Jennifer doubled up in silent laughter and I laughed too. She said, “Isn’t it marvelous,” and went to look for the next foot.

Then I looked around for a straw and found one and we started to really go to work. I found a stomach lying on a crack and poked it really hard and it must have been a fat person because there was a lot of lumbering around and shouting and the boards creaked and bent. Then Jennifer got one that was a real squealer and it shrieked for a good long while after Jennifer poked it. And she whispered to me, “Right in the bum!” She laughed until tears came down her cheeks.

It became a competition. We raced around to see who could poke more people and who got the loudest screams. Soon the murmur of conversations turned into more like a roar above us as people began to leave the deck picking up their towels and radios and drinks as they scampered away. A lot of cigarette butts rained down because people were leaving the deck. And from what they shouted we could hear that they thought ants or something were all over the place biting them.

When we had the whole place in an uproar Jennifer came over and sat down on a rock and I sat next to her and she hugged me and said, “We met the enemy and triumphed!” Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I sat sort of stunned because I had wished she’d do something like that since last vacation.

Suddenly a voice called out, “Calvino!”

I looked up to see who was yelling my name as Jennifer jumped up and took a step away from me. It was the Banini. He was crawling along the rocks toward us. He said, “I know eet wasa youa when I see people running. They say they bite the bugs in feets. But I know eet ees you!” Then he shook his hand at us to show what he would do when he caught us. Jennifer and I started to run the other way and the Banini called out, “Noa run on the wet rock! You falla and keel your head!” He stopped chasing us so we wouldn’t get hurt, which showed he wasn’t really too mad. We heard him swear in Italian and laugh. Then he turned around and left but not before saying, “I tella youa mosser!”

Jennifer laughed and called back, “Mya mosser noa carea!” Then she laughed some more and shook her finger at the Banini and he laughed because she was a pretty girl and so she could be as rude as she wanted and he didn’t care.