TGSR cont.

A day after the funeral, Joey and I were lounging under the magnolia tree playing marbles. Kids in different places play the game in different ways; the way we played it you draw a circle in the dirt, put your marbles inside it (5 per player), and, if a player can knock a marble out, then he (no girls allowed--ick!) can keep it.

For a warm summer morning, we were quite content; the laziness of it all was very nice.

We were playing (truth be told, I was winning, hands down), when we heard a faint mewing noise. Joey heard it first.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, looking up at me.

"No," I said. "Stop distracting me."

"No, really," he said, "I heard a noise. Come with me."