He’s never liked reading. Only his magazines about birds, he says, or about nature in general. But with novels he gets lost. Whenever he starts to read one, his head goes somewhere else, not because he gets distracted, but quite the opposite—because he gets too deep into the story! He gets attached to the protagonist, or some other character, and he imagines they’re him, or he’s them. He can’t help but change the story, imagine what he would do if he were in their place, choosing one path or another for himself. Sometimes he imagines himself as several characters at the same time, and then it’s all a big mess. By the time he realizes, he’s reading without following the story at all. He can read entire pages without understanding a thing!, while his thoughts just wander freely. Doesn’t that happen to her? The girl shrugs her shoulders. She doesn’t like to read either, she admits.

Then why do you have a book in your backpack?

A blackbird slips through the bushes, sees them, and flaps away as fast as it can, making a racket. The bird distracts the old man and gives the girl time to think of a valid reply to such a silly question. Why does she have a book in her backpack? She’s not going to mention school. If she does mention it, he’ll ask what grade she’s in and then do the math. She can say that it’s her brother’s book. A book she borrowed from her brother’s room—it’s a logical answer since her brother has tons of books, and now that he’s gone she can borrow as many as she wants. She’s about to say just that, that the book belongs to her brother, when the man gets up, brushing bits of grass from his pants and stretching his limbs as if his whole body hurt. Oof, he complains, his body isn’t meant for sitting cross-legged on the ground anymore! The girl wonders just how old this old man is. This old man who, incomprehensibly, still has not asked her age.