he older man who lived on the corner never left his house. I had caught brief glimpses of him through his window and, for a moment, inside the shadow of his doorway when he reached a single hand over the threshold to grab some mail. I wondered what had made him so wary of the world beyond his tiny domain.
It was a Saturday, and Saturdays are always boring for me. I figured there was no better time to go on a mission. I put on all the layers I could without overheating and snuck out onto my block. Pretending to be a secret agent, I stuck close to the cover of bushes and trees, slinking along fences, until I reached his yard. I snuck up cautiously to his front steps. Then I realized he was looking at me from his window, stone-faced. In my nervousness I pulled off my hood and smiled my biggest smile. Then I waved and ran away. He must have thought I was wacky.
---
The next day, on Sunday, I was baking with my mom, and I asked if we could make an extra batch for me to bring the man who lived on the corner.
She looked at me with curiosity. “Why do you want to bring him cookies?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I told her. “He just seems so lonely.”
It was afternoon when I brought the cookies over, and the whole neighborhood was frozen in that kind of quiet that always seems to settle in on Sundays. When I knocked on the man’s door, the sound seemed to bounce back throughout the whole block. Nobody answered. I knocked again, and this time the door opened, just the tiniest fraction of an inch. Inside, everything seemed pitch black.
“Yes, young man?”
“Hey there, mister,” I said, speaking way too quickly. “My mom and I made cookies and I thought you might like them so I asked if we could make an extra batch and we did so here you go.”
I put the cookies down on the on the porch and ran away. As I reached the edge of the yard, the man called after me, still shielded by the door.
“Why do you keep coming over here?”
I shrugged and called back, “I was bored and I thought you might be too!” His door seemed to stay cracked open as I ran back home.
---
The next weekend I went back over to the man’s house. I didn’t have any cookies this time, but I brought my chess board. I called out as I knocked on his door.
“Hey, mister!”
Once more, the door opened infinitesimally.
“Well, hello, young man. I thought you might be back. What is it today?”
“I wanted to know if you like to play chess, mister. I brought my board.”
“Chess? It’s been some time. . . . But, hey, I have an idea. Give me a moment, and let’s walk over to play in the park.”
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Questions
Which detail best reveals the narrator’s empathetic personality?
“I had caught brief glimpses of him through his window and, for a moment, inside the shadow of his doorway when he reached a single hand over the threshold to grab some mail.”
“In my nervousness I pulled off my hood and smiled my biggest smile.”
“‘Why do you want to bring him cookies?’ she asked.”
“The next day, on Sunday, I was baking with my mom, and I asked if we could make an extra batch for me to bring the man who lived on the corner.”