tried to imagine what it would be like, to be trapped in a body that wouldn't doanything, to have to have somebody wipe your butt whenever you relievedyourself, to have to have somebody feed you every bite you ate, and know thatthey hated you for not being dead, or at least wished with some impatience thatyou'd just get on with it.

And then, drowning in self-pity, Paulie wondered whether it was really differentfrom his own life. If Nana died, at least it would make a difference tosomebody. They'd get a house. Somebody would move. People would have more money.But if I died, who'd notice? Hell, I probably wouldn't even notice. Not till itwas time to eat and I couldn't pick up a fork.

It was dark by now but there was a full moon and anyway the parking lot aroundthe so-called cabin was flooded with light, especially the tennis courts wherethe thwang, thunk, thwang, thunk, thwang of a ball being hit and bouncing offthe court and getting hit again rang out in the night's stillness. Paulie got upfrom his bed where maybe he had fallen asleep for a while and maybe not. Hewalked through the upstairs hall and quietly down the stairs. Adults weregathered in the living room and the kitchen, talking and sometimes laughing, butnobody noticed him as he went outside.

He expected to see Deckie and Celie playing tennis, but it was Uncle Howie andAunt Sissie, Deckie's parents, playing with intense grimaces on their faces asif this were the final battle in a lifelong war. They both dripped with sweateven though the night air here in the Great Smokies was fairly cool.

So where were Deckie and Celie? Not that it mattered. Not that they'd welcomePaulie's company if he found them. Not that he could even be sure they weretogether. He knew Deckie was out somewhere because his stuff was still piled onhis bed. And the sounds of tennis had made Paulie assume he was playing withCelie. But for all he knew, Celie was in bed with the little girl cousins in the