“Spaghetti”by Cynthia RylantIt was evening and people sat outside, talking quietly among themselves.On the stoop of a tall building of crumbling bricks and rotting wood sat a boy.His name was Gabriel and he wished for some company.Gabriel was thinking about things.He remembered being the only boy in class with the right answer that day, and he remembered the butter sandwich he had had for lunch. Gabriel was thinking that he would like to live outside all the time.He imagined himself carrying a pack of food and a few tools and a heavy cloth to erect a hasty tent. Gabriel saw himself sleeping among coyotes.But next he saw himself sleeping beneath the glittering lights of a movie theater, near the bus stop.Gabriel was a boy who thought about things so seriously, so fully, that on this evening he nearly missed hearing the cry from the street.The cry was so weak and faraway in his mind that, for him, it could have been the slow lifting of a stubborn window.It could have been the creak of an old man

abriel no longer wanted to live outside.He knew he had a room and a bed of his own in the tall building.So he stood up, with Spaghetti under his chin, and went inside to show his kitten where they would live together