"Yes, Miss Ellumdorf," chanted the child nasally.

It took Elaine nine and a half years to be graduated from the eighth grade. She had entered grammar school when she was seven, and she was graduated when she was sixteen.

At her graduation she wore lipstick, as did only one other child: an Italian girl named Theresa Torrini, who was eighteen and the mother of an illegitimate child by a taxi driver named Hugo Munster. At graduation, Phyllis Jackson, aged twelve, delivered the valedictory; Mildred Horgand, also twelve, played "Elegie" and "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place" on her violin; Lindsay Feurstein, just turned thirteen, recited "Gunga Din" and "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud"; Thelma Ackerman, thirteen-and-a-half, tap-danced with maximum intricacy, and gave her impressions of Eddie Cantor and Red Skelton. And there were others whose names featured prominently in the mimeographed programs: Piano Selections-Babs Wasserman; Bird Calls Dolores Strovak; What America Means to Me-an original essay, by Mary Frances Leland. None of the latter group was over thirteen, and Dolores Strovak, who knew and could repeat the calls of thirty-six different birds, was only eleven.

These individual accomplishments were followed by a pageant, entitled "The Blood of Democracy," which included in its cast the entire graduating class.

Elaine Cooney enacted the part of the Statue of Liberty. Hers was the only nonspeaking part in the pageant. She was required simply to stand with her arm raised for nearly fifty minutes, supporting a torch made of solid lead, painted bronze-a piece of property conceived and wrought by Marjorie Briganza's brother, Felix, a young pill. Elaine never dropped the heavy thing. She never relaxed under the weight of solid lead and, something heavier, unsung responsibility. Neither seemed to weigh heavily upon her. Nor did she once furtively scratch her golden head, which was adorned with a light, tight cardboard crown. It didn't even seem to itch.

Twice during the pageant of "The Blood of Democraq," Elaine's left foot, unbelievably small for a girl of her height, was tramped upon with all the ruthlessness of accident by both Estelle Lipschutz and Marjorie Briganza. At neither time did Elaine even wince. She lost a little color, temporarily.

After the graduation exercises Elaine went with her mother, her grandmother, and Mr. Freedlander (the "super"), to see a film her mother had particularly wanted to see all week, at the neighborhood movie. Elaine seemed to find the occasion unbearably festive, the fourth-rate feature picture exceptionally engrossing, happy-making. The Mickey Mouse cartoon made her laugh so hard that her almost-violet, great eyes wept ecstatic tears, and Mrs. Hoover had to slap and half-punch her on her lovely back to shock her out of hysteria, reminding her irritably that it was only a picture, and there wasn't any sense crying about it. During the entire show Mr. Freedlander pressed his leg against Elaine's. She made no attempt to move her leg away from his. She simply was unaware of the imposed intimacy. She was sixteen years old and mature enough physically to like or dislike leg pressure from a man in the dark, but she was totally unqualified to accommodate sex and Mickey Mouse simultaneously. There was room for Mickey; no more.

The summer following her graduation from elementary school Elaine chiefly spent attending the movies with her mother, and listening to afternoon dramatic serials on the little, faulty-toned radio in their living room. She had no girl friends of her own age, and she knew no boys. Boys whistled at her, boys wrote clean or dirty notes to her, boys said "Hiya, beautiful" to her in hallways, in drugstores, on street corners; but she didn't go out with any of them, or even know any of them. If they asked her to go for a walk; or to a movie, she said she couldn't, that her mother wouldn't let her. This was not true. The question had never even come up at home. Elaine was not unwilling to go out with boys, but she was unwilling to be confused by unfamiliar, evadable issues.

So Elaine went through July and August of the summer of her graduation from elementary school, living in a Hollywood- and radio-promoted world peopled pled with star newspaper reporters, crackerjack young city editors, young brain surgeons, intrepid young detectives, all of whom crusaded or operated or detected brilliantly when they were not being sidetracked by their own incorrigible charm. Everybody in Elaine's world combed his hair beautifully, or had it tousled attractively by an expensive makeup man. All of her men spoke in deep, trained voices that sometimes swooped pleasantly through a sixteen-year-old girl's legs. On and on Elaine and her mother drove on foot, from one soap opera to the next, from one movie house to the next. They presented a strange picture, walking together on hot Bronx streets. Mrs. Cooney, and sometimes Mrs. Hoover, ever looking like centuries of literary Nurses, Elaine ever looking like centuries of Juliets and Ophelias and Helens. The troll-like servants and the beautiful mistress. Bound for a rendezvous with Romeo, with Hamlet, with Paris . . . bound for a rendezvous with the Warner Brothers, with Republic, with M.G.M., with Monogram, with R.K.O.... there were thousands of Bronx people who saw them on their way. There was never one to cry out, to wonder, to intercept....

Early in September, shortly before high schools opened, there was an irregularity in the program. One of the ushers at the neighborhood R.K.O. theater, a slight, pale, blond boy who carried a white comb in his hip pocket and was constantly running it through his hair, invited Elaine to the beach over Sunday, and his invitation was accepted. The invitation was made while Elaine's mother, who chronically suffered with head colts, saw ht before seating herself to retire to the ladies' room to administer nose drops. Elaine waited in the front lobby of the theater, examining the release photographs of scenes from next week's film. The usher, whose name was Teddy Schmidt, spoke to her. "Hey. Your name's Elaine, ain't it?"

"Yeah! How'dja know?" Elaine asked.

"I heard ya mother call ya around a million times," said Schmidt. "Listen. I mean wuddaya doin' Sunday ? You wanna go to the beach? This friend of mine, Frank Vitrelli, he has this Pontiac convert. I and he and his girl friend, were all driving out to the beach, Sunday. You wanna come ? I mean you wanna come?"

"I don't know," said the recent graduate of P.S. 332, watching him, liking his wavy, effeminate hair.

"It'll be fun. I mean you'll have a good time. This friend of mine, Frank Vitrelli, is a panic. I mean you'll get a good sunburn and all. How 'bout it.

"I hafta ask my mother," Elaine said.

"Swell !" said Teddy Schmidt. "Swell ! I'll pick ya up at nine, Sunday morning. Where d'ya live?"

''Four fifty-two Sansom," Elaine sing-songed.

"Swell ! Be downstairs !"

Mrs. Cooney, snuffing back nose drops, interrupted the conversation. Teddy Schmidt's white, white hands tore her tickets in two, and Elaine followed her mother into the familiar darkness.

When the names of the personnel responsible for the film flashed on the screen, Elaine whispered to her mother, "Mama."

"What?" said Mrs. Cooney, watching the screen.

"Can I go to the beach on Sunday?"

"What beach ?"

"The beach. The usher wants me to go. He's going and I can go with him."

"I don't know. We'll see."

A man's figure appeared on the screen, and Elaine gave it her immediate interest biting her fingernails. The film progressed for ten minutes, then suddenly Mrs. Cooney addressed her daughter. "You don't have no bathing suit."

"What ?" said Elaine, watching the screen.

"You don't have no bathing suit."

"I can get one, can't I ?" Elaine asked.

Mrs. Cooney nodded in the dark, and the subject was closed indefinitely. The screen was becoming involved with a condition which promised the Cooneys a sudden lurch of romance.

The following Saturday night, when Elaine ant her mother were walking home from another film at another theater, Mrs. Cooney gave her daughter certain motherly advice.

"Don't let nobody get wise with ya tomorrow."

"What?" Elaine said.

"Don't let nobody get wise with ya tomorrow. In this man's car or anything. Don't let nobody get funny."

Elaine walked with her beautiful mouth slightly open, listening to her mother.

"Just watch your P's and Q's," Mrs. Cooney advised.

"What?" said Elaine.

"Watch your P's and Q's tomorrow," Mrs. Cooney said, and added somewhat more vehemently, "I hope ya grandma's picked up the papers after her in the livin' room. I'm sick an' tired of pickin' up after her. Pickin' up, pickin' up, pickin' up."

At ten minutes before nine the next morning, Elaine stood in front of the house, with a Kresge dime-store valise containing a cheap royal-blue bathing suit, a thin, easily tearable bathing cap, and a face towel. She set down the valise at her small feet, and waited. It was a stunning, bright day, with special little breezes doing justice to Elaine's hair. At least three cars with men in them passed by her slowly, tooting their horns. One man went so far as to draw up to the curb, reach over and open his front door. "Going my way, kid ?"

"No. This boy's coming for me," Elaine explained.

The man shook his head. "He's not coming," he said. "I got a hot tip."

Elaine was suspicious. "How do you know?" she wanted to know.

The man stared at her. "What's your name, kid?" he asked.

"Elaine. Elaine Coooo-ney."

But just at that moment Teddy Schmidt's party pulled up behind the masher's car. Elaine recognized Teddy in the back of the car, and smiled. The masher drove off.

It was twenty minutes to eleven. Teddy got out of the back of the car. "Sorry I'm late!" he said, without a jot of regret in his voice. "Frank couldn't find the keys!" It was a great joke. He ushered the young girl into the back of the car, and got in beside her. The two people in the front were turned around and staring.

"Elaine, meet Monny Monahan. Monny, meet Elaine. Elaine, meet Frank," introduced Teddy.

Frank Vitrelli acknowledged his introduction by issuing a long, low whistle.

"Hello, kid," Monny said to Elaine, staring.

"Hello," said Elaine.

"Drive on, McGinsberg," ordered Teddy. Frank Vitrelli shifted gears, and the car moved off. "How ya been, Elaine?" Teddy inquired, affecting a casualness for the information of Frank and Monny.

"O.K.," said Elaine, sitting straight in her seat.

"Not bad lookin', eh, Monny?" Teddy asked Monny, who was still staring.

"What do you do, kid?" Monny asked Elaine. "You go to school?"

"I graduated."

"From high school ?"

"No, from 8-B. I'm going to high school next week. George Washington High."

"That's co-ed, isn't it?" Monny said.

"No. Boys and girls," Elaine informed her.

When the gorgeous sun was descending that day, Frank Vitrelli suddenly sprang to his feet, brushing off sand from his hairy legs. "Well," he announced, "I don't care what others want to do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me paddle tennis." He reached down, and with only the slightest exertion of his powerful arm, yanked Monny Monahan to her feet.

"Let's play doubles," Monny suggested. "You play paddle tennis, Elaine?"

"What?" said Elaine.

"You play paddle tennis?"

Elaine shook her head.

"Well, c'mon along, anyway," Monny said to her, glancing at Teddy Schmidt. "It's fun to watch."

"Naa, we'll stay here," said Teddy casually.

Frank Vitrelli abruptly made a little fullback-like movement, lunging his huge shoulders at the lower quarters of Monny Monahan, and in an instant Monny was sitting on his shoulders. She made a painful little grimace, replaced it with a smile, and said, "Oh, you!" to Frank Vitrelli. The latter turned around for the benefit of the others, with his hands so placed and gripped on Monny's thighs to show off best his deltoid muscles. Then, sharply, he twisted about, as though to ward off a sudden and formidable opponent, and galloped off, with his burden bouncing high and painfully on his shoulders.

"He's a panic," commented Teddy.

"He's strong," Elaine observed, basically.

Teddy shook his head. ''Muscle-bound," he said briefly. "See him in the water ?"

"No."

"Muscle-bound.- I mean he's all muscle-bound." Teddy changed the subject.

"Listen. This sand is killing my feet. I mean it's shady under the boardwalk. Let's take a walk."

"Okay," said Elaine, and they both stood up.

For the first time Elaine noticed that the beach was fast becoming deserted. There were a few city die-hards like the Schmidt-Vitrelli party, but it seemed as though all the "regulars" had suddenly folded a single, great, green-and-orange umbrella, and plodded across the scorched sand toward the parking lots. Standing up, Elaine was almost instantly involved in a private, terrible panic. She had never been to a beach before, but she had seen hordes of Coney Islanders in newsreel shots taken annually on the Fourth of July or Labor Day, and the occasion of being on a crowded beach all day had not estranged her violently from the dimensions of her own world. But now - the sudden vast, lonely expanse of a deserted public beach at dusk came as a terrible visitation upon her. The beach itself, which before had been only a fair-sized manifestation of tiny handfuls of hot sand which could slip with petty ecstasy through the fingers, was now a great monster sprawled across infinity, prejudiced personally against Elaine, ready to swallow her up - or cast her, with an ogreish laugh, into the sea. And with the sudden exodus of the beach people, Teddy Schmidt took on a new meaning for her. He was no longer Teddy Schmidt, pretty, wavy-haired, male; he was Teddy Schmidt, not her mother, not her grandmother, not movie star, not a voice on the radio, not- "What's the matter?" Teddy demanded, but softly. Elaine had snatched her hand away from his as they walked, as though it had been charged with high voltage. She did not answer him. As they walked along, everything he said was unintelligible to her. There was only her heart clomping. There was only a frightened prayer that the beach and ocean change into a Bronx street, with tooting horns and clanking trolleys and jostling clothed people. She listened only for the beach to move, to spring, to swallow up.

The sand and air under the board walk was cool and clammy, and there were smells of sea things and picnic. But it was dark and, abruptly, retreatful for Elaine, and the farther she walked under the boardwalk with Teddy, the more intelligible his conversation became, the less her heart clomped.

"Too cold here?" Teddy asked, in a peculiar voice.

"No !" Elaine almost shouted. Like a child with its head under blankets, afraid to look at the panic-making silhouettes of objects in the room, she wanted to stay under the boardwalk until the transition to her own familiar world could be made instantaneously.

"Let's sit down," Teddy said, at the right moment. His mediocre heart had begun to pound excitedly, because with the eternal rake's despicable but seldom faulty intuition, he knew it was going to be easy ... so easy....

At that moment, on the paddle tennis courts Monny Monahan walked up to net and said to Frank Vitrelli, "Let's go back, huh? My feet hurt."

"One more set."

"I don't like that guy there with that kid."

"What guy?" Vitrelli said, turning to look at the players in the next court.

"No. I mean Schmidt."

"Teddy ? Oh, he's a good guy. C'mon. You serve," said Vitrelli, and jogged back to his own base line.

Monny served, - hating Vitrelli, but aware that he made sixty-five dollars a week, aware of the great potential security of him.

When she came in from that first night under the boardwalk with Teddy Schmidt, Elaine was required to relate very few details of the day. Her mother was washing her hair, her soapy head bent over the hand bowl in the bathroom. Her grandmother was asleep.

"That you, Elaine?"

"Yes, Mama." Elaine walked into the bathroom, and watched her mother wash her hair.

"Have a good time?"

"Yes."

"The suit shrink?" her mother wanted "I don't know," Elaine said.

"You eat anything?"

"We had hot dogs. With relish."

"That's nice," said her mother.