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It says: "Thanks for your letter. The Youth Board got me a room in the Y on Twenty-third Street. Maybe I'll come say Hello some day. They're going to help me get a job this summer, so I don't need a lawyer. Thanks anyway. Meow to Cat. Best, Tom."

I go over to Nick's house to show him the letter.

I'd told him about Tom getting Cat out of the cellar and getting arrested, but Nick always acted like he didn't really believe it.

So when he sees the letter, he has to admit Cat and I really got into something.

Not everyone gets letters from guys who have been arrested.

One thing about Nick sort of gripes me.

He has to think up all the plans.

Anything I've done that he doesn't know about, he downgrades.

Also, I always have to go to his house.

He never comes to mine, except once in a coon's age when I have a new record I won't bring to his house because his machine stinks and he never buys a new needle.

It's not that I don't like his house.

His mom is pretty nice, and boy, can she cook! Just an ordinary Saturday for lunch she makes pizza or real good spaghetti, and she has homemade cookies and nut cake sitting around after school.

She also talks and waves her arms and shouts orders at us kids, but all good-natured-like, so we just kid her along and go on with what we're doing.

She's about the opposite of my mom.

Pop does the shouting in our house, and except for the one hassle about bike-riding on Twelfth Avenue, Mom doesn't even tell me what to do much.

She's quiet, and pretty often she doesn't feel good, so maybe I think more than most kids that I ought to do things her way without being told.

Also, my mom is always home and always ready to listen if you got something griping you, like when a teacher blames you for something you didn't do.

Some kids I know, they have to phone a string of places to find their mother, and then she scolds them for interrupting her.

Mom likes to cook, and she gets up some good meals for holidays, but she doesn't go at it all the time, the way Nick's mother does.

So maybe Nick doesn't come to my house because we haven't got all that good stuff sitting around.

I don't think that's it, really, though.

He just likes to be boss.

One day, a couple of weeks after we went to Coney, he does come along with me.

We pick up a couple of cokes and pears at his pop's store.

Cat is sitting on my front stoop, and he jumps down and rubs between my legs and goes up the stairs ahead of us.

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