Free City Boy by Herman Wouk Page A

garage was a corner of heaven, upholstered in gray. Herbert had not known there was room for such swelling bliss in his heart.
    But the tenderness was fading from Lucille's glance. She was no longer gazing into his eyes, but above them.
    “Gosh! Lookit your hair,” she said.
    Herbert put his hand to his head and felt his hair, still damp, standing away from his scalp, straight up. Ten minutes of drying and it was full of fight again, thrusting back toward its old place. Herbie pressed it down. It sprang back erect, like good turf. Twice he did this, and an awful thing happened. Lucille Glass giggled.
    “That's funny, the way it jumps up,” she said.
    “Aw, it's nothing. I can fix it,” stammered Herbie, and began thrusting the locks downward, palm over palm. Drops of water ran down his forehead from under his fingers. In effect he was pressing his hair dry. When he stopped at last and took his hands away, the hair rose, and stood straight out in all directions. He looked somewhat like a boy being electrocuted. Lucille fell back in the seat, exploding with laughter, her hands over her mouth. Herbie wiped his oozing palms on his breeches, and muttering, “Dunno what's wrong with this crazy old mop,” he began to comb his hair furiously with his fingers. This frantic clawing at his head looked extremely strange.
    An unwelcome voice spoke through the car window: “What's the matter, Fatso? Got cooties?”
    Lennie Krieger and Felicia were grinning through the glass.
    “My clever brother,” said Felicia. “Combs his hair on the wrong side 'cause he thinks it makes him look older. How you doing, Grandpa?”
    Herbie's cheeks were on fire. He turned with a feeble smile to Lucille, but he saw only her back as she clambered out of the car. “Auntie must be screaming for me,” she said and was gone.
    Back before a mirror in the bathroom once more, Herbie fumed and agonized as he put his treacherous hair to rights. He blamed Felicia for the blasted afternoon, blamed Lennie, blamed his mother, blamed everyone and everything except himself. He murmured aloud, “I'll show 'em! I'll get even! Try to make a fool out of
me,
will they?” and lashed himself into such a state of indignation at a plotting world that he soon felt much better.
    Not for long, though. When he stepped out into the party room, he was surprised and sickened. In the middle of a circle of children, Lennie Krieger was dancing with Lucille to music from a radio. The little girl's movements were stiff, and her face intently serious, as she followed the adept boy's steps. Herbie joined the circle and heard the low comments—envious and jeering from the boys, admiring from the girls—and tasted the gall of jealousy. He tried to catch Lucille's eye. Once she looked at him with unseeing gravity as though he were a piece of furniture, and spun away. Felicia came to his side and said, “Hello, sheik,” but the heart was not in her spite, for she was suffering, too. Lennie was her admirer, and snubbing him was the food of her feminine nature, but for once he had snubbed her when the music started, to ask the “baby” to dance.
    A game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey was next played. Herbie, blindfolded, fell over a chair on his face, and caused roars of merriment. When Lennie's turn came he worked loose the bandage on his eyes, pretended to grope to the donkey, and pinned the tail squarely where it belonged, to great applause. Herbie detected the cheat, but felt powerless to do anything about it. They played a number of kissing games under the watchful eye of the aunt. Somehow it happened that Lennie kissed Lucille three times and she kissed him twice. Herbie only had one chance to do any kissing, and then it fell to his lot to kiss Felicia. It was a thoroughly ghastly afternoon. And when, at a quarter to five, Herbie managed to corner the red-headed girl, and whispered, “Come on back out in the garage a minute,” she froze him with, “I can't. I promised to