I make toast, grab a couple of bananas, and load Cassie, Rover, and a bunch of her toys onto the ATV. At Rolf’s I park under the trees again. Munching on her toast, Cassie goes indoors.

The ladder’s leaning against the wall. While I’m coating my arms with sunscreen, Rolf comes out of the garage. “Hey there,” he says cheerfully. “Another sunny day.” He passes me the scraper. “I sharpened the blade some. Once you finish this wall, you can start the back—it’ll be in the shade.”

Tully stays out of my face all day, and Marigold helps me bundle Cassie onto the ATV that evening. “She took a nap,” she says. “She’s a cutie. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say. She’s still standing there, a quizzical look on her face as though she’s waiting for something. “Um, thanks for everything.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

She really means it. How nice is that.

The scraping’s nearly finished, Tully’s kept her mouth shut, and I’m feeling cocky. I’ll go home along the road.

I back around the garage, then brake at the end of Rolf’s driveway to check for logging trucks. Two ATVs are charging toward us in a billow of dust, the nearer one Snyder McIsaac’s. Snyder is in grade eleven and totals the most penalties for fighting of any player in Midget B.

I move up to Midget in the fall. Weird to think we’ll be on the same team. Or do I mean downright terrifying?

The ATVs stop in front of me, engines snarling.

Snyder says, “If it ain’t Brick MacAvoy, only player in the league who’s never scored a goal. Should’ve known you’d be a nanny in your spare time.”

The other guy thrusts his face at Cassie, his teeth bared in a ferocious grin. She cowers against me.

I can’t take to the ditch because it’s full of rocks. Snyder clambers off his machine and stands next to me so that I have to look up at him. Looking up at someone enforces submission. I read that somewhere.

Then Rolf strolls up and parks himself beside my ATV, hands on his hips. Pitching his voice over the engine noise, he says, “Why don’t you guys move along?”

I can see Snyder weighing the odds. He laughs, thumbs hooked in his jeans like Floyd—except Snyder isn’t lean and mean, he’s chubby and mean. “Guess we’re blocking your driveway.”

“You’re scaring the little girl,” Rolf says. “We don’t like thugs on this road.”

“No need to be insulting,” Snyder says.

He saunters back to his ATV and in an aggressive roar sets off toward #539, his buddy trailing, smothered in dust. Rolf says, “You’re in a tough crowd if you hang with them, Brick.”

“They’re not friends of mine.”

Rolf’s eyes sharpen. “You doing drugs?”