Sometimes Pär is only one good meal away from being ruled by full-out savage barbarian instinct. Even at his most civilized, he gets kind of funny about things like food sometimes. I'm so used to it that I tend to forget it's not... you know. Not exactly normal.

Of course if I'd ever been in the market for "normal" I wouldn't be with Pär.

He and I had brunch at The Homemade Cafe, a very cosy little place which serves good brunch food. At one point while we were eating and talking, I noticed a blond hair dangling from Pär's fork. I reached over to pick it off. Pär glared at me, and instantly hunched protectively over his plate.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"I just wanted to lift this hair off your fork. Relax, I'm not going after your food."

"My food."

"Yes, it's yours."

"Mine!"

"I know! Chill out!"

He remained hunched over his plate, fork pointed threateningly at me. He made tiny little stabbing feints toward me with the fork.

"I'm not going to touch your food," I sighed.

"Don't even look at it."

"Okay, I won't look at it." I gazed calmly off into the distance.

He finished the last of his meal. Eyed mine.

"Are you going to eat that?" He gestured toward the side of my plate where a few discarded corners of sandwich crusts sat.

"Eat what, the bits of bread crusts?"

He nodded, fork hovering.

"No, they're all yours."

"Yay!" He ferociously speared the crusts and ate them with gusto.

"What is with you?" I asked. "You just finished a huge platter of huevos rancheros."

"I think I'm having another growth spurt!"

"Good lord. In what direction, outward?"

That got a glare. "I want to grow new bones and stuff."

"I think you've already got the full complement of bones. How many more do you need? What, you want an extra arm or something?"

"Well, maybe not new bones, but bigger bones."

He's already a strapping six-foot-five. At this rate, he won't be able to get through doorways soon. And he'll be downright dangerous with a fork in hand.

We were driving in the car when "P.Y.T." came on the radio. Apparently this is one of the big American pop hits that didn't make it to Europe, because Pär seemed unfamiliar with it.

"Is this Michael Jackson?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Huh," he said. He listened for a moment to the lyrics.

"I want to looove you, (P.Y.T.) Pretty Young Thing
You need some lovin', (T.L.C.) tender lovin' care
and I'll take you there...."

Pär squinted at the radio. "How recent is this song?"

"It's off of Thriller, from back in 1982." (Don't ask me why I still have these facts readily accessible in my brain, okay? Yeah, I bought Thriller in 1982 like every other twelve-year-old. And I liked it.)

"So it came out before the child-molestation lawsuits."

"Long before."

"Good," he said. "Because otherwise this song would be... kind of tacky."

I looked at him. He looked at me. "Yiich," we winced at the same time. He changed the station.