`Hi, guys,' I called.

`What's up?' Rusty greeted me. He meant it, of course, as a sexual innuendo. It was the sort of lame stuff he cherished.

`Not much,' I said.

`Are you working hard, or hardly working?'

Slim and I both wrinkled our noses.

Then Slim looked at my sweaty bare torso and said, `It's too hot to be mowing your lawn.'

`Tell that to my dad.'

`Let me at him.'

`He's at work.'

`He's getting off lucky,' Slim said.

We were all smiling, knowing she was kidding around. She liked my dad - liked both my parents a whole lot, though she wasn't crazy about my brothers.

`So how long'll it take you to finish the yard?' Rusty asked.

`I can quit for a while. I've just gotta have it done by the time Dad gets home from work.'

`Come on with us,' Slim said.

I gave a quick nod and ran across the grass. Nobody else was home: Dad at work, Mom away on her weekly shopping trip to the grocery store and my brothers (one single and one married) no longer living at our house.

As I charged up the porch stairs, I called over my shoulder, `Right back.' I whipped my T-shirt off the railing, rushed into the house and raced upstairs to my bedroom.

With the T-shirt, I wiped the sweat off my face and chest. Then I stepped up to the mirror and grabbed my comb. Thanks to Dad, my hair was too short. No son of mine's gonna go around looking like a girl. I wasn't allowed to have much in the way of sideburns, either. No son of mine's gonna traipse around looking like a hood. Thanks to him, I hardly had enough hair to bother combing. But it was mussed and matted down with sweat, so I combed it anyway - making sure my `part' was straight as a razor, then giving the front a little curly flip.