Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

There aren't many other people around, which is rare in New York.

"Let's eat lunch," says Tom.

"Then we can go hunting arrowheads and not have to carry it."

He agrees the spaghetti sandwich is a great invention.

I wish the weather would stay like this more of the year—good and sweaty hot in the middle of the day, so you feel like going swimming, but cool enough to sleep at night.

We lie in the sun awhile after lunch and agree that it's too bad there isn't an ocean within jumping-in distance.

But there isn't, and flies are biting the backs of our necks, so we get up and start exploring.

We find a few places that you might conceivably call caves, but they've been well picked over for arrowheads, if there ever were any.

That's the trouble in the city: anytime you have an idea, you find out a million other people had the same idea first.

Along in mid-afternoon, we drift down toward the subway and get cokes and ice cream before we start back.

I don't really feel like going home yet, so I think a minute and study the subway map inside the car.

"Hey, as long as we're on the subway anyway, we could go on down to Cortlandt Street to the Army-Navy surplus store. I got to get a knapsack before summer."

"O.K." Tom shrugs.

He's staring out the window and doesn't seem to care where he goes.

"I got a great first-aid survival kit there. Disinfectant and burn ointment and bug dope and bandages, in a khaki metal box that's waterproof, and it was only sixty-five cents."

"Hmm. Just what I need for survival on the sidewalks of New York," says Tom.

I guess he's kidding, in a sour sort of way.

If you haven't got a family around, though, survival must take more than a sixty-five-cent kit.

The store is a little way from the nearest subway stop, and we walk along not saying much.

Tom looks alive when he gets into the store, though, because it really is a great place.

They've got arctic explorers' suits and old hand grenades and shells and all kinds of rifles, as well as some really cheap, useful clothing.

They don't mind how long you mosey around.

In the end I buy a belt pack and canteen, and Tom picks up some skivvy shirts and socks that are only ten cents each.

They're secondhand, I guess, but they look all right.

We walk over to the East Side subway, which is only a few blocks away down here because the island gets so narrow.

Table of Contents