Free The Wine of Youth by John Fante

did not believe I did so much in one game. I made the second-graders tell her all about it.
    IV
    Sister Agnes figured I would be thirty-five year old before I could become a priest.
    I said: “Hey, Sister, how old are you?”
    She said: “You must never ask a nun her age.”
    Then she lifted the blotter from her desk and showed me a picture. It was her mother and father and Sister Agnes when she was a girl. Sister Agnes wore a high hat with a feather in it. I looked at it for a long time.
    She took it away from me and put it under the blotter.
    â€œNow,” she said, “how old do you think I am?”
    I said: “I bet I can guess.”
    â€œGuess,” she said.
    â€œTwenty-five,” I said. I was guessing any old number.
    She laughed. That meant I guessed right. When people laugh that way, they mean you have guessed right.
    Before she said good-night she told me to go to the sacristy and pray our Lord to make me a priest. I went. I prayed the way she said, but I did not pray very hard, because I did not really want to be a priest. I am going to be a big leaguer. I did not pray to get into the big leagues, though, because I pray for that on Sundays. I go to Communion for it. I am making a Novena for it, too. A Novena is when you go to Holy Communion nine straight times. If you make a perfect Novena you can ask our Lord for anything in the world. But I do not really need a Novena to make the big leagues. I am already a great player. A Novena cinches it for me.
    Just when I got up to leave, I thought of a wonderful idea. I knelt down again and made up a prayer. A swell prayer. Here it is: “O dear, sweet Infant Jesus, if You will help me get Sister Agnes’s picture, I will make my next Novena one about asking you to make a priest out of me.” I prayed like the dickens. I was holy. I knelt up straight. I kept my hands togeather.
    After praying, I went to Sister Agnes’s classroom. I was going to ask her for the picture. I sure wanted it. Oh, you should see that Sister Agnes!
    She was not there. But you could hear forks and knives in the convent. That meant the Sisters were eating supper. I sure wanted that picture.
    So I stole it. I put it under my waist. I sneaked away and beat it for home. After supper I went up to the attic and hid the picture. I keep all my important stuff there, and nobody can see the picture. Nobody but me.
    Next day I got to thinking, and I did not know what to do. It was awful, because Sister Agnes knew I did it. When I got to school, I did not go out on the field. I sneaked into the washroom and locked myself in until the bell rang. I stayed in the washroom at recess too. I stayed in there at twelve o’clock too.
    After school, I broke ranks and ran behind the church. George McClure saw me, so I went into church to make an Act of Contrition, because stealing is a mortal sin. While I was kneeling there, up came George McClure.
    He said: “Hey, Sister Agnes is looking for you.”
    I said: “What for?”
    He said: “Search me.”
    I said: “Does she look sore or anything?”
    He said: “Not that I know of.”
    Before I went to see her, I made up another prayer. It was a pretty good one. Here it is: “O dear, sweet Infant Jesus, if You ever helped anybody, please help me now.”
    Sister Agnes was playing the organ. She heard me come in. I was so scared I could not talk. I was all leery and freezy. It felt like the time she came down the aisle when I was a little second-grader.
    She said: “Hello!” It was fishy. I can tell.
    I said: “Hello.”
    She said: “You must never come here again.”
    She said: “You must never talk to me again.”
    Then she hollered: “You hear me?”
    I said: “Yes, Sister.”
    She said: “Go home.”
    And after that she never liked me. I know she will never like me again. I can tell.
    I did not go home, though. I went out on the ball