I always muttered aloud as I played all the characters in my story games; and there in the alley that late summer afternoon I was muttering harder than usual as I questioned a snide, sneering German officer I'd captured. Because my story games were always tense and emotional, the volume of my muttering and the vigor of my gestures tended to increase unless, as sometimes happened, I glanced up and blanched to find someone looking at me. I would quickly convert the dramatic monologue into a song (with gestures), because although talking to yourself is a sure sign of being nutty, there is no shame attached to singing to yourself. But I never felt the ploy had really worked, so I would wander away, furious with the eavesdropper for spoiling the game.

Well, I was muttering hard, explaining our desperate situation to my followers, having ordered Doc to blindfold the German officer so he couldn't see the map I was scratching on the ground, when my concentration was snagged by a sharp tapping sound. Annoyed by the interruption, I looked around, but I couldn't see anybody, so I started explaining that we had to stop those Germans from advancing another inch, even if it meant laying down our-again I was interrupted by the tap-tap-tapof metal against glass. I looked up and down the alley. Nothing. I was all alone. Then a movement at the edge of my peripheral vision caused me to lift my eyes, and there looking down at me was Mrs McGivney, our block's crazylady, smiling in that soft, sweet way of hers. Immediately my followers vanished, as did the four or five thousand Nazi Strong Troopers dug in at the far end of the alley, and I was left all alone, the leader of men suddenly shriveled into a skinny little kid caught talking to himself.

The block's belief that Mrs McGivney was crazy was based on her peculiar shopping habits, her excessive shyness, and the long, old-fashioned dresses she always wore. She was never seen on the street except for quick trips over to Kane's Grocery, always at closing time. Even if other people were ahead of her, Mr Kane would serve her as soon as she came in, because she was very timid and would slip away and not come back until the next evening rather than risk being noticed or, yet more upsetting, spoken to. Respecting her sensitivity, Mr Kane never spoke to her. He would just smile and raise his eyebrows above his thick glasses, and she would quickly mutter off her shopping list, which he would fill, toppling cans from their high stacks with his can-grabber gizmo and catching them in his apron with that theatrical brio of his, or scooping macaroni or rice from one of his tip-out bins and hissing it into a little sack on his scales, always bringing the weight up to just a bit more than you asked for, or slicing cheese off the block in the hand-cranked slicing machine.

After filling her order, Mr Kane would tell Mrs McGivney the total cost as he marked it down in the dog-eared book he kept under the counter, a book that was called his 'slate', although it was made of cardboard and paper. Mrs McGivney would take her sack and scurry back across the street to her apartment, never looking up for fear of catching someone's eye. Once a month, she came in with a check, which he cashed for her, subtracting the cost of her groceries. Everyone knew that Mrs McGivney received a small monthly government check for 'disability', which the street understood to mean because she was a nut, but Mr Kane once told me that in his opinion she was just painfully shy. But her reputation for insanity was an element of received street tradition and therefore impervious to evidence or reasoning. Even the modest check she got from the government was taken as proof, if any were needed, that she was insane. How else could a crazylady stay alive? She could hardly get a job... except maybe at a nut factory! And there was the suspicious way she would appear from time to time at her window giving onto the back alley and look down at the kids playing there, not bawling them out for making noise like any sane person would, or shouting at them for throwing stones that might put somebody's eye out. No, Mrs McGivney just smiled down on us sweetly... exactly like a crazylady would do.

And now there she was, standing at her window, smiling down at me after having scattered both my followers and my enemies to the recesses of my imagination.

She beckoned to me. She'd never done that to any of the kids before! I made a broad mime of looking around to see who she could possibly want before pointing at my chest, my eyebrows arched in operatic disbelief. She smiled and nodded. I lifted my palms and tucked my head into my shoulders to say, but what did I do? She tapped the window again with a nickel-so that's how she'd made that sharp noise-then she pointed to the coin, then to me, clearly meaning that she intended to give the nickel to me. She beckoned again and made a big round gesture, which told me to go to the end of the alley, around to the street, and to her apartment building. I really didn't want to; my worst nightmares were about being pursued by crazy people. But I was a polite kid, so I went. Even the wildest and toughest of us kids, several of whom ended up in prison and one on death row, would be accounted polite by today's standards. Then too, if there was a chance to earn a little money, I could hardly let it pass me by, considering how my mother regularly risked her health for just a few extra bucks. Resentful of losing my game and dreading my encounter with a crazylady, I left the alley-but not before rubbing out the map with my heel, so the enemy couldn't find out my plans.

The staircase of 232 was dark because the hall windows meant to illuminate the stairs had been blocked up when the slum landlord divided the buildings up into small apartments and put a narrow bathroom into the front of each hall. Although it was dark, I ascended the staircase with a sure step because 232 was identical to 238, where I lived.

I tiptoed up to the top floor landing and stood there in the dark, uncertain. Maybe it would be best to sneak back down and out into the light and bustle of the street, but as I turned, the door to the back apartment opened and Mrs McGivney stood there, smiling.

"Would you mind going over to Mr Kane's for me?" she asked in a little-girl voice. "I'll give you a nickel." Her voice went up on the first syllable of 'nickel' in a kind of sing-song temptation.

"Well, I don't... All right, sure, I'll go." I was relieved that she only wanted me to do a chore for her and not something... crazy.

She had a list written out, and she said Mr Kane would put it on his slate.

When I returned with the small bag of groceries she was waiting at the head of the stairs and she gave me the nickel she had tapped the window with.

"Thanks." I put the nickel in my pocket and patted it to make sure it was there. The year before, I had lost a quarter. It must have just fallen out of my pocket on my way to the Bond Bread bakery to buy a week's worth of what was euphemistically called 'day old' bread. Until it got too dark, I walked back and forth along my path, hoping to find the quarter. No luck.

"Just bring the bag in, would you please?"

I followed her into her parlor, where she took the bag and brought it into the kitchen, leaving me standing there. On a round table by the window that gave onto the back alley there were two glasses of milk already poured out and a little decorated plate with four homemade sugar cookies on it. The room was filled with frilly old-fashioned furniture and it smelled of furniture wax and recent baking... the sugar cookies; and in the corner an old man sat facing the other window. His eyes were pointed towards the buildings across the alley, but I could tell he wasn't seeing anything. I said he was old, but the only old thing about him was a soft halo of fine white hair that held the sunlight like the lace curtains did. His face was unlined, his skin was tight, and he sat there in a straight-backed chair, staring through the curtains out across the alley with an infinite calm in his unblinking, pale blue eyes. Spooky.