We cannot all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. (Will Rogers)

The summer was long and Penny wanted to get back to school more than anything. She was alone most of the time. Since her mother began letting her bicycle to the library by herself, she was there every day. She read and read and read.

During the summer Penny would see Tommy on occasion but those instances were infrequent and fleeting. When September came around Penny wasn’t even sure he would be back by her fence.

She waited beside the school after her first day back. Penny stalled her sister as long as she could but he was nowhere in sight.

She got home and sat beside the fence and waited and waited and just before the sun got too low he appeared. She didn’t see him appear but she could feel the slight jolt as he sat on the other side of the fence. He was panting.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he whispered. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

Penny was speechless, elated, and did the only thing she knew to do. She read.

Tommy relaxed on the other side of the fence and listened. All summer he had missed this but he was unsure how long he could keep it up.

“Where were you?” accused Vincent, his older brother’s best friend, a fixture in their household.

“Why?”

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Tommy’s up to something,” Vincent reported to Rick, the eldest brother.

“Whatta you up to?” Rick asked.

“Nothing.”

Rick Senior, their father, entered with a big brown bag of deep fried food.

“Tommy’s up to something,” Rick reported up the line.

Tommy sighed.

His father just looked at him. Without words he pulled an explanation out of his son.

“I was just hanging out with one of my friend’s after school.”

Senior shrugged nonchalantly. “What’s wrong with that?”

“He doesn’t help us anymore,” Rick said.

“I was in school.”

Senior considered this as the hot bag began to burn through his thin tshirt and leave a hidden pink mark on his bulging stomach.

“Another year of school wouldn’t hurt.”

“I just go in the mornings,” Vincent said.

“I don’t go at all; I’m committed to this house,” Rick said.

Senior put the bag down on the table and let the boys have at it.

“Help your brothers when they need it,” Senior said. “And let him go to school.”

It was solved. Everything was black and white. Senior ran his house like it was his empire.