5

Grace said, “No. Tell me it isn’t true, Macey. You are not still taking your shortcuts. Tell me you have grown up and you use sidewalks or, better yet, cars.”

“I am extremely grown-up, I am remarkably mature, and I trespass at every opportunity.”

“Is the barbed wire still there, or have you cut it down, rolled it up and made it easier on yourself?”

“It’s somebody else’s barbed wire, Grace, I’m not going to damage it. I’m not a vandal or a thief. I’m a simple trespasser.”

Grace moaned. “Oh, for a driver’s license and a reasonably sane friend.”

They reached the barbed wire and Grace rolled her eyes, walked up and down the fence, discovered no way around, and let Macey hold the wires for her. “Good thing I’m a size six,” said Grace. “How do you fit through?”

“I happen to be a ten, thank you, not an eighteen.”

“We petites,” said Grace.

“Will end up dead with one more remark about size,” said Macey. They reached her board in the swamp, and Macey put her weight on it to test it.

It didn’t bounce. There was somebody at the other end of the board.

For a heart-stopping second she was afraid, and then she said, “Oh, hi, Aus.” She wanted to fling herself on him. She stayed at her end of the board. Why had she picked today to invite Grace over to Nana and Papa’s?

“Hey, Mace,” said Austin. And then, with less enthusiasm, “Oh, hi, Grace.”

“Want me to leave?” whispered Grace.

“Like it wouldn’t be too obvious if you turned around and went back through the barbed wire now,” whispered Macey.

From his end of the board, Austin said, “There isn’t a single living creature in this swamp. I’ve been here ten minutes and there’s no bird, no squirrel, no frog.”

Ten minutes? thought Macey. Spent waiting for me, maybe?

He’s your man whether him and you want it or not.

“Probably the end of the world, then, Aus,” said Grace. “The great environmental shutdown has begun and you are there.”

Her grandmother and Venita and Grace agreed that Aus was a cutie. It wasn’t the word Macey would choose. He was too solid for that; too stocky and a little short in the legs. He looked like the foundation for something. Macey’s life, maybe.

“Listen,” said Grace. “That sliding harmonica? A cardinal. That three-note whistle? Red-winged blackbird.”

“I’m not a naturalist,” admitted Austin. He held out a hand to Macey, as if the board were a high wire.

“Your grandfather keeps a telescope on a tripod aimed at the ocean,” Macey reminded him. “You could start there. Watch ducks through the scope.”

Their hands touched. Austin took hers firmly and grinned at her, a grin that lifted his cheeks, resettled his hair and twinkled his eyes. Oh, wow, thought Macey. She was glad now that Grace was along; they could discuss that grin for days.