into real trouble. The trick to that was not letting the man know he was being observed. At night-when the fool fell asleep and drifted farther out to sea-the Winkles would cautiously tow him toward shore, But in the morning- once, even within sight of land-the man always found a way to get lost again. They finally had to rescue him when they caught him drinking salt water; he'd been so disappointed, he gave them several bad checks before he finally paid his adventure fee.