With nobody in sight I waited, then edged away from home base slowly, slowly, daring myself to go farther and farther. I was inviting my siblings to take their chance at stealing the peg and felt primed for the race that would follow. But when Pim darted from his hiding place to make a bid for the win, I saw him only after he’d swooped, after he’d already grabbed the trophy from the hole in the ground. He was so quick, the lightness of his frame, his ribs visible through his T-shirt.

“I see you, I see you!” I shouted, and I took off after him, the dirty soles of his feet kicking up as he flew into the long grass, giggling. He picked a clean line through the stalky, dryer patches of land that three months of heat had turned brittle. All I knew was I was going to catch him; I was going to be the guarder next round. He wasn’t going to steal my lemonade. I followed, thirty, forty feet behind, my sprinting body reflected strangely in the dull chrome of the granary walls.

At the foot of one of the grain trucks Pim stopped and turned, dwarfed by the huge black rubber of a wheel. He was breathing so hard. His little chest rose and fell, but I didn’t slow down. There was a second when he realized I was still coming for him, that he’d never make it home before I tagged him. I saw a shimmy of panic run through his body as he searched for an escape route. He spotted the ladder on the side of the truck, and he scaled it as fast as he could.

By the time I got to the bottom rung, he was already on the eighth. It was a metal ladder, welded on, the dark peeling paint hot under my fingers. How could he climb so fast without shoes on? Why was he always ahead of me? The injustice coated everything inside my head red.

“Stop, Pim!” I shouted. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just stood there, holding the burning ladder, fuming.

I’ve buried the truth so deep that it’s lost. It has no sound, no contour, no other details to help me verify it. What I’m sure of is that Pim didn’t stop climbing until he was at the top of the ladder, where he crouched on the very rim of the grain truck, holding the edge with his fingers and toes, his body huddled like a sparrow in the rain. He was looking down at me, my little brother. My little bird.

“Pim!” I called, for certain now, a crack in my voice. I climbed up the ladder until I was near enough to reach him, stretching one arm to grab at him as he teetered on his ledge.