Part01-On Writing-04

We moved to Stratford, Connecticut.

By then I was in the second grade and stone in love with the pretty teenage girl who lived next door.

She never looked twice at me in the daytime, but at night, as I lay in bed and drifted toward sleep, we ran away from the cruel world of reality again and again.

My new teacher was Mrs. Taylor, a kind lady with gray Elsa Lanchester—Bride of Frankenstein hair and protruding eyes.

"When we're talking I always want to cup my hands under Mrs. Taylor's peepers in case they fall out," my mom said.

Our new third-floor apartment was on West Broad Street.

A block down the hill, not far from Teddy's Market and across from Burrets Building Materials, was a huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train track running through the middle.

This is one of the places I keep returning to in my imagination; it turns up in my books and stories again and again, under a variety of names.

The kids in It called it the Barrens; we called it the jungle.

Dave and I explored it for the first time not long after we had moved into our new place.