This is ashopping channel   his pop said.

Kit headed for the coat hooks by the kitchen door and pulled his parka off one of them.  Popi, I ve got to get to Tom s. I ll be back pretty soon. It s all right to look at it, but if any phone numbers that you can read appear do me a big favor, okay Don t order anything !

Kit opened the back door.Ponch threw one last longing look at what Kit s mama was doing with the chicken,then threw himself past Kit, hitting the screen door with abang !and flying out into the driveway.

Kit followed him. At the driveway s end, he paused, looking up briefly. It was almost dark already; the bare branches of the maples were showing black against an indigo sky. January was too new for any lengthening of days to be perceptible yet, and the shortness of the daylight hours was depressing. But at least the holidays were over. Kit could hardly remember a year when he d been less interested in them. For his own family s sake, he d done his best to act as if he was, but his heart hadn t been in the celebrations, or the presents. He hadn t been able to stop thinking about the one present Nita most desperately wanted, one that not even the Powers That Be could give her.

Kit sighed and looked down the street.Ponch was down there near curbside in the rapidly falling dark, saluting one of the neighbor s trees.  Back this way, please   he said, and waited untilPonch was finished and came galloping back up the street toward him.

Kit made his way into the backyard again, withPonch bouncing along beside him, wagging his tail.  Where did the  meaning of life  thing come from all of a sudden   Kit said.

I heard you ask about it,Ponch said.

The question had, indeed, come up once or twice recently in the course of business, around the timePonch started talking regularly.  So   Kit said, as they made their way past the beat-up birdbath into the tangle of sassafras at the back of the yard, where they were out of sight of the houses on either side.  Come to any conclusions