"Boy! Are you lookin' at porn?"

Collin turned from the screen of his ancient I-Mac to find Aunt Libby invading his space. The huge woman filled the whole doorway, her striped cotton dress like a small circus tent. She glared around like she owned the house... which she did, as a matter of fact. Collin hadn't seen her in months, and he'd missed her as much as a virus.

"I think I am now," he muttered.

Aunt Libby shot him a scowl. "Is that any way to be talkin' to ladies?"

Collin didn't see any "ladies" on or off-screen at the moment. He glanced at his monitor again, wishing he could delete his aunt by something as simple as tapping a key. "I'm kinda busy right now," he said. "Havin' browser hangs."

Aunt Libby was about as computer-literate as an average bulldozer. To her the web was a playground of porn created for the corruption of kids. She came rumbling in as if running on tracks, the floorboards popping and squeaking beneath her, and stabbed a finger at the screen.

"That looks dirty to me!"

Collin sighed. "It's a T-rated fantasy game."

"Those kids are half-naked!"

"They live in a jungle," said Collin.

Aunt Libby snorted. "The best I could say it's a waste of your time. I heard about kids gettin' hooked on those games. They're just as addictive as crack! Pretty soon you forget there's a real world." She stared around with her hands on her hips. "An' look at the god-awful mess in here!"

Collin followed his aunt's laser eyes as they roamed the room like a web-crawling spider. Maybe it was a little messy; the bed hadn't been made in -- he wasn't sure when -- and the sheets could have told a few tales. A huge pile of comics fanned over the floor, while others overflowed plastic milk crates. Board-and-brick shelves looked about to collapse beneath a ton of adventure books, while fantasy posters and manga pictures were tacked or taped to the cracked plaster walls. Most of his clothes, T-shirts, jeans and grimy socks, lay scattered wherever they'd landed. There were pizza boxes, candy bar wrappers, potato chip bags, bottles and cans. A rat scuttled out from under the bed.

The big woman glared at the rodent. "That's what comes from livin' like this!"

Collin sighed again. "No, that's what comes from livin' here." He watched the rat make a bust though the window as if the Pied Piper had come to town. "The basement an' attic is full of 'em." Then he smiled. "But they're all yours."

"Don't get smart!" retorted his aunt.

"One of us should."

"Don't sass me, boy! ...An' just look at yourself, like a half-naked savage!"

Collin glanced down at himself: he was wearing only boxer shorts that had once been white but now matched the rat. He turned to a mirror above a dresser cluttered with anime magazines. The glass showed a panther-black boy of fourteen sprawled in a battered old swivel chair. "I live in a jungle, too," he said.

Aunt Libby snapped, "You're a mess just like this room! Sittin' there on your butt all day, playin' all those make-believe games an' fillin' your mind with useless junk! Livin' in some kinda fantasy world 'stead of goin' outdoors in the healthy fresh air!"

Collin turned to the window, open because of the late-August heat. Tattered curtains swung in a breeze like the breath of an oil-burning dragon. Drips of tar like licorice whips hung from the eaves of the house next door as West Oakland roasted beneath a mean sun. Garbage cans baked in the alley below, and the only thing fresh were newly-hatched maggots. A gunshot popped a few blocks away, and Collin raised an eyebrow.

"'Bout the tenth one today, but I think I lost count. ...Livin' here in my fantasy world."

Aunt Libby glared at Collin again. "There's plenty of good healthy physical stuff a boy your age could be doin'. 'Stead of rottin' your mind with comic books an' nasty little computer games. You're wastin' away your childhood, boy!"

Another gunshot sounded. "One more childhood bites the dust."

Aunt Libby sniffed. "When was the last time you took a bath?"

"That's called a non sequitur," said Collin. "Means a comment not relevant to whatever preceded it."

"Don't sass me, boy!"

"You said that already."

The computer spoke through a boom-box speaker that Collin had rigged... his desk looked like an electronic junkyard. "You have been inactive a long time. Do you want to continue this session?"

Collin tapped keys. "Okay," he said, turning back to his aunt. "My room's a dump in a fantasy world, my mind's as rotten as your nasty house, an' I'm a half-naked savage who smells. Now we agree about somethin', right? Wanna hold hands an' sing We Are The World?"

He faced the flickering screen again, hoping she'd take the hint and beam out. When she didn't, he added, "I know you don't understand computers, but this one's stressed to the max an'... Shit!"

"Collin!"

"It froze again dammit!" Collin stabbed keys, though knowing it wouldn't do any good. The only way to get out of a freeze was to kill the power and start again, which could flat-line the hard-drive. "Shit!"

"Collin Thatcher!"

"Oh, got to hell!" roared Collin.

That froze his aunt for a second, but she had an automatic restart. "I'm gonna have me a talk with your father!"

"We heard it all before," muttered Collin, still trying to break the freeze.

"But this time you're gonna listen! I've stood by for almost ten years watchin' the both of you mess up your lives. It's time your father got a him a job. ...A real, genuine, J.O.B.! An' you're turnin' out every bit like him... a lazy, no-account, dreamer!"

Collin's eyes narrowed to ebony slits as he swung around to face his aunt. "My dad ain't lazy! An' you never had a dream in your life! You only make nightmares for everybody else!"

Aunt Libby chose not to hear that. "You're reinforcing each other's negative behavior, an' I been enabling you!"

"Yeah, right," muttered Collin. "Try tellin' me somethin' you didn't get from some clueless fool on TV."

"An', you're obese!"

Collin laughed. "Want me to help you look?"

"Look for what?" demanded his aunt.

"Your mind," said Collin. "You finally lost it. But that's no big surprise 'cause it's the smallest thing you got."

Aunt Libby tried to look dignified. "I have large bones."

"So does a hippopotamus."

Aunt Libby spun her bulk around and lumbered out of the room. The house seemed to shake as she tromped down the stairs.

Collin toggled the power switch, hoping the stressed-out CPU -- an electronic rat on a rusty treadmill -- wouldn't have a heart-attack. Then he sprawled in the chair with his arms hanging down and his legs spread under the rickety desk. The old computer sputtered to life and began to check its feeble functions. Its clock showed 6:17. It would probably take at least half an hour to navigate back to where he'd been before Aunt Libby attacked. He could hear her "engaging" his father downstairs... not a smart move since he'd been at work at his own computer with a deadline to meet on his book.

Collin blew out a sigh as the weary old Mac prepared itself to plow through the web at the pace of an arthritic snail. He snagged a bag of potato chips and munched them while sipping a can of warm Coke. He considered going down for a cold one, but he didn't want a re-boot with Aunt Libby.

Broiling breeze invaded the room, bathing his body in oily stinks of oozing asphalt and stewing garbage. There were two more shots from the neighborhood park, but otherwise the streets were still. Collin leaned forward over the desk as the screen finally cleared for new commands. Sweat ran down from under his arms, dripped from his face and spattered the keyboard. He checked himself in the mirror again: only a rabid health-nazi blogger would have called him "obese." His chest was a pair of proud oval shapes and his biceps hard as stones, but he did have a cartoonish basketball belly that filled his lap and rolled over his legs.

He fingered his father's Army dog tags that hung on a chain around his neck, then glanced in the mirror again. His bushy dandelion-thistle of hair hadn't been cut for at least six months and shadowed a face with gentle cheekbones and a wide but almost bridgeless nose. His lips were full and expressive, tending to rest in a half-open pout, and displaying a pair of large front teeth. His eyes were large, midnight black, and slightly tilted up at the corners. His shoulders were wide and solidly squared despite a careless posture; but his belly had grown a lot this summer and wouldn't fit under the desk anymore. He cradled it like a basketball and grinned at the cartoonish boy in the glass. "Trapped in a world I never made. Just like Howard The Duck."

A siren suddenly screamed up the block, and there were sounds of running feet. Collin hoisted himself from the chair like a heavily pregnant girl. Leaning backward to balance his belly, he followed it to the window and saw two boys run into the alley. They were close to his age, shirtless and muscled like young superheroes, and looked as if they were enjoying the chase. A cop car roared past, losing its prey. The boys disappeared up the alley, one vaulting over a garbage can for no special reason except he could.

The computer made a sonar sound. Collin plopped down in his chair once more to stack some new commands. Then he sprawled like a prince on a junk-salvage throne, sipping Coke and munching chips while waiting for the machine to catch up. Dust-bunnies drifted across the floor in the baking breeze from the window. Cobwebs and curtains swayed to and fro. From below came the roars of his dad and Aunt Libby, like a hippo engaging a lion. Their battles were nothing new; stirring up shit was Aunt Libby's hobby. Her profession was teaching fourth-grade. She also counseled "at-risk kids"... which might have been why they were.

Collin woke up to find the room dark and his monitor gone to sleep. He glanced at the clock: 7:03. His spherical stomach growled in his lap. Why hadn't his dad called him down for supper, especially since it was his turn to cook? He heard the man bellow a frustrated curse. Was Aunt Libby still here?

The evening breeze was still hot, but now also scented with oncoming rain. Collin shut off the computer. Was it wise to go down with Aunt Libby still ranting? That would make it a three-way fight, and nobody ever really won. He turned on the desk lamp and picked up a comic. The book was in Japanese, but he liked the style of the drawings, and the adventures looked exciting even though he couldn't read them.

His stomach demanded attention with another rumbling growl. It seemed to want to stay round and tight and didn’t like being soft and empty. Being full always felt good in a lazy, careless kind of way, and he'd sprawl in his chair or on the bed and let his mind take him wherever it wanted. He glanced to the open window. He could climb down the vent pipe and go to the market for something to eat, thus avoiding his aunt. He had twenty dollars in his jeans, commission from selling graphic novels and comics on his site. He hoisted himself from the chair and reached for his jeans on the floor. A spider had hopefully webbed them, and he waited for it to abandon ship and scuttle under the bed. His jeans would only button halfway somewhere under his belly... he'd have to get new ones before school started. All his socks were dirty, but who needed socks anyway? Same went for a shirt. Besides, he used them for... other things. Maybe he'd do some laundry tomorrow; those sheets were telling too many tales.

The market was on the next corner, a shabby wooden two-story building with bars on its street-level windows. Despite the evening coolness it felt like spice-scented oven inside, small, and incredibly cluttered with things, its narrow aisles like canyons of cans with shelves on the brink of collapsing. Half the stock was Asian stuff, and Collin passed a snack food display of "dried cuttlefish with minority flavor."

"Yo, Collie."

Seemingly trapped behind a small counter and slowly crushing an old wooden chair was a mammoth fat boy of heroic proportions. He wasn't taller or older than Collin, but must have weighed around 400 pounds. His upper arms were massive, as big around as Collin's thighs, and his chest was like a pair of melons that rested upon a titanic belly that avalanched over his legs. His button-nosed face was as round as a moon, while his eyes were secret obsidian slits hidden by hair that was shaggy, oily, tangled and thick like the rusty-black coat of a woolly mammoth. He wore no shirt in the store's stuffy heat, just bib-overalls with unbuckled straps and old-fashioned black and white sneaks. His skin seemed to glow beneath a bare bulb as if he'd been polished with baby oil -- gleaming a dark cocoa-brown -- and he gave off a sort of musky scent, not really bad, just pungent and strong. His eyebrows were furry caterpillars that kissed above his nose. It was hard to tell if smudge on his lip was a future moustache or just city soot.

"Yo, Ralpa," said Collin.

The huge boy had tensed when the door sensor bonged, one hand slipping under the counter to grasp the butt of a shotgun. But he smiled when he saw it was Collin, his rosebud lips as sweet as a baby's, and tilted a thumb at the glowing screen of an almost-new PC. "I was just going to send you a message."

"Syncronicity, man," said Collin. "I was just thinkin' 'bout you."

"Great minds reason alike."

Collin patted his middle. "An' great bellies are usually hungry."

Ralpa's work-space, a small board shelf under a rack of cigarettes, was piled with food wrappers and soda bottles. Ralpa's gun hand went back to work on a bag of barbecue chips, a steady stream from fingers to mouth that filled the air with crunching.

"S'up?" asked Collin, coming over to lean on the counter.

Ralpa bent forward as best he could over his rolly mass. His shaggy mop tumbled over his face, and the orbs of his chest overlapped the shelf as his chubby fingers clattered keys. "I found a cool site," he said. "A boy named Timmy owns it."

Collin shrugged. "The web's full of kid-sites from dumb-ass to dirty."

"This one is neither," said Ralpa from somewhere under his tumble of hair. "Timmy is thirteen and into photography. He seems to have friends all over the world. There is his picture."

Collin squeezed into the narrow space behind the cluttered counter, which was almost totally filled by Ralpa, and peered over Ralpa's massive shoulder. Timmy was on a beach somewhere, clad in only cutoff jeans. His muscular body was coppery tan, as if he spent most of his time on the beach, and his light-blond hair was an albino Afro. Collin didn't know any white kids, but Timmy looked as cheerful as most of them did on TV. He probably didn't have any problems other than schoolwork and possibly girls. Collin leaned against Ralpa's rolly back. "Funny, it's like I seen him before."

"I, too, had that impression," said Ralpa. "He looks rather like the boy in that film, The Blue Lagoon."

"Oh, yeah," said Collin. "I seen that on TV last year. 'Course, I was a lot more interested in Brooke Shields than the dude who was on that island with her." He scanned Timmy's image. "But, he'd be an old man by now. That movie was made a long time ago. An' Brooke Shields is probably somebody's gramma."

"That is true," said Ralpa.

Collin studied the picture then made a face. "You think that's one of them boylove sites?"

Ralpa shook his shaggy head. "I find nothing suggestive of that, as if an adult had created this for some perverted purpose."

"Maybe Timmy's gay?" said Collin. "He's almost too cute, if you know what I'm sayin'."

Ralpa smiled over his shoulder. "I, too, was more interested in Brooke Shields. But, surely you're not homophobic?"

"No," said Collin. "An' don't call me Shirley."

"That joke is rather old," said Ralpa.

"Sorry," said Collin. "There was a gay dude in Math last year. He was pretty cool, an' a way lot smarter than all the thugs. He actually read books. We had P.E. together, too. I showered with him a couple of times, but he never tried to kiss me."

Ralpa laughed. "Did you expect him to?"

"I was more worried about the thugs."

Ralpa sniffed the air. "Was that the last time you had a shower?"

"You ain't no cherry-blossum yourself."

"That is a Japanese metaphor."

Collin laughed. "I don't know what a yak smells like, but you gotta be close."

"I wasn't complaining," said Ralpa. "I find it refreshing to smell someone who does not reek of chemical sweeteners."

"I wasn't complainin', neither," said Collin. He held up a palm that was shiny with oil from touching Ralpa's shoulder. "But, don't you slide out of bed at night?"

"Many people in Tibet believe that bathing washes the natural protection off your body."

"Maybe that's 'cause it's so cold?"

"Possibly," said Ralpa. "Cultural standards and religious beliefs are often shaped by environment."

"Well," said Collin. "Ain't like we gonna meet Timmy for real." He scanned the picture again. "He looks like a Timmy, don't he?"

"He looks every bit like a Timmy," said Ralpa. "Despite being very muscular, he has a quite innocent face." He paused to read for a moment. "He sounds rather innocent, too. A newbie on the web, perhaps. A kid who just built a personal site and does not realize the possible danger of using his real name."

Collin laughed. "How do we know that's his real name?"

"As you said, he just looks like a Timmy. Even his posture is innocent. He has the type of body that American boys are taught to worship, and yet he does not seem to know it. He is not posing or flexing. Or looking suggestive in any way."

Collin studied the pictures again. "You wouldn't even think he pounded his pony. Like, he ain't figured it out yet."

Ralpa smiled. "The last moments of childhood before a boy becomes a man. Or perhaps realizes he is. Do you regret they are past?"

"I guess it's just growin' up," said Collin. "It happens whether you want it or not." Then he smiled. "So you might as well enjoy it."

Ralpa smiled again. “I do."

"So, besides takin' pitchers an' hangin' on a beach, what's Timmy's thing?"

"His uncle makes films," said Ralpa. "A producer-director. After-school television specials."

"That's kinda cool," said Collin. "But, I bet they all about white kids."

"That is also what I thought at first. But..." Ralpa clicked a link and more photos of boys appeared. Though most were white, there were other colors, all in swim trunks or cutoff jeans and usually on beaches. Two boys were in boats, and one poled a raft like Huckleberry Finn.

Collin watched the seamless scroll, wishing he had broadband instead of jerky DSL. "Timmy ain't prejudiced anyway. But, all those dudes look like actors or models, even if they ain't posin'. Like Timmy, they almost too perfect. ...Like, none of 'em ever tried a smoke, or drank a beer, or got all messy by themselves."

"Yes," agreed Ralpa. "One seldom sees people like that in real life. Few boys our age look like Hollywood stars, or even innocent. But, perhaps that reflects Timmy's skill with a camera. And, perhaps, his own innocence."

Collin looked down at himself. "You think I look messy... an' I don't mean that way?"

Ralpa grinned, showing huge white teeth like a chomping beast. "You are asking the wrong person, Collie. To me you are cool, if not innocent."

"Not according to my aunt. She come over a few hours ago an' ragged on me about bein' a mess."

Ralpa patted Collin's belly. "You look as if you enjoy life and feel no guilt in living it."

"Speakin' of which," said Collin. "Got any double-cheesebugers?"

"Tons," said Ralpa. "A new order came today. Snag me a couple too, please. And a another bag of barbecue chips. I will sign Timmy's guest book in hopes of a future chat. Want me to add your screen name?"

"Sure," said Collin. He watched as Ralpa tapped keys, signing his own SN -- Yakboy -- then Collin's, MidniteOne.

"Use our web-mail addresses," said Collin. "I don't want spam from other people who go to that site."

"Yes," agreed Ralpa. "Spam is very American, though I do enjoy the kind in a tin."

"So is porn," said Collin. "My box is full of it every day."

Ralpa laughed. "Of course you do not check it out?"

"Only the good stuff. But, after a while it all looks the same. Sorta like people in movies."

"Some of those girls are quite attractive, real or not," said Ralpa.

"Not when they green," said Collin.

"Green?"

"I got a monitor problem. It's like lookin' at space-aliens."

Ralpa laughed again. "Not very conducive to yanking one's yak?"

Collin tapped his forehead. "I keep my best pitchers up here."

"It is amazing you were able to get that old Mac of yours to accept a new system."

"I found some junk in a dumpster uptown. Added a lot of memory an' replaced the hard drive."

"You are light-years ahead of me in technical knowledge, Night-colored One."

"Don't guess you had a computer in Tibet."

"Not with the bloody Chinese in control."

"Wanna send our pitchers to Timmy? My dad got a scanner an' cam yesterday with the money from his book advance."

Ralpa considered. "Perhaps we should talk with Timmy first. ...When does your father's book come out? I will buy several copies, of course."

"Not till next spring," said Collin. "It takes almost a year for a book to get published. That's why a lot of books for kids don't seem relevant."

"I have noticed that, too," said Ralpa. "Perhaps it is one of the reasons why American children do not wish to read. Is the publisher buying his next book as well?"

"We don't know yet. They probably wanna see if this one makes any money first."

"Always the bottom line," said Ralpa. "He returned to Timmy's gallery. "Timmy seems to prefer watery settings as well as handsome and innocent friends. There are animal paintings with similar themes, as if wet creatures fulfill some deep human need. It seems doubtful if he would wish to be friends with a 400 pound Tibetan boy who has never been to a beach."

"But, you wouldn't tell him you're Tibetan, would you?"

"Of course not," said Ralpa. "Governments have computers which are programmed to scan internet traffic for certain words. 'Bomb' is one example. I am sure that 'Tibet' is watched as well."

"So, why show him what we look like? We could snag some cool pics of 'us' off the web. Like, real fake-ass models."

Ralpa clucked his tongue. "Deception is a poor basis for beginning a friendship, Collie. To lie to someone is like putting a virus into their spiritual computer."

"Well, Timmy probably wouldn't like bein' friends with a black dude from the 'hood neither."

"Then he is very shallow and not worthy of your friendship." Ralpa went to another site, and pictures or woolly brown yaks appeared. "Are you going to get those burgers, Collie? And a couple of forties. We are not as innocent as Timmy."

Collin wound his way through the labyrinth of shelves and got four cheeseburgers out of a cooler. He also snagged two Eightballs and a bag of barbecue chips. Returning to the counter, he put the burgers into the oven, one of those ancient reactors that probably spewed out enough radiation to mutate a turtle at three-hundred yards. Then he went to the comic book rack. Like the rest of the store, it held a multicultural mix for about any taste in West Oakland, ranging from American classics like X-men, Punisher, and Wolverine, to a few black 'zines like Black Panther. There was radical stuff like Kick-Ass, along with many Asian adventures like Dragonball-Z, and Pokemon.

Collin reached for a new Hercules, but then another book caught his eye. It was some kind of Asian comic. He couldn't read the title, but the cover art was kickin' cool, and he'd never seen anything like it. The picture was almost a holograph. It showed three boys of about his own age who seemed to be in a jungle. They were of different races -- at least one was definitely black -- and though the other two boys were Asian, they didn't look like the same kind of Asian. All were naked except for loincloths, and they might have been primitive kids from the past, except they were driving a big rugged truck. It looked like an oversize Army Jeep, its windshield folded down on the hood. The Asian boy at the steering wheel was obviously the leader. He was willowy slender but beautifully muscled, like a delicate sculpture of honey-gold china, and wore a small, short sword. The other boys were armed with spears. The black dude was pretty muscular but had a cartoonish basketball belly -- Collin noted the resemblance to himself -- and the other Asian boy was almost as fat as Ralpa.

Collin took the book off the rack. "What's this?" he called to Ralpa.

Ralpa turned from tapping keys. "Someone asked my father to order it. It arrived yesterday with the other new issues."

Collin studied the title: the letters looked like hieroglyphics. "Is it Korean?"

Ralpa drank from a forty and burped. "I just pass for Korean, I do not speak it."

"Vietnamese?"

Ralpa shrugged. "The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it is not Tibetan."

Collin brought the book to the counter and cracked the other forty. "This cover is off the hook!"

"It is quite unique," agreed Ralpa. "The night-colored boy looks rather like you."

"I noticed that," said Collin. "An' the big dude looks a lot like you."

Ralpa smiled. "Thank you for the compliment. I used to have more beef and less blubber. As a child I worked in a jade mine loading stone in a truck."

Collin flipped through the pages. "Check this out, man. You... I mean the cartoon dude... just put some pirate guy on his back. I never seen a fat kid hero."

"There are many Japanese comics that feature fat kid heroes," said Ralpa. "Cultural values differ. In Tibet fat kids are a sign of prosperity and they are loved and admired."

Collin continued paging the comic. "This is cool! It's really kinda like you an' me. An' some little golden dude. An' we're in a jungle havin' adventures. I gotta have this! ...You said your dad ordered it for somebody?"

"Yes," said Ralpa. "But, whoever asked him to order it did not pay a deposit to put it on hold. That is why it was on the rack. A few kids have looked at it, remarking upon the cover art, but no one seems to know the language."

Collin studied the cover again. "Wonder how they did that? It's like 3-D but you don't need the glasses, an' kinda like them computer cartoons where they use real people for models."

"I have never seen anything like it," said Ralpa. "Though the rest of the book is simply drawn in the usual pen and ink manner."

Collin put his twenty on the counter. "I'ma take it."

The microwave beeped, and he pulled out the burgers, juggling them because they were hot. He gave two to Ralpa, then unwrapped another.

"You will need new jeans for school," observed Ralpa.

Collin patted his belly. "Guess I did gain a few pounds this summer, huh?"

"You look very prosperous, Collie."

Collin took a bite of his burger, then asked through a mouthful of meat and cheese, "You gonna home-school again his year?"

Ralpa also chomped a big bite. "I'm too fat to fit in a public school desk. But, considering the quality of American schools, both myself and my parents prefer a tutor."

Collin gulped from his forty. "Wish we could afford one."

"You are quite intelligent, Collie."

"You mean for a black dude?"

"Not at all, Collie. For anyone." Ralpa took another bite of his burger. "There is still knowledge in public school. It is rather like a free buffet, but when it comes to filling their minds most American kids are on diets. You, on the other hand, are not."

Collin shrugged. "Dad's always been pretty strict about grades."

"He is a good father, Collie."

Collin crunched a mouthful of chips. "Too bad my aunt's too stupid to know it."

The computer announced, "You've got mail!"

Ralpa keyed his mailbox. "It is from Timmy."

"I thought you gave him our web-mail addresses?"

"I did. But he must have searched for my screen name."

Collin squeezed behind the counter to read as Ralpa scrolled the letter:

Hi Yakboy and MidniteOne! Thank you for writing to me! I hope that we will be friends! I live in San Francisco, California. (That's in the U.S.A.) Where do you guys live? How old are you? What kind of stuff do you like? Please write back and send me your pictures. My uncle makes movies and he is always looking for cool dudes!

Timmy

"He sounds pretty normal," said Collin. "An' maybe a little innocent. Tellin' us where he lives."

Ralpa finished his first burger and took a gulp of malt. "He gave no specific address, and there must be thousands of Timmys in a city the size of San Francisco. I would say that he is relatively safe from all those sinister 'web-predators' that Americans seem so paranoid about."

Ralpa unwrapped his second burger. "I do not think we would need to worry about revealing our location. It does not seem likely that a 'predator' would venture into this neighborhood."

Collin laughed. "Yeah, he'd meet some real predators! An' who'd wanna kidnap us anyway." He reached for his own second burger. "So, you think we should answer him?"

Ralpa chomped more meat and cheese. "At least he can spell, which seems impressive for an American kid."

Collin took a bite of his burger. "Maybe we should send him our pitchers? He might take a look an' blow us off 'cause we sure as hell ain't movie stars."

Ralpa washed down his burger with brew. "My father has a new digital camera. He has taken many pictures of me to send to our relatives back in Tibet."

"Ain't that kinda dangerous?"

"He uses a remailing service."

"You mean, take pitchers now? Like we are?"

Ralpa shrugged. "All of Timmy's friends are shirtless."

"But most of 'em are on beaches," said Collin. "We could go down by the Bay tomorrow. There's sort of a beach at Emeryville. My dad used to take me there on his walks."

"That sounds quite artful," said Ralpa. He took another gulp of malt then glanced at the computer clock. "My parents have gone to a film, and my father told me to lock up at eight so we don't get robbed again."

Collin looked at a picture of the Dali Lama that sat atop Ralpa's computer. "Don't you have good karma?"

"Bad things still happen to good people, Collie. Life is a challenge and we are all avatars. ...Cartoon heros in a manner of speaking. Cast in adventures of various sorts to overcome evil in this incarnation."

Collin sighed. "I don't wanna try an' overcome Aunt Libby no more today."

"Then stay awhile and we'll have a party."

"I could eat another burger."

"Try the barbecue this time. It tastes rather like yak. Get me one also, please. And lock the door if you wouldn't mind." Ralpa relaxed in the protesting chair. "There are some sites that we can check out. ...'Teenage Bimbos Hot 4 U' sounds rather intriguing."

Collin glanced at the Dali Lama. "I thought you were supposed to think pure thoughts."