They slowed down, then stopped. Then his mother was talking to him in the quiet, nice-lady TV-teacher voice that meant she was furious. A disease, she said, was invisible, because it was so small. It could fly through the air or hide in the water, or on little boys’ dirty fingers, which was why you shouldn’t stick your fingers up your nose and then put them into your mouth, and why you should always wash your hands after you went to the bathroom, and why you shouldn’t wipe…

“I know,” said Jimmy. “Can I go inside? I’m cold.”

His mother acted as if she hadn’t heard him. A disease, she continued in that calm, stretched voice, a disease got into you and changed things inside you. It rearranged you, cell by cell, and that made the cells sick. And since you were all made up of tiny cells, working together to make sure you stayed alive, and if enough of the cells got sick, then you…

“I could get a cough,” said Jimmy. “I could get a cough, right now!” He made a coughing sound.

“Oh, never mind,” said his mother. She often tried to explain things to him; then she got discouraged. These were the worst moments, for both of them. He resisted her, he pretended he didn’t understand even when he did, he acted stupid, but he didn’t want her to give up on him. He wanted her to be brave, to try her best with him, to hammer away at the wall he’d put up against her, to keep on going.

“I want to hear about the tiny cells,” he said, whining as much as he dared. “I want to!”

“Not today,” she said. “Let’s just go in.”

OrganInc Farms

Jimmy’s father worked for OrganInc Farms. He was a genographer, one of the best in the field.