el pescado

Miss Penner lives on the corner, where she grows worms. Last Tuesday, she had 217 of them underneath the cardboard! It is biology to watch the dirt move through the bodies of the worms. Their pink skin moves up and down and the elevator inside them carries the dirt from their mouths and out through their tails. They are always swallowing. Some worms help gardens grow and some work to catch fish. That is their job.

Kevin Hook lives next door to Mr. Horscht. Kevin has dark curly hair that looks like little slinkys. Once, when he fell off his bike and landed like a sack of flour on the driveway, he said, “Jesus Christ!”

When Kevin jumped up, Dad put his large hands on Kevin’s shoulders. He said, “we do not say that here” in a way that made Kevin look at the ground. But we do say “Jesus Christ” sometimes. We just don’t say it with an exclamation point like Kevin did.

Mr. Horscht lives on the other corner of the block, by the high school. His skin is like yours is when you sit in the bathtub until the water gets cold. He walks with a cane and wears a hat called Fedora! Mr. Horscht is Miss Penner’s boyfriend, which is easy to tell because of the pigeon way that they turn their heads toward each other when they talk. When the sun sets, Mr. Horscht and Miss Penner sit on the steps at the side of his house to watch it sparkle over the river. That is their job.

Amy Ramirez lives around the corner in a stucco house with white trim. The Ramirez house is fun because of the toys and cereals like Cocopuffs and Honeycomb, which are not the kind Mom buys at the co-op. Jay the brother, who already reads the Wall Street Journal, even though Dad says he doesn’t have any real assets, likes to go, too. He plays with Amy’s brother, Ryan. Once the Ramirez’s doorbell rang and Mrs. Ramirez answered it. She laughed, asking Jay, “Did you forget something?” Jay stood at the door wearing bubble bath. No clothes at all! Jay had forgotten to tell Ryan something about He-man, and that was his job.