Thief of Dreams by John Yount

bookworm?”
    Halfway across the ballfield Tim Lanich had come running up behind him and flung himself sideways at the backs of James’s knees, spilling him hard and straining both his back and his knees and then leaping up and running back to where Earl and Tom Lanich stood laughing.
    â€œLester?” Mrs. Arents said, ignoring the three or four girls who had raised their hands, “why do you suppose the speaker in the poem wants him moved into the sun, and who do you suppose him might be?”
    Through the fingers shading his brow, James watched Lester, who didn’t speak or even seem to breathe but merely stared down at his desk while a ferocious blush rose out of his ragged shirt collar into his tall, shy neck. Why did she have to pick on him? He wouldn’t say a word, and she must know it by this time, since he hadn’t answered anything but the roll call all week. But Lester knew about death, James was certain of that, knew about it way down in his bones, even if he didn’t care to talk about it or understand the poem.
    â€œTimothy?” Mrs. Arents said.
    â€œWhat?” Tim Lanich said.
    â€œWhy does the poet want him moved into the sun?”
    â€œCause he won’t get up.”
    â€œAnd why won’t he get up, kind sir?” Mrs. Arents asked.
    Tim pulled the corners of his mouth down and raised his shoulders.
    â€œProbably drunk too much the night before,” Earl offered and got a few scattered snickers.
    â€œProbably drank too much,” Mrs. Arents corrected. “And who do you think this him might be, Earl?”
    â€œIt don’t say,” Earl said. “Maybe his dick,” he added in a lower voice.
    â€œYes, Earl?” Mrs. Arents said.
    â€œNuthin,” Earl said.
    All at once James liked the poem and regretted his earlier attitude. It was the poet’s sentiment that counted after all, his care and sadness about the death of his friend, his unwillingness to believe that nothing could be done to change it.
    â€œJames?” Mrs. Arents said, “will you enlighten us, please?”
    â€œPlease, pissant, enlighten us,” Earl said from across the room.
    Was she stone deaf? Couldn’t she hear at all? Why wouldn’t she call on one of the girls who had their hands up and waving? James had heard his cousins say she was very partial to boys and, in spite of her age, was a terrible flirt and had been ever since her husband had died about a hundred years ago.
    â€œJames?”
    â€œWell,” James said, “the poem doesn’t say who has died; maybe a friend or a father or a brother?” He scratched his head and frowned at the page. “But he was probably a farmer once, since he used to get up and sow his fields, and maybe later, he was a soldier in France, but it says the sun always woke him, and so the speaker wants him put gently out where the sun can touch him in hopes that the sun will bring him back to life.” He didn’t want to look up, not at her or anyone, so he kept staring down at the poem, hoping she would go on to someone else.
    â€œWhy did you say the dead person was a soldier, James?” Mrs. Arents asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” he answered. “That was stupid. Maybe it was because of France, or the snow? I don’t know why I said it.”
    â€œOh but it wasn’t stupid,” Mrs. Arents said. “Wilfred Owen is very famous for his poems about soldiers and the horrors of the battlefield.”
    â€œI didn’t know,” James said. “It was just a stupid guess.”
    â€œGo on to the second stanza, if you please, James.”
    He did not please. It made his stomach hurt. “Well,” he said, holding his head miserably between his hands, “the poet says the sun can wake the seeds and once gave life to, you know, the cold earth, so he wants to know why, when there’s already a person there who is still warm, why it wouldn’t be a lot