‘Speak up, old man,’ I said. ‘What did you tell her?’ But my father didn’t answer, of course, and of course it didn’t matter. I knew anyway. Whatever the name of the woman who drove me home, I knew my father told her I’d run away, and wouldn’t come back, and couldn’t be found. Because I wasn’t a right-minded little boy. I wasn’t all there. I was special. See how that explains why nobody came to ring the bell again? It explains why I never started school, never lined up with all the other little boys and girls, all those all there and right-minded and unspecial. It explains why I never got a
...more
