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Can I say hi to Andy?” I said, staring fixedly at the kitchen floor. “No, really, we’re—Mum, I’m coming!” I heard her yell. To me, she said, “Happy Thanksgiving.” “You too,” I said, “tell everybody I said hi,” but she’d already hung up. xxi. MY APPREHENSIONS ABOUT BORIS’S father had been eased somewhat since he’d taken my hands and thanked me for looking after Boris. Though Mr. Pavlikovsky (“Mister!” cackled Boris) was a scarylooking guy, all right, I’d come to think he wasn’t quite as awful as he’d seemed. Twice the week after Thanksgiving, we came in after school to find him in the kitchen—mumbled pleasantries, nothing more, as he sat at the table throwing back vodka and blotting his damp forehead with a paper napkin, his fairish hair darkened with some sort of oily hair cream, listening to loud Russian news on his beatup radio. But then one night we were downstairs with Popper (who I’d walked over from my house) and watching an old Peter Lorre movie called The Beast with Five Fingers when the front door slammed, hard. Boris slapped his forehead. “Fuck.” Before I realized what he was doing he’d shoved Popper in my arms, seized me by the collar of the shirt, hauled me up, and pushed me in the back. “What—?” He flung out a hand—just go. “Dog,” he hissed. “My dad will kill him. Hurry.” I ran through the kitchen, and—as quietly as I could—slipped out the back door. It was very dark outside. For once in his life, Popper didn’t make a sound. I put him down, knowing he would stick close, and circled around to the living room windows, which were uncurtained. His dad was walking with a cane, something I hadn’t seen. Leaning on it heavily, he limped into
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