Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block Page B

his feet and had perfect aim. Dirk’s heart was beating fast like the basketball hitting the pavement again and again; he was sweating.
    When a car pulled into the driveway the boy grabbed the basketball and took off down the street.
    “Come on,” he shouted.
    Dirk stood still, looking at the boy and then into the car. A heavyset man got out. Dirk just had time to wonder how such a big man could have such a quick and slender son when the man said, “Scram! I told you not to hang around here anymore! I’ll call the cops!”
    Dirk ran after the boy. When he caught up with him, at the edge of a field of wildflowers, he was out of breath. The sweat was getting into his eyes.
    “I thought that was your house,” Dirk said.
    The boy grinned. “Nope.”
    They stood under the shifting sunlight, laughing. Dirk thought their laughter would look like sunlight through leaves if he could see it. A flock of poppies, with their faces toward the sun, moved in the breeze as if they were laughing too. Dirk noticed that the boy’s ears came to slight points at the top.
    “I’m Pup,” the boy said.
    “Dirk.”
    “Hey, Dirk. Next time we’ll borrow someone’s swimming pool.”
    Two days later Pup jumped out of the tree again. He and Dirk climbed the fence of an ivy-covered Spanish house with a terra-cotta roof, and stripped down to their underwear. Then they took turns diving into the aqua water. Pup did more and more elaborate dives—cannonballs and flips and flailing-in-the-air things—and Dirk tried to imitate him. They stayed in the pool until the tips of their fingers looked crinkled and crushed, and then they dried out on the hot cement. Pup had freckles on his shoulders and a gold dusting of hair on his arms and legs. With his wet hair slicked back Dirk thought he looked like James Dean.
    “Are you hungry?” Dirk asked Pup.
    “Starving.”
    Dirk and Pup went to Farmer’s Market where the air smelled like tropical fruit, chilled flowers, Cajun corn bread, Belgian waffles, deli meats and cheeses, coffee and the gooey sheets of saltwater taffy that spun round and round behind glass. The light filtered softly through the striped circus tent awnings. Wind chimes and coffee cups sang. Dirk looked for Pup but couldn’t find him. Then he heard a whistle. He followed the sound to a corner table where Pup was sitting behind a huge banana cream pie. He handed Dirk a fork.
    “Want some?”
    “Where’d you get that?” Dirk asked.
    Pup grinned his Cheshire grin.
    Nothing had ever tasted so good to Dirk as that frothy concoction—peaks of meringue and melts of banana—that Pup had lifted so slyly from the pie counter. But the next day Dirk asked Grandma Fifi to make a pie so Pup wouldn’t have to steal and invited his friend over for dinner.
    After school they went to Fifi’s cottage through the backyards of houses, leaping fences and climbing walls, patting dogs and dodging the lemons that one woman threw at them. Pup gathered avocados, roses and sprigs of cherry blossoms as he ran so that by the time he met Grandma Fifi at the front door he had almost more presents than he could carry.
    “This is Pup,” Dirk told her.
    “Pleased to meet you, Pup,” said Grandma Fifi. “Thank you for the alligator pears and the flowers.”
    “This is my Grandma Fifi,” Dirk said.
    “Hi,” said Pup. He seemed suddenly shy. He shook the tips of his hair out of his eyes. He lowered his eyelashes.
    “Come in for some snacks,” said Fifi.
    She brought out guava cream cheese pastries and a pitcher of lemonade. Pup gulped and swallowed as if he hadn’t had food in days.
    Then Dirk showed Pup the comics that he drew. They were about two boys who turned into the superheroesSlam and Jam when there was danger.
    “You’re serious,” Pup said.
    They lay on the floor of Dirk’s room reading comics until the room turned jacaranda-blossom-purple with evening and the glow-in-the-dark constellations that Fifi had pasted on the ceiling began to