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— American history. Mom and Dad didn’t embarrass you with their questions, did they?”
    “Don’t be silly. As a matter of fact, I anticipated their questions.” Danny’s eyestwinkled. “I’ve been through that before, Jerry.”
    They reached the end of the third block when Danny said, “We’re halfway to my home, Jerry. Thanks for walking this far with
     me, and for inviting me for supper.”
    “That’s okay,” said Jerry. “Good night, Danny.”
    “Good night, Jerry.”
    When Jerry arrived home he took off his coat and found his mother and father relaxing in the living room. His father was sitting
     on his favorite lounge chair, reading the evening paper, and his mother was mending a shirt.
    “Well, what do you think of him?” Jerry asked.
    “Of Danny?” His mother smiled. “He’s a very nice boy. Smart, too, and well-mannered.”
    “You’ve found a nice friend,” his father said. “Don’t lose him.”
    “Now you know where he gets his ideas about warlocks,” his mother added.
    “Yes,” Jerry replied. “From reading old American history.”
    Jerry didn’t see Danny during the next two days, but thought nothing of it. Everyone was staying indoors as much as they could
     since the temperature had dropped to a few degrees below zero.
    More days went by and Jerry still didn’t see Danny. One sunny, not-too-cold day he walked near the neighborhood where he first
     saw Danny but saw him nowhere. Now and then Ronnie Malone stopped in to visit Jerry and Jerry visited him. They were still
     the best of friends. But not seeing Danny Weatherspoon all this time began to leave a void in Jerry’s life. What had happened to the little guy, anyway?
    Meanwhile Jerry got back into his regular routine again. It was so easy for him not to take his mother seriously whenever
     she ordered him to do things, like getting rid of the cobwebs in the basement. What was wrong with cobwebs? Who saw them,
     anyway? And weren’t spiders beneficial? They trapped flies and moths in their webs and ate them up, didn’t they?
    The garbage was a problem, too. Jerry had promised his mother that he would carry it out at night for sure. But when the time
     came he would neglect to do so, and his father would have to carry it out before he left for work in the morning.
    And his dirty clothes. His mother wanted him to put on clean clothes everyday and to take his dirty ones down to the laundry room every morning. But he seldom did.
Why carry them down every day
, he reasoned,
when Mom launders only a couple of times a week anyway? She can pick them up when she cleans the room. Why all the fuss about
     cleanliness, anyway?
    “Ronnie,” Jerry asked his friend one day, “do your parents make you do a lot of chores around the house?”
    “Well, I mow the lawn.”
    “In winter?”
    “No. In summer, lunkhead.”
    “What do you do in winter?”
    “I always carry out the garbage — in winter and summer,” Ronnie replied. “And every time the bottles pile up, I take them
     to the special bin out in back of thegrocery store. Most of them are being recycled.”
    “Your parents pay you for doing all that?”
    “Heck, no. Why should they pay me?”
    Jerry looked at him a long minute. “Forget it,” he said.
    The Chariots had intrasquad practice on Tuesday, December 14, and Jerry started. He looked for Danny among the few scattered
     fans sitting in the bleachers, but didn’t see him.
    “Ronnie, have you seen Danny Weatherspoon lately?” he asked.
    “Danny who?”
    “Danny Weatherspoon. A little guy. Has dark hair, wears a heavy coat.”
    “Is that so? A little guy, has dark hair and wears a heavy coat. Do you knowhow many guys go to our school who look like that?”
    Jerry stared. “You don’t know Danny?”
    “No, I don’t know Danny.”
    Freddie Pearse walked up to Jerry and looked him straight in his eyes. “Jerry, if you want to yak, sit on the bench. You do
     a lot better job yakking than playing,