Two teachers from P.S. 34 herd the first grade down the sidewalk, and the kids take advantage of their freedom. They hop off the curb into puddles and beg for ice cream from Ernie's. Toby's bored, but he stays in line.

He's used to being bored and behaving anyway; school is like that. It's hard to understand why they're still learning I-before-E, vocabulary and sounding things out. He's known how to read forever--how can anyone still have trouble by the age of seven?

Linda Wickstein should be next to him, but she's skipping ahead. She hates him because she's behind in her workbook; Toby's already finished his. Sometimes, he wonders why he even goes to school. He has to take Linda's sticky hand to cross Manhattan Avenue. Ahead of them Eddie Caulfield reads the street sign, hoping for special credit. As if he needed to read to know the street names. Toby kicks a pebble. Linda chirps, "Keep up, Toby," and Miss Lafonte says, "Toby? Keep up."

"I was," he mutters, but nobody listens. Pretty soon they're at the library.

He could find the basement children's section blindfolded, just by the musty, dusty, papery smell. He pauses, then picks two books he's read before: The Yearling because it's especially long, and Rockets To The Moon to read to his baby brother. He sets them aside and waits.

Theresa Tortorici bawls when someone takes her ballerina book. Fits are Theresa's specialty; her face turns tomato-red and she lets loose. Both teachers rush to her as the other kids start running around. Toby slips away.

On the stairs, he feels guilty about breaking the rules. But something keeps him going, straight to the grownup level. The front counter's up to his head, and the librarian doesn't see him. He concentrates so hard on sneaking by that when he looks up, he's stunned.

The books go to the walls, to the ceiling, so many that the shelves might burst. More books than he's ever seen in one place.

He wishes he'd broken this rule sooner.

He wanders, looking over the books on low shelves, hands behind his back. Wonderful titles sing out to him: From Here to Eternity, A Passage to India, The Old Man and the Sea.

That one sounds like a children's book that he dares himself to take it down, and then does it. He opens it on the floor, to the middle. The words pull him in, and he whispers them aloud: "Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon. The moon runs away."

A hand yanks him up by his hair, and he's looking at Miss Lafonte's witchy eyebrows.

"There you are!" She's already hauling him to the door, the big library vanishing behind them. She scolds him all the way downstairs, but he's not listening. He's repeating the rest of the paragraph to himself, so he'll never forget there are words like those.