Dad says I'm too young to go steady and seems to think I'm going to drag a girl up the aisle instead of to a school dance. He won't let me watch rock 'n' roll shows, and he'd have a cow if he knew I watched 77 Sunset Strip.

Skeeter inhaled through his nose. Then I thought I heard something, and—you know how the grass in my backyard is long near the fence? Should be, Robert Lewis said. You haven't cut it since Skippy was a pup.

He sounds intimidating over the phone, but if you meet him face to face you will find he is a friendly enough fellow.

Both were lean, raw-boned specimens; the man tall, sandy, and grey-eyed, and the woman short and rather dark, with a black straightness of hair suggesting a slight Indian admixture.