“Sure," Jane said, opening it and getting out of the way while he maneuvered through. Willard tried to make an escape, which Jane thwarted with her knee. He backed off with a "well, it was a good try" look and collapsed pitifully in front of his empty food bowl.

Thinking she might fool Mike, Jane started toward the driver's side of the car, but Mike spit the donut out in the driveway and said, "I'm driving."

“Mike, don't throw that food there!"

“The birds'll eat it.”

Jane got in on the passenger side, wishing she had a crash helmet. "Have you got your learner's permit with you?”

Mike just rolled his eyes in exasperation and threw the car into reverse. They shot backward, Mike grinning, Jane with her hands splayed on the dashboard. Someday, she told herself, she'd remember this time fondly, but not anytime soon. Mike's driving made her crazy. This was the sort of thing Steve ought to be here for; teaching a boy to drive was "Dad work." It wasn't that Mike drove all that fast — well, only in reverse — but he was a curb-clipper. After sixteen years of perceiving the road from the passenger seat, he liked the same view, even though he was now sitting four feet farther left. "Watch the jogger!" Jane shrieked.

“I see him," Mike assured her placidly, swinging out a generous four or five inches to the left.

They stopped and picked up Ernest, a tubby, pimpled boy who tossed a trombone case in the back of the wagon, and Scott, a tall, California-blond, and altogether shockingly handsome boy who carried no books, only a pair of drumsticks. He bounced into the seat behind Jane and beat an affectionate tattoo on her shoulder. "Hi, Mrs. J. Lovely as always," he said, lifting a portion of her uncombed hair with a drumstick.

Jane half-turned. "I'm more concerned withinternal beauty, Scott. Of which I have loads, I might add. Mike! That truck is stopped!”