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to stay in shape. Ladies and gentlemen, they’re entering the last lap and Gundar Hagg has the lead and it looks like it’s another victory for Gundar the Wonder— But wait! Somebody’s moving up. Just a moment, ladies and gentlemen, while I consult my program. It’s—it’s the Whizzer, ladies and gentlemen, Whizzer Kirkaby and look at him fly. It’s fantastic! Broken leg and all and he’s gaining on Hagg. Hagg looks like he’s standing still. Here he comes. Here comes the Whizzer. Will you look at him flyyyyy ...
    Walt reached his bicycle and paused until he got his breath. Then he took a running start, vaulting onto the seat, pedaling hard. He took off his right hand, steadied himself, then slowly removed his left, sitting back on the seat, curving off Archer Street, heading for home. “I am the monarch of the sea; the ruler of the queen’s nay-vee. Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants and so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts ...” He stopped singing when he got to Linden Lane, pedaling in silence along the tree-shaded pavement. When he reached the end of the lane he rode slower. “You’ve just got to learn to slow down on that bicycle, Walt, or you’ll hurt yourself.” That was what his mother always said because she didn’t know he was the greatest bicycle rider of all time although once he had almost told her. At the end of the lane stood the great stone posts, and Walt experienced, as he always did, a flash of acute embarrassment because of the wooden signs that read PRIVATE DRIVEWAY. NO TRESPASSERS. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. They had always been there, those signs nailed to the great stone posts, and once, at Christmas, Walt had asked that they be taken away but P.T. thought he was just trying to be funny. Walt pedaled for a while along the paved driveway until the house came into view. The house would have embarrassed him except that nobody could see it from the street because of all the shrubbery and trees. He stopped the bicycle and got off, wheeling it into the garage, parking it in the corner of the garage next to the limousine. The limousine he classed with the wooden signs. Brushing his hair with his hands, he cursed his curls good, then straightened his pants. Presentable, hopefully, he walked in the back door, through the kitchen and the butler’s pantry and the dining room to the front hall.
    The hated Arnold was waiting for him.
    “Mother died,” Arnold said.
    “She did not.” Since he refused to believe in the possibility of death, how could she have died? Besides, Arnold had told him and Arnold was a liar. Besides, he had kissed his pale mother on the cheek that morning and she was breathing then.
    “She died.”
    “She did not either.” God, how he loathed his brother, his three-years-older and twice-as-big brother, his handsome, picky, graceful, strong, sniveling, popular, “Walt, why can’t you be more like Arnold?” brother.
    “Dammit, dammit.”
    “No, she didn’t.”
    “You don’t care!” Arnold screamed, because he didn’t care, not remotely, and the thought that it would show made him wet with fear. So he screamed it again, louder, straining his throat: “ You don’t care! ”
    “Boys.” Maudie standing black at the top of the stairs. Walt glanced up at her face and was forced backward two steps, stunned by the knowledge of death. “Boys.”
    Walt glanced back at his brother, who was crying now. “I care,” he said. More than care. I loved her. I did. If I love her, why don’t I cry? He stared at his brother’s tears, and suddenly their transparency was clear to his good, quick mind. But his face always betrayed his thoughts, always, so before he could say, “You don’t fool me, Arnold, you don’t fool me with those tears, you got an onion in your hand, Arnold, huh?” the thought was on his face and perhaps Arnold saw it because in three great steps he was on top of Walt, slashing out with his thick hands, bruising Walt’s face,