For a long time, I was sure the boy had always worn a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, the cartoon stretched over his round belly like extended cling wrap. His extra weight was important somehow, a possible explanation – at least to my ten-year-old self – as to why his speech was so sluggish. Children knew when other children sounded ‘dumb’ and this knowledge that I was somehow smarter – more evolved – made it easier to dismiss his words in Underwood Park that day.