″‘Some boys are going to kill me.’
‘Not kill you, Benjie,’ she said. ‘No one is-’
He glanced quickly at her. ‘Well, how do I know what they’re going to do?‘”
″‘If it makes you feel any better,’ his mother said, ‘Teddy Roosevelt had the same problem. I saw it on television. Boys used to pick on him and chase him.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said.”
“Marv Hammerman would look at them, sizing them up, the two of them, this duo his mother had created for strength. Then with a faint smile Hammerman would reach out, grab them up like cymbals and clang them together.”