Page 91 of Playworld

Aft—the rear part of a ship.

Corvice—a bridge with a long spike in its end used by the Romans for grappling and boarding.

Devil—the longest seam on the bottom of a wooden ship.

Devil to pay—caulking the seam of the same name. When this job is assigned, it is given to the ship’s goof-off and thus comes the expression “You will have the devil to pay.”

Who knew? Not I, the ship’s goof-off. Caulking the seam until he abandons ship. Which I now considered. Or, if I were to stay, if I were to stick it out, at the very least I’d ultimately hand off that role to someone lowlier, yes? I took a moment to gaze out the window. We were passing the Museum of Natural History, the building’s footprint stretching two full city blocks, and in my mind, I was a child again. Mom had practically raised Oren and me there, we spent so much time racing through its corridors. I spotted the Seventy-Seventh Street entrance, our usual point of ingress, and a map of its levels, long ago memorized, floated before me in three dimensions, and I mentally made my way through the Hall of New York State Environment, past the log-sized earthworm and cross section of the redwood with its historical markers at each ring, through the Hall of North American Forests and the Hall of Biodiversity to my destination, the Hall of Ocean Life, where, after a loop around the mezzanine, Idescended the wide stairs to the bottom level, where I’d lie on the floor, beneath the blue whale, feeling the subway rumble below, waiting until Mom and Oren finally caught up with me. And when they did, I would walk them past every diorama and, like a tour guide, supply the scientific name of every creature—Architeuthis,Physeter macrocephalus—my recall as perfect as a marine biologist’s.

I found Mom in her bedroom, seated at her desk, typing an essay she’d handwritten on a yellow pad. There were Henry James novels piled around her. Her Smith Corona hummed with current. She was a superfast typist, she didn’t need to look at the keys, and when she hitReturnand the platen slid to the right, the whole table shuddered.

“Hey, Griff,” she said, and kept typing. “Did you sleep at Tanner’s last night?”

“No,” I said. “I was here.”

“Oh.”

“Where’s Oren?”

“He and Matt are at Dad’s studio.”

“Doing what?”

“Recording something, I think.”

“What does ‘q.v.’ mean?” I asked.

She paused to look at me. “I thought you took Latin,” she said.

I’d failed middle school Latin, which she just now recalled.

“Quod vide,”she said. When I repeated the phrase, still perplexed, she added, “ ‘See which.’ ”

“Like…the monster?”

“What?” she said, and squinted. Then she chuckled. “No. As in: ‘With regard to this matter, go see x.’ ”

“Ah,” I said.

She resumed her typing.

“What about ‘tyro’?” I asked.

She nodded toward theMerriam-Websteron the table. “Look it up,” she said.

Standing there, I flipped through the dictionary’s onionskin pages until I found the definition: “a beginner in learning anything; novice.”

“Can I borrow this?” I asked.

“Only if you bring it back,” Mom said.

Later, in our room, while I was studying theMonster Manual,Oren appeared.

“Yo,” he said when he entered. He was wearing sunglasses and his Walkman headphones. He was also carrying a bag from Tower Records. When I asked Oren a question, he pulled one of the earphones away from his head.

“I said,” I repeated, “why are you wearing your sunglasses inside?”

“Because I’m maxing and relaxing,” Oren said.