“I F YOU WANT TO IMAGINE the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends. And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot…no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human… Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield…. …forever.”