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"Aunt Queen soon took her leave, but not before hiring a young lady to 'ho up to Blackwood Manor every day

"This teacher wasn't really a very effective person, and one

"The next and the next weren't ood either

"Goblin hated these teachers as much as I did They wantedand to paste strips of paper froazines onto cardboard And for thewhich seems, I think in retrospect, to assume that a child's mind is different from that of adults I couldn't bear it I learned quickly how to horrify and frighten theone With the fury of an only child with a spirit of his own, I wanted theone

"No ain

"We had the run of the far out so on television, a sport I've always loved -- in fact, the only sport that I love to watch and still do watch -- andthe ghosts in the old cemetery several times

"As for the ghost of William, Manfred's son, I saw hi room, and he seemed as oblivious to me as Aunt Camille on the attic stairs

"Meanwhile Little Ida read lavishly illustrated children's books toand looking, all of us crowded on the bed together against the headboard, and I learned to read a little with her, an

d Goblin could actually read a book to me if I had the patience to listen to him, to tune in to his silent voice inside my head On rainy days, as I'veHe could read a whole poe in the summer rain, he could stay perfectly solid for an hour

"Sometime in these early years I realized that I had a treasure in Goblin, that his knack for understanding and spelling words was superior to mine, and I liked it, and I also trusted his opinion of the teachers, of course Goblin was learning faster than I was And then the inevitable happened

"Ies than I could have ever written In the kitchen, where I sat at the big white-enameled table noith the adults, Goblin scrawled out in crayon on paper so in Pops' truck We'd like to go to the cock fights again We like to see the roosters go at it We want to place bets ¡¯

"Little Ida witnessed this and so did Jas, and Sweetheart just shook her head, and Pops was silent too Then Pops did a clever thing

" 'Now, Quinn,' he said, 'you're telling us Goblin wrote this, but all I see is your left hand ht, you copy those words for us Tell Goblin just to let you copy I want to see how your hand is different from his ¡¯

"Of course I had a difficult ti was much neater and squared off when I did it, the way Little Ida had taught me to print, and Pops drew back and was amazed

"Then Goblin grabbed uided it as he wrote in his characteristic spidery scrawl, 'Don't be afraid of me I love Quinn ¡¯