"Oh. What will we have to eat?"
"I don't know. Let's go look in the kitchen," I
said, and we headed out and to the house.
We entered through the rear and I took him
down the hallway, past my bedroom. The door was
opened, so I paused.
"That's where I sleep," I said, nodding at the
doorway.
He approached it and looked in, but he didn't go
in. He leaned over to peer into it.
"It's a nice-size room."
"We added some things since I came and will
be spending the next school year here. My aunt wants
me to think about doing something with the walls,
paint, wallpaper, making it brighter, happier." He nodded. "Be easy to paint it."
"Would you help me do that?"
His eyes widened. "Paint your bedroom?" "You just said it would be easy to do it, didn't
you?"
"Yeah, but . . . it's your bedroom."
"So? I can't have anyone else work on it? That's
stupid."
He looked in again, still keeping himself out of
the room, even leaning more awkwardly to look to the
right or left.
"You can go in if you want to and look around."
"Now, I've seen enough," he said. He looked a little
frightened.
"You think going into a girl's bedroom will
somehow corrupt you?"
He spun on me as if I had slapped him. "You