Dinnertime was approaching rapidly on Saturday, and, as always at dinnertime, tension built in the house. How would we get the cooking done with a bored child at hand? Television came to mind, as it sometimes does.

"I want to watch Nick Jr.," Elijah said.

A cold wind blew across my soul. I saw the future, the Drakes and Joshes, the Hannah Montanas, the Naked Brothers, and the Really Rodneys or whatever the fuck that show is called. Worse, by the time Elijah reached the tween target market, those shows would be long gone, replaced by ones that are even worse.

"Let's see if we can find something else," I said, as I began to scroll through the DirectTV guide. "How about this one? Great Predator Attacks."

"Yeah!" he said. "I want to see predators attack!"

Then I read the description: "Recreated footage shows how three people survived vicious alligator attacks in the swamps..."

"No," I said. "This is not for you."

"Yes it is!" he said. "It is for me!"

The confrontation was building. Then, through the little plate-glass window that opens at the top of our front door, we heard:

"Hellloooooo! Helloooo, neighbor!!!!!"

I went to the door.

It was the lady who lives in the house directly to our west.

This, if you recall, was the woman who gave us half a package of frozen garlic bread as a housewarming present, and who one day, unbidden, pulled up her skirt to show Regina the shorts she had on underneath. More recently, she'd had her floors redone and had put yards of moldy fabric out on the curb, with a sign that read "free carpet and pads." As of today, the carpet and pads were mysteriously gone, replaced by a cardboard box with a Slow Children At Play sign affixed to the front. It's like we live next door to Grey Gardens, only this neighbor has no delusions, and she ain't no Kennedy.

On Saturday, she came a knockin' with purpose.

"I was wondering," she said, "if Elijah likes to watch movies."

"I like the Spongebob movie!" Elijah said.

"He does," I said.

She held up a copy of The Bridge To Terabithia, recently released on DVD.

"I just watched this," she said. "And it's so wonderful. For the imagination. I thought Elijah might like it."

"Like what?" Elijah said.

"A movie," I said.

"I like the Spongebob Movie," he said.

"The only thing is that the girl dies in the end," said our neighbor. "She falls off a rope swing and drowns. That might be a little bit too much for a young boy to handle."

"Nah," I said. "He's seen Bambi. And we had two cats die last year. He's familiar with mortality."

Though I don't remember inviting her in, suddenly our neighbor was in our house, waving her copy of The Bridge To Terabithia in Elijah's face.

"Elijah," she said. "This is a movie about this young gentleman and this young lady who like to draw with their imaginations, and they have many wonderful adventures even though people are trying to stop them."

Cut to the chase, lady, I thought. Elijah was thinking the same thing.

"Are there any monsters?" he said.

"There are monsters," she said. "But they're good monsters."

"I like monsters that eat things with blood," he said.

She didn't quite know what to make of that statement, but she left us the video, letting us know that she needed it back tonight because she didn't want to pay a late fee at the Video Hut on Hyperion.

"Should I just leave it in your mailbox?" I asked hopefully.

"Nope. Just knock-knock," she said.

I put on the movie, and set to cooking.

Regina and Elijah sat in the living room in semi-comfortable straigtht-backed red chairs. We still don't have a sofa. Regina had been moaning with a sinus headache all day, and the Bridge To Terabithia was just what she needed. I was in the kitchen, busy with chicken picatta and potato-and-leek soup. I heard the occasional swell of cheesy music, and my son's increasingly bored questions, which added up, mostly, to "where are the predators?" I heard what sounded like a bunch of 13-year-old girls singing a cover of "Oooh, Child," and I knew I had to rescue my boy.

"Regina," I said. "Could you come in here for a minute?"

She did.

"What?" she said.

"This movie sucks," I said.

"It's pretty pretentious about art," she said.

Few people I know are more pretentious about art than my wife, so this movie must have really been pretentious about art.

"The girl dies in the end," I said.

"How?" she said.

"She drowns."

"Elijah can't watch that," she said.

"Agreed," I said.

I called into the other room.

"Elijah?"

"What?"

"Do you want to watch the Spongebob movie now?" I neglected to add "for the third time in the last 24 hours."

"YES!" he said. "I want to see the red monster again and again and again and again! He tries to eat Spongebob and Patrick and there's a sticky kitty on his tongue!"

The Bridge To Terabithia excited no such response from him, at any point. Our neighbor came knocking half an hour later at the exact moment the movie would have ended based on when we'd put it in. I would have found this creepy, except that I fully understand the need to not pay a late fee at the video store.

"Did he like it?" she asked.

"I think he might be a little young," I said.

"That's OK," she said. "I'll bring more stuff over for him soon."

As Spongebob and Patrick sang I'm a goofy goober, yeah, you're a goofy goober, yeah..., I thought, I'm sure you will.

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