His teeth were scary—brown and jagged like he didn’t brush them ever.

“How?” I asked.

“Open your hand.  I’ll show you.  Come on, it doesn’t hurt.”  I opened my hand and a red dot appeared.  It was the neatest thing I ever saw.  “You should see it at night,” he said.  “If it were dark I could shoot this beam across Lake Norman and it would light up an entire house.  But you have to be very careful.  If you shine it in your eye it’ll blind you.  You want to try it?”

“Yessir.”  He handed me the laser pointer.

“Push the gray button,” he said.  “Shine it on my hand.”

I pushed the button and shined it on his hand.

The long-haired man sat down in the road and took his laser pointer back.  Then he took a piece of yellow candy from his pocket and ate it.  I wanted one too but I didn’t ask.

“What’s your name?” he said.  He was smiling now.

“Ben Worthington.”

“Ben, that was awfully nice of you to tell me I dropped this.  You could’ve kept it.  You’re an honest boy.  If I give this to you will you be careful not to shine it in your eye?”

“I would be very careful.”

“I can’t give it to you right now.  I have to use it this afternoon but—”

“Why?”

“I lost something in a tunnel and I have to find it with this.”

It made me sad that I couldn’t have it right now.

“But maybe…  No, I shouldn’t.  Your parents probably wouldn’t let you have—”

“Yes they would.”

“No I don’t think—”

“They would too.”

“Ben, if I give this to you you can’t show it to your parents.  Or your brother.  He would steal it and play with it.  Your parents would take it and throw it away.”

“I won’t tell them.”

“You promise?”

“Yessir, I promise.”

“You can’t tell them about me either.”

“I won’t.”  He got up and looked down at me.

“Later tonight I’m going to come knock on your window.  You have to go to your backdoor and open it so I can give this to you.  Can you do that, Ben?”

“Yessir.”

“You have to do it very quietly.  If anyone wakes up and sees me I’ll have to leave and you won’t be able to have the laser pointer.  Do you want to have it?”

“Yessir.”

“Say that you want to have it.”

“I want to have it.”

“Say it again.”

“I want to have it.”

“You’re obedient.  That’s a good boy.  I have to go now.  I’ll see you tonight.”

“Can I do the laser again?”  The long-haired man sighed.

I didn’t think he was going to let me but then he said, “All right, once more.”

8

LUTHER Kite straddles the thickest limb of the pine fifteen feet off the ground.  It is suppertime on Shortleaf Drive, quiet now that the children have been called home, each house warm with lamplight and lively with the domestic happenings of a Sunday night.