"Careful," Jonathan warned the Oz people. "You can only stand on the boards." Fearful, grateful for his presence, the Oz people tiptoed toward him, balancing delicately.

He reached out for them. He was shivering and his feet were bandaged. He was not aware of what happened next. He must have slipped. Very suddenly, he was somersaulting through space. There was a lovely crisp sensation of breakage, as if falling through potato chips.

Then he was lying facedown, amid dust, bouncing slightly as if dropped by a cyclone.

He had fallen through the ceiling. He screamed in terror at the idea. By sheer chance he had fallen onto a roll of wire netting that was used to hold plaster to walls. There was blood.

Then he looked up and saw a rough and broken silhouette of himself punched through the smooth white surface of the ceiling. It was like Bugs Bunny running through a door.

When his mother got back, she arrived to hear peals of laughter. She went in the extension's front door and found Jonathan, bruised and bloody, looking up at the hole he had made and roaring with laughter.

"You fell through the ceiling?" she shouted. She couldn't believe it. "You fell through the ceiling?" Each time she shouted it, Jonathan laughed even louder.

His parents left him alone after that, for a while. His mother discovered that if he was left to do as he chose, he grew quieter and quieter, and more safely housebound. He no longer rocked in place, but he did sing to himself all the time, drawing layer on layer of colors on paper or making castles out of plasticine or sugar cubes that sparkled like snow. Sometimes he spoke to people who were not there.

He had never been happier.

Winter became spring, filling Jonathan with misgiving. Where there had been snow, there was mud, and on the branches of the pussy willows were buds that hung like centipedes. There was a thaw, and Jonathan peered out of the window down the Second Line West toward the schoolyard.

There lay his future, crowded with other children, more outgoing and physically larger than he. He could see them sunbathing, leaning against the white wooden walls of the schoolhouse, or sitting on the steps. He retreated from the window and went back into his room for his afternoon nap.

He imagined that he and his friends went to a circus. There were no fast or terrifying rides in this circus. There was a Ferris wheel, slow and gentle, and the Cowardly Lion was the most fearsome beast among the donkeys and sheep and friendly pigs. Even so, in this gentle circus, someone got hurt. Perhaps it is not possible to tell a story without someone being hurt, without a witch appearing.

The Scarecrow was wounded. Jonathan knew you were supposed to tell an adult as soon as a friend was hurt. He didn't want to tell anyone. He had never told his mother about his friends. If the Scarecrow really was hurt, then he had to. Why didn't he? Jonathan challenged himself. What was he afraid of? Jonathan steeled himself. Feeling fateful, he left his room and went to his mother.

"The Scarecrow caught his penis in a door, but Judy Garland kissed it better," he told her.

His mother was alarmed on several counts. "No, she did not," she said, not appreciating how truthful and dutiful he had been. "It's a lie, and I don't want to hear you talking like that again."

"But he did," protested Jonathan, in a voice that was almost too weak for even him to hear.

"You are going to go outside," said his mother, "and find some other children to play with."

Jonathan found Helen and Matty Quicke. They were sisters who lived two doors down. Helen was the same age as Jonathan. She had a floppy pageboy haircut and there always seemed to be a dirty stain of orange juice around her mouth. Her nose was always running. It was always running, Jonathan's mother said, because her parents didn't feed her properly.

Helen's elder sister Matty took care of both her and Jonathan. She liked to boss people, which meant that if Helen and Jonathan started to argue, she would stop the fight and make a decision. The great thing about the girls was that they understood the point of playing pretend. The point was to believe, not to win. The girls made up rules and stuck to them.

They played House. Jonathan always played Father-they needed a boy for that. They went through elaborate rituals of cooking meals and washing up and taking care of babies and fixing cars. It was so much like real life, that each one knew what to do, except that Jonathan had two wives.

They played Vikings. They would stand together on the prow of a longship, and they would attack a castle, but they were always on the same side. "Okay, men!" Matty would say, and they would all run together, brandishing swords.

They went to Sunday School. The Oz people came as well, but Jonathan couldn't concentrate on them. He got confused and stumbled over the words of the songs and couldn't answer the questions asked by the Sunday School teacher. The teacher wore tartan trousers, and her nose ran, like Helen's.

Afterward, Matty would be elated by the idea of goodness and became insistent on righteousness. She would say that you should do whatever Jesus told you. You should never say "ain't," though Matty otherwise said it all the time. Enlivened by religious instruction, they would play Jesus. Jonathan stood on a fence post, his arms outstretched, being crucified while the sisters adored him on their knees. He liked that game. His mother made them stop.

His mother did not entirely approve of Helen and Matty. Their family offended against the world of style and grace she was trying to build. The Quicke home was ugly, with roof tiles over all of the walls. Helen and Matty's elder brother was only ten, but he wore his hair greased up. He smoked cigarettes and had a dog called Nigger. His eyes were hard, and he trained them on Jonathan.

Once, it was their father's birthday. Jonathan joined Helen and Matty in singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Helen's father was a big man with big red hands and orange hair. Helen and Matty sat on his knees as they sang, and his rough face went kindly and soft. "I can't think of anything nicer," he said, "than to be sung to by two cute little girlies like you." Jonathan wondered why he felt so different from them.

The real world was pushing the Oz people to one side. They watched from the corner while Jonathan pondered the fact that rough Mr. Quicke could be kind. Outside again in the muddy backyard, the Oz people could only watch as Jonathan and Matty and Helen dug a hole to the Center of the Earth.

Why didn't he speak to the Oz people when Helen and Matty were around? He would try to, but fear would grip him. What was he afraid of? Jonathan decided that he would force himself, force himself to act as if the Oz people were there.

Jonathan knew how to behave. He had been drilled in politesse. He knew that you introduced people properly.