“Nah,” he said. Then he headed down a narrow, winding trail that ran along the edge of the river, through some trees. The path was sandy and rutted. Puffs of dust followed us. The trees looked kind of dried up and dead. I followed him and tried not to look over the edge into the river below. One fall and you’d end up falling down the bank into the water. Ben hit a jump coming out of a turn, flew into the air, and disappeared down the trail. If he’d landed a foot to the side he’d have ended up way below in the river.

When I caught up with him he had stopped, and his bike was leaned against one of the scrawny, dusty trees.

“That’s the gorge,” he said and pointed down. Below us—like way, way below us—was a pool of water. There were rock ledges sticking out all the way down. I hoped he wasn’t suggesting that we—

“We’re going to jump,” he said.

You would have freaked, Larry. It was the least safe activity I’ve ever seen, never mind tried. Worse than those bike videos I’ve been watching.

At first, I hoped that I heard him wrong.

“Like from lower down?” I said.

“Nah, that’s for wusses,” said Ben. “We jump like men!”

I looked at him. He was my size, but skinnier from doing so much physical activity and having a dad who didn’t seem into eating. Ben wanted to act like a man. I wanted to act like a…well, someone who liked being alive so he could play games and watch stuff and eat pot pies. If being a man meant risking my life by jumping off a cliff, I would give that a hard pass, which is what my dad used to say when he really didn’t want to do something, which, now that I think about it, was actually quite a few things.

All I said was “oh.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ben. “Hardly anyone has died doing it.”

I stared at him. I thought he was joking. “I don’t have my swim stuff,” I said. I didn’t mention that I liked to go out to the pool with my scuba mask and swim fins and that we used to float around on huge floaties shaped like flamingos and slices of pizza.

“Bare ass it!” he said. “Live free!”

I had never once thought about bare-assing it. Imagine my sister and her friends, sitting under the umbrella in their big hats, watching, disgusted, as we swam around naked in our pool. My dad might have done it, but that’s because he’s English. And he wouldn’t have done that in front of my sister and her friends. At least, I hope not.