'See anything green?' she asked, tossing her head pertly.

'You, shweetheart,' Richie said. 'You've turned green ash limberger cheese. But when we get you out of Cashablanca, you're going into the finesht hoshpital money can buy. We'll turn you white again. I shwear it on my mother'sh name.'

'You're an asshole, Richie. That doesn't sound like Humphrey Bogart at all.' But she smiled a little as she said it.

Richie sat down next to her. 'You going to the movies?'

'I don't have any money,' she said. 'Can I see your yo-yo?'

He handed it over, 'I oughtta take it back,' he told her. 'It's supposed to sleep but it doesn't. I got japped.'

She poked her finger through the loop of string and Richie pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose so he could watch what she was doing better. She turned her hand over, palm toward the sky, the Duncan yo-yo tucked neatly into the valley of flesh formed by her cupped hand. She rolled the yo-yo off her index finger. It went down to the end of its string and fell asleep. When she twitched her fingers in a come-on gesture it promptly woke up and climbed its string to her palm again.

'Oh bug-dung, look at that,' Richie said.

'That's kid stuff,' Bev said. 'Watch this.' She snapped the yo-yo down again. She let it sleep for a moment and then walked the dog with it in a smart series of snap jerks up the string to her hand again.

'Oh, stop it,' Richie said. 'I hate show-offs.'

'Or how about this?' Bev asked, smiling sweetly. She got the yo-yo going back and front, making the red wooden Duncan look like a Bo-Lo Bo uncer Richie had had once. She finished with two Around the Worlds (almost hitting a shuffling old lady, who glared at them). The yo-yo ended up in her cupped palm, its string neatly rolled around its spindle. Bev handed it back to Richie and sat down on th e bench again. Richie sat down next to her, his jaw hanging agape in perfectly unaffected admiration. Bev looked at him and giggled.

'Shut your mouth, you're drawing flies.'

Richie shut his mouth with a snap.

'Besides, that last part was just luck. First time in my life I did two Around the Worlds in a row without fizzing out.'

Kids were walking past them now, on their way to the show. Peter Gordon walked by with Marcia Fadden. They were supposed to be going together, but Richie figured it was just that they lived nest door to each other on West Broadway and were such a couple of assholes that they needed each other's support and attention. Peter Gordon was already getting a pretty good crop of acne, although he was only twelve. He sometimes hung around with Bowers, Criss, and Huggins, but he wasn't quite brave enough to try anything on his own.

He glanced over at Richie and Bev sitting together on the bench and chanted, 'Richie and Beverly up in a tree! Kay-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-En –Gee! First comes love, then comes marriage — '

' — and here comes Richie with a baby carriage!' Marcia finished, cawing laughter.

'Sit on this, dear heart,' Bev said, and whipped the finger on them. Marcia looked away, disgusted, as if she could not believe anyone could be so uncouth. Gordon slipped an arm around her and called back over his shoulder to Richie, 'Maybe I'll see you later, four –eyes.'

'Maybe you'll see your mother's girdle,' Richie responded smartly (if a little senselessly). Beverly collapsed with laughter. She leaned against Richie's shoulder for a moment and Richie had just time to reflect that her touch, and the sensation of her lightly carried weight, was not exactly unpleasant. Then she sat up again.

'What a pair of jerks,' she said.

'Yeah, I think Marcia Fadden pees rosewater,' Richie said, and Beverly got the giggles again.

'Chanel Number Five,' she said, her voice muffled because her hands were over her mouth.

'You bet,' said Richie, although he hadn't the slightest idea what Chanel Number Five was. 'Bev?'

'What?'

'Can you show me how to make it sleep?'

'I guess so. I never tried to show anyone.'

'How did you learn? Who showed you?'

She gave him a disgusted look. 'No one showed me. I just figured it out. Like twirling a baton. I'm great at that — '

'No conceit in your family,' Richie said, rolling his eyes.

'Well, I am,' she said. 'But I didn't take classes, or anything.'

'You really can twirl?'

'Sure.'

'Probably be a cheerleader in junior high, huh?'

She smiled. It was a kind of smile Richie had never seen before. It was wise, cynical, and sad all at the same time. He recoiled a little from its unknowing power, as he had recoiled from the picture of downtown in Georgie's album when it had begun to move.

'That's for girls like Marcia Fadden,' she said. 'Her and Sally Mueiler and Greta Bowie. Girls who pee rosewater. Their fathers help to buy the sports equipment and the uniforms. They got an in. I'll never be a cheerleader.' ,«

'Jeez, Bev, that's no attitude to take — '

'Sure it is, if it's the truth.' She shrugged. 'I don't care. Who wants to do somersaults and show your underwear to a million people, anyway? Look, Richie. Watch this.'

For the next ten minutes she worked on showing Richie how to make his yo-yo sleep. Near the end, Richie actually began to get the hang of it, although he could usually only get it to come halfway up the string after waking it up.

'You're not jerking your fingers hard enough, that's all,' she said.

Richie looked at the clock on the Merrill Trust across the street and jumped up, stuffing his yo-yo into his back pocket. 'Jeepers, I gotta get goin, Bev. I'm supposed to meet ole Haystack. He'll think I changed my mind or some –thin.'

'Who's Haystack?'

'Oh. Ben Hanscom. I call him Haystack, though. You know, like Haystack Calhoun, the wrestler.'

Bev frowned at him. 'That's not very nice. I like Ben.'

'Doan whup me, massa!' Richie screeched in his Pickaninny Voice, rolling his eyes and flapping his hands. 'Doan whup me, I'se gwineter be a good dahkie, ma'am, I'se — '

'Richie,' Bev said thinly.

Richie quit it. 'I like him, too,' he said. 'We all built a dam down in the Barrens a couple of days ago and — '

'You go down there? You and Ben play down there?'

'Sure. A bunch of us guys do. It's sorta cool down there.' Richie glanced at the clock again. 'I really gotta split for the scene. Ben'll be waiting.'

'Okay.'

He paused, thought, and said, 'If you're not doing anything, come on with me.'

'I told you. I don't have any money.'

'I'll pay your way. I got a couple of bucks.'

She tossed the remains of her ice-cream cone in a nearby litter barrel. Her eyes, that fine clear shade of blue-gray, turned up to his. They were coolly amused. She pretended to primp her hair and asked him, 'Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date?'

For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben . . . except hadn't he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadn't said anything about owesies to Beverly.

Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the ice-cream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms.

Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity.

'Yes! A date!' he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. 'Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, ay-wot? Wot-wot?'

'Oh, Richie, you're such a fuzzbrain,' she said, giggling again . . . but weren't her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever. 'Get up before you get arrested.'