This kid was nursed on a pickle," Madeleine liked to tell anyone who would listen.
Meaning me, of course, Homer Winthrop. "Nursed on a pickle and weaned on prune
juice." She said it now, catching a look at my face in her rearview mirror.

Ha ha.

Well, so what? I enjoyed being a pickle. I enjoyed sulking and not talking. I planned to
not talk all the way into Maine. But it was going to be hard, I saw as we crossed the
bridge into the state. This place was already looking interesting. The river was named
the Piscataqua, probably after Indians.

"Pis-CAT-aqua," I said accidentally. "Or PiscaTA-qua. Or, no, PIS-cat-aqua."

"Gesundheit," Madeleine answered.

Don't talk, I reminded myself. I closed my eyes.

"Homer, are you all right?" This was my mother speaking. She'd been spinning around
in her seat to at me about once every twenty minutes since we'd left Boston.

I didn't answer, just opened my eyes very wide. I'd done this the whole trip, which was
making my eyeballs feel kind of funny, like I might be doing them damage. I wasn't, of
course. My mother would have said so if this were the case. She lived to say things like
that. Now Madeleine (latest in our long line of housekeepers, drivers, general all-round-
slaves-to-my-mother) was different. When she caught me popping my eyeballs, she just
popped hers right back. That was a sight worth seeing. Hers were so poppy you just sort
of waited, thinking they'd bounce over the seat and into your lap.

My mother sighed. I closed my eyes again. We started and stopped and started and
stopped and drove for a while and then stop...