Charles

“The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me.”

Laurie’s mother sadly points out that her son is growing up and changing drastically as he does. She longs nostalgically for the time when Laurie still cared enough for her to turn and wave goodbye as he left for school. Now, however, she must face the truthful, albeit sad, music of change.

“At lunch, he spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby sister’s milk, and remarked that his teacher said we were not to take the name of the Lord in vain.”

Laurie returns from the first day of kindergarten and begins to behave badly at home. He seems only to care for himself and has no regard for the other members of his family. While this is the first the reader sees of Laurie’s impudence, his parents’ nonreaction suggests it’s not a new development.

“Laurie thought. ‘It was Charles,’ he said. ‘He was fresh. The teacher spanked him and made him stand in the corner. He was awfully fresh.’”

In this introduction of Charles, Laurie goes through the trouble to think of a way to keep the attention focused on him without any of the blame. This creation of Charles is the beginning of Laurie’s descent into weeks of lying to and deceiving his parents. This passage also introduces some of Laurie’s ambiguity; though his mother asks him twice what exactly Charles did to earn this punishment, Laurie only repeats that he was “fresh.”