The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman by Meg Wolitzer

when scrambled, could have a single letter added to them in order to make a bingo. That single letter could be a blank, Carl said, or it could be one of many different letters of the alphabet.
    “Dorfman, listen up. This is a little confusing. The most popular bingo stem is SATINE,” Carl said. “If you happen to have these letters on your rack, you can add one of a bunch of different letters to them, and then scramble them all up to make a bingo.” Carl took out a notebook in which he’d written the letters and words down. They included:
     
     
    A, which, when added to SATINE, got you the words ENTASIA and TAENIAS
     
     
    And then:
     
     
    B, which gave you BASINET and BANTIES.
     
    Going through the alphabet, you could wind up with the following:
    C: CINEAST, ACETINS
    D: DESTAIN, DETAINS, INSTEAD, SAINTED, STAINED
    E: ETESIAN
    F: FAINEST
    G: EASTING, EATINGS, INGATES, INGESTA, SEATING, TEASING
    H: SHEITAN, STHENIA
    I: ISATINE
    K: INTAKES
    L: ELASTIN, ENTAILS, NAILSET, SALIENT, SALTINE, SLAINTE, TENAILS
    M: ETAMINS, INMATES, TAMEINS
    N: INANEST, STANINE
    O: ATONIES
    P: PANTIES, PATINES, SAPIENT, SPINATE
    R: ANESTRI, ANTSIER, NASTIER, RATINES, RETAINS, RETINAS, RETSINA, STAINER, STEARIN
    S: ENTASIS, NASTIES, SEITANS, SESTINA, TANSIES, TISANES
    T: INSTATE, SATINET
    U: AUNTIES, SINUATE
    V: NAIVEST, NATIVES, VAINEST
    W: TAWNIES, WANIEST
    X: ANTISEX, SEXTAIN
    Z: ZANIEST, ZEATINS
    Duncan was overwhelmed. “But I don’t know most of those words!” he said. “I mean, I know a few . Like SALTINE, of course. I’ve eaten those. Or . . . or . . . SEITANS, which is a vegan thing that my aunt cooks. Or . . . TEASING. I’ve been teased a lot. But most of them, they’re just nonsense to me. Like BANTIES.”
    “Yep, good old BANTIES,” said Carl. “I taught myself to remember that one. Here’s how I did it. The word sounds a little like BANTAM, which is a chicken, right?”
    “If you say so.”
    “It is. And it also sounds like—this is embarrassing—PANTIES. I know this is going to sound strange,” Carl explained, “but, see, I pictured a chicken wearing girls’ underpants. And a few months ago, I was playing a game and guess what? I had a blank and SATINE. And I suddenly remembered BANTIES. That little word gave me a ton of points, Dorfman.”
    With Scrabble, Duncan saw, you didn’t need to be a genius. You didn’t even have to know what the words meant, though it could be more interesting—and sometimes useful—if you knew the meanings of some of the strange ones. Duncan thought about the word AA, for instance, which he had looked up in the Scrabble dictionary and found out that it meant “rough, cindery lava.” If he hadn’t known it was a noun, he might have tried to add ING onto the end of it, thinking it was a verb. And, of course, AAING would’ve probably been knocked right off the board by his opponents.
    Or if someone had put down the word FOCI, which happened to be a plural of the noun FOCUS, and Duncan hadn’t known it was already plural, he might have tried to add an S to it, making FOCIS, which also would have been knocked off the board.
    But as Carl said, it wasn’t necessary to know what the words meant. You mostly had to know which ones were good, and which ones weren’t.
    When the games were done, both Duncan and Carl felt restless from sitting for such a long time. “Come on,” Carl said, and he grabbed a soccer ball and they ran outside into the Slaters’ enormous yard. The wind was like a whip, but they kicked the ball, which was sent smashing by Carl and sent slowly rolling by Duncan. Today, it didn’t really seem to matter that Duncan was lousy at soccer. It felt good to be outside in the cold, running around and clearing his head of anagrams and openings and bingo stems. The ball hurtled toward him and somehow Duncan managed to block it with his head, sending it thundering back to where it came from.
    “Nice one, Dorfman,” Carl had to admit, and Duncan wanted to have a chance