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And for all the dirty tricks we played on him, he tricked us only once. We were allowed to swim in one of his father's quarries only if we entered and left the water one at a time and with a stout rope tied around our waists...
Owen's father, Mr Meany, insisted on the rope - insisted on one-at-a-time, in-and-out. It was one of the few parental rules from my childhood that remained unbroken, except once - by Owen...
But one fine August day, Owen Meany untied the rope, underwater, and he swam underwater to some hidden crevice in the rocky shore while we waited for him to rise. When he didn't surface, we pulled up the rope. Because we believed that Owen was nearly weightless, we refused to believe what our arms told us - that he was not at the end of the rope. We didn't believe he was gone until we had the bulging knot at the rope's end out of the water. What a silence that was!- interrupted only by the drops of water from the rope falling into the quarry.
No one called his name; no one dove in to look for him. In that water, no one could see! I prefer to believe that we would have gone in to look for him - if he'd given us just a few more seconds to gather up our nerve - but Owen decided that our response was altogether too slow and uncaring... He swam to us, angrier than we'd ever seen him.
'TALK ABOUT HURTING SOMEONE'S FEELINGS!' he cried. 'WHAT WERE YOU WAITING FOR? BUBBLES? DO YOU THINK I'M A FISH? WASN'T ANYONE GOING TO TRY TO FIND ME?'
'You scared us, Owen,' one of us said. We were too scared to defend ourselves, if there was any defending ourselves - ever - in regard to Owen.
'YOU LET ME DROWN!' Owen said. 'YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! YOU JUST WATCHED ME DROWN! I'M ALREADY DEAD!' he told us. 'REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE.'