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first place? Anyway, while all those girls are busy practicing their cartwheels, I can be studying.” Then an instant later she added, half to herself, “Besides, I’m really not that pretty.”
    He looked at her and shook his head.
    “I gotta say this, Castellano—I think you’ve got a screw loose.”
    Barney was a dedicated student. Several days a week he got up at five to do some extra cramming so he could use the afternoon for playing ball. Since the official season hadn’t yet begun, many of the Varsity big guns were out scrimmaging in the schoolyard and he wanted to see firsthand what he was up against.
    Long after the other players had started for home, in the gathering darkness dispelled only by a street lamp, Barney would continue practicing his jumper, his hook—and finally his foul shot.
    Only then would he step onto the Norstrand Avenue trolley and wearily try to study as he rode homeward.
    Naturally, he was taking the usual required courses: Math, Civics, English, and General Science. But for his one elective, he had chosen a subject calculated to please his father: Latin.
    He loved it—the exhilaration of digging for the Latin roots that made the English language bloom. It made his mental faculties more dexterous (from
mens, facultas
, and
dexter
) and his prose style more concise (from
prosa, stylus
, and
concisus
).
    To his delight, all language suddenly became palpable. And, boy, did his vocabulary grow.
    He displayed his new verbal pyrotechnicality at every possible moment. When asked by his English teacher if he hadstudied hard for the midterm, he replied, “Without dubitation, Miss Simpson, I lucubrated indefatigably.”
    But if his dad was flattered, he was not demonstrative about it even when Barney asked him grammatical questions to which he already knew the answer.
    He turned to his mother. “What is it, Mom? Isn’t Dad happy that I’m taking Latin?”
    “Of course he is. He’s very proud.”
    But if Dad had told
her
, Barney thought, how come he didn’t say a word to me?
    Then one day he rushed home with his Latin midterm and bolted up the stairs into his father’s study.
    “Look, Dad,” he said, breathlessly handing over the examination paper.
    Harold took a long puff on his cigarette and began to scrutinize his son’s work. “Ah yes,” he murmured to himself, “I’m reading Virgil this year with my kids as well.” And then more silence.
    As Barney waited anxiously, he could not keep himself from adding, “In case you’re wondering, it was the highest in the class.”
    His father nodded and then turned to him. “You know, in a way this makes me a little sad.…”
    Barney’s mouth suddenly went dry.
    “… I mean, I wish I could have had you in my own Latin class.”
    Barney never forgot that day, that hour, that moment, those words.
    His father liked him after all.
    Laura had reached a major—and startling—decision. She mentioned it casually to Barney during the trolley ride from school one day.
    “I’m going to run for president.”
    “Are you nuts, Castellano? No girl’s ever going to become President of the United States.”
    She frowned. “I meant of the class, Barn.”
    “That’s still crazy. I mean, there’s only two of us from P.S. 148 in all of Midwood. You won’t have a gang of friends to back you up.”
    “I have you.”
    “Yeah, but I’m only one vote. And you don’t expect me to stuff the ballot box, do you?”
    “But you could help me write a speech. All the candidates get two minutes during one of the class Assembly periods.”
    “Do you know who you’re up against?”
    “No, but I think I’m the only girl. Now, can you work with me on Sunday afternoon—please?”
    “Okay.” He sighed. “I’ll help you make a fool of yourself.”
    They rode along for a few minutes, faces buried in their textbooks. Then Barney remarked, “I never dreamed you were this ambitious.”
    “I am, Barney,” she confessed in a lowered voice. “I’m