...and There Was Nothing To Do Except

Then He Asked If I Didn’t Like Things Changing. And I Said I Wouldn’t Mind Things Changing If I Became An Astronaut, For Example, Which Is One Of The Biggest Changes You Can Imagine, Apart From Becoming A Girl Or Dying.

I Rolled Back Onto The Lawn And Pressed My Forehead To The Ground Again And Made The Noise That Father Calls Groaning. I Make This Noise When There Is Too Much Information Coming Into My Head From The Outside World. It Is Like When You Are Upset And You Hold The Radio Against Your Ear And You Tune It Halfway Between Two Stations So That All You Get Is White Noise And Then You Turn The Volume Right Up So That This Is All Can Hear And Then You Know You Are Safe Because You Cannot Hear Anything Else

And It's Best If You Know A Good Thing Is Going To Happen, Like An Eclipse Or Getting A Microscope For Christmas. And It's Bad If You Know A Bad Thing Is Going To Happen, Like Having A Filling Or Going To France. But I Think It Is Worst If You Don't Know Whether It Is A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing Which Is Going To Happen.

And It Occurred To Him That There Were Two Parts To Being A Better Person. One Part Was Thinking About Other People. The Other Part Was Not Giving A Toss What Other People Thought.

There's Something With The Physical Size Of America... American Writers Can Write About America And It Can Still Feel Like A Foreign Country.