I didn’t know exactly what to do. Rachael said, “Oh, let him alone, we’re on vacation for goodness’ sake!”

So Mom said, “Well, I’ll wrap it up for a snack later.”

As I ran off toward Jennifer I heard Janet say loudly, “You’re spoiling that child. When I was his age you’d never let me run off with some strange boy!”

Then I heard Mom say, “It’s only Jennifer and anyway . . .” but then I was too far away to hear more. Jennifer was already at the rocks starting to climb.

When you climbed out on the rocks you first went under a high wooden deck that had been built up on pilings driven into the sand under the water. People sat on the deck to sunbathe. Under the deck the lap and gurgle of the little waves echoed. Since it was always in the shade under there, the rocks had a lot of green slime growing on them; you had to be careful how you put your feet down. There were also a lot of cigarette butts all over the rocks from years and years of sunbathers dropping their cigarettes through the cracks between the boards that formed the deck above. So the place had a strange smell of cigarette butts and seaweed and fish, A few dead ones were always stuck between the rocks.

You could sit under the deck in the dark and look out at the bright sea framed by the rocks below and the deck above. And you could also listen to people sitting right above you talking and hear what they said as if you were right next to them. Of course they had no idea anyone was listening.

Jennifer said, “Let’s tickle their feet.”

“I thought we were going to go snorkeling,” I said as I lifted my mask and flippers to show I had brought them, but not the spear gun, because Jennifer wouldn’t let me use it around her. Jennifer wasn’t listening to me. She was hunting around on the rocks on her hands and knees. Soon she found what she wanted, which was a plastic straw that had fallen through the cracks above. Then she went back toward the rock wall where the deck was low enough so you could reach up and touch it and she began to walk along while carefully looking up at the deck. Then she stopped and pushed the straw through one of the cracks between the deck boards. There was a scream and the sound of thumping from someone jumping up out of his deck chair. This was because Jennifer had found a foot and stuck her straw through the boards into that foot and the person whom the foot belonged to screamed because it felt like a bee or something was starting to sting him. He leaped up and spilled his drink, which came trickling down through the cracks.