George's Life Wasn't So Bad

George felt a little better around the neighborhood and liked it more though not so much he would want to live in it forever. His father was too shy to say anything about his reading but Sophie showed him in other ways she was proud of him. For a while George didn't pass in front of Mr. Katanzara's house anymore until one night forgetting himself he approached it from a different direction than he usually did when he did. A couple of nights he felt so good that he skipped a park at the end of the evening. He just wandered in the neighborhood where people had known him from the time he was a kid playing punch ball whenever there was a game of it going.