We’re getting pretty close to home now—Dad doesn’t know where he is, and it’s up to me to lead the way, so I cross over 45th Street (there’s a little traffic at the lights), and then take a left toward Granma’s house, on one of the quieter back roads. I like showing my dad that I know this place, I like being in charge, but I also worry that maybe when he sees the house again, he’ll think, Ben is bored with me, he’s had enough. But there’s only so long we can bike around. Something has shifted. It’s not like I’ve made up my mind; it’s more like certain things are becoming obvious, and what really needs to happen is everybody needs to talk about them. Maybe Mom will have gotten some lunch ready, we can sit down around the kitchen table, like a family for once, though I’m not really hungry anyway.

Dad doesn’t say anything when he sees the house.

“When do you have to go back to Houston?” I ask him. He’s climbed off the bike and is locking it against one of the streetlamps.

“Not till tomorrow,” he says.

“So we’ve got all day.”

“We’ve got all day.”

I wheel my bike across the lawn, toward the shed at the side of the yard. It’s funny, I can see him standing in the front yard, hesitating—he doesn’t know if he should wait for me or if he should just go in. But then I guess he feels silly, or he makes up his mind, because he walks up the front steps, while I pull at the shed door, which always gets stuck in the grass, and shove my bike inside. Somewhere I hear the doorbell ringing but I also hear, across the fence, the noise of someone jumping on a trampoline—and I stand there listening for a while, to the slap of bare feet on canvas and the jangling of the springs, before I squeeze through the bamboo hedge to tell Mabley I’m staying.

About the Author

Photo by Caroline Maclean

BENJAMIN MARKOVITS grew up mostly in Texas and London. He sat on the bench for his junior high school basketball team in Austin, Texas, but managed, after college, to spend a season in Germany playing on a minor-league professional club team. He has taught high school English, worked at a left-wing cultural magazine, and written essays, stories, and reviews for the New York Times, Esquire, Granta, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and the Paris Review, among others. Benjamin has published eight award-winning adult novels. His awards include the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and a Pushcart Prize, and he was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists. Benjamin lives with his family in London, where he teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. This is his first novel for children.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.