ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 232: Bestowing of Names

Ernie gave Joshua many names. Eeekie Bird . . . The Bald Parrot . . . Oscar Bonaventure . . . Harold Q. Smithing . . . .

Eeekie Bird: excitable, squawking. Flying high one minute and dashed the next.

The Bald Parrot: colorful, a mimic. Light of feathers atop his head.

Oscar Bonaventure: an adventurer with the luck.

Harold Q. Smithing: cool-headed businessman who understands money — risking it, investing it, leveraging it, saving it. Buying and selling and trading and finding a bargain.

When Joshua was very young — a round boy baby — Ernie called him The Mozzarella Cheese Ball.

“I am who I am,” Joshua says, “and I know who I am.”