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"You're not going to loaf your way through school if I have anything to say about it."

"Loaf!" I yelp.

"Four major academic subjects is more than lots of the guys take."

Mom comes and suggests that Pop better go over to school with me and talk it over at the school office.

He does, and for once I win a round—I keep music for this semester.

But he makes sure that next year I'm signed up all year for five majors: English, French, math, chemistry, and European history.

I'll be lucky if I have time to breathe.

I go down to the flower shop to grouse to Tom.

It's after Valentine's Day, and business is slack and the boss is out.

"Why does Pop have to come butting into my business at school? Doesn't he even think the school knows what it's doing?"

"Aw, heck," says Tom, "your father's the one has to see you get into college or get a job. Sometimes schools do let kids take a lot of soft courses, and then they're out on a limb later."

"Huh. He just likes to boss everything I do."

"So—he cares."

"Huh." I'm not very ready to buy this, but then I remember Tom's father, who doesn't care.

It makes me think.

"Besides," says Tom, "half the reason you and your father are always bickering is that you're so much alike."

"Me? Like him?"

"Sure. You're both impatient and curious, got to poke into everything. As long as there's a bone on the floor, the two of you worry it."

Mr.Palumbo comes back to the shop then, and Tom gets busy with the plants.

I go home, wondering if I really am at all like Pop.

I never thought of it before.

It's funny about fights.

Pop and I can go along real smooth and easy for a while, and I think: Well, he really isn't a bad guy, and I'm growing up, we can see eye to eye—all that stuff.

Then, whoosh! I hardly know what starts it, but a fight boils up, and we're both breathing fire like dragons on the loose.

We get a holiday Washington's Birthday, which is good because there's a TV program on Tuesday, the night before the holiday, that I hardly ever get to watch.

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