She charges straight into a resting flock of seagulls and sends them flapping. She bends over and writes in the sand again. When I reach the spot, it reads, S’UP, OLD MAN!

The next message, several yards ahead, reads, WHERE AM I?

I look around. She isn’t farther down the beach. I scan the families separated by twisted ropes of seaweed. A woman is shaking out a blanket, and as it drifts onto the sand, I see the little girl squatting and watching me, seesawing her shoulders in the air. She laughs, then jumps up and runs.

Long before I catch up with her—I’m trying to maintain a casual gait—I see her go into the water. She hits a lot of breakers, and turns around to face the shore each time one smacks into her. As I get nearer, I watch her make a few meager attempts at bodysurfing. A small wave takes her by surprise after she straightens up, and just behind it, a larger one knocks her over. Where in the world, I wonder, are this girl’s parents? I sit down on the sand, narrowly missing a spot of tar that would have ruined my trousers, and prop my elbows on my knees.

Remember how we used to use turpentine to scrub the tar off the kids’ feet? I imagine asking Teresa. Remember the time Joe put tar in Karen’s hair because she broke his ViewMaster? But that only makes me remember how I tried to rub the tar out of her hair with turpentine, and what a mistake it was. How I then stupidly followed Matt’s suggestion and tried peanut butter. How the boys were all cracking up and Karen screaming bloody murder while I cut the mess out with a pair of scissors. One more little failure on the road to disaster.

The little girl is nowhere to be seen.

I stand up and stare at the ocean. I walk toward it. Wave after wave breaks and smoothes out, and still there’s no sign of her. I look behind me and see a white lifeguard tower, but it’s empty. I step closer to the water.

Not too far out, I spot a pale shape bobbing with the motion of the tide. Shoulders, arms, a braid floating on the water. She’s facedown. This isn’t happening, I think. This can’t be. I holler “Hey!” toward the floating shape, and then “Help!” to the beach in general, and a moment later I’m running into the surf. All I can think is to get her onto the sand.

As soon as I touch one of her arms, she springs up like a jack-in-the-box.

“Ha ha ha!” she laughs. “You’re wet! You’re all wet in your clothes!”