“I found myself when you picked me up! I was found by you. You plucked me. You plucked me.” The word pluck was new, but always and forever amused him; he could not tire of “to pluck” or “plucked.” He would make a sound like a chicken saying it, something I had taught him—“pluck pluck pluck”—and go running down the halls like a demented schoolboy. But this time when he said it, Borne’s voice got lower and lower and he flattened himself across the floor next to my bed, as he did when talking about things that scared him.
