His father yanked at the garden hose and stretched it across the yard until the sweep of the sprinkler was just short of the fence. Then he dodged the water, making footprints in the sand. A neighbor came out of the house behind them and walked slowly over to the chain-link fence that ran between the two yards. He was old. His head hovered in front of his body. He pointed at the sand and started talking to Frankie’s father, who straightened up, dried his hands on his pants, and folded his arms, listening.

Frankie was stretched out flat on the patio. He closed his eyes for a while and looked at the sun through his lids; then he rolled onto his side and turned a Superball in front of his face and sang The Big Blue Marble song. Finally, he got up and walked to the side of the house, where the gate stood open and a thin band of living grass ran between the fence posts. Lifting his arms out in front of him, his fingertips stretched toward the street, he stepped over the grass and, as if hypnotized, walked across the sandy front yard until he’d reached the sidewalk.

Two streets later he was at Jennifer’s house. He rang the bell, and she answered the door wearing a plastic Viking helmet. “Who brought you?” she asked, looking past him down the driveway.

“Nobody.”

“Oh. I’m Poseidon, ruler of Atlantis. Do you want to be the citizens?”

Atlantis was at the bottom of the tub in her bathroom. She’d filled the tub with water and submerged several overturned cereal bowls and coffee cups, along with the upright plastic cover for the tissue box, and grouped them together to make a city. Lined up along the edge of the tub were the citizens: wavy-armed rubber finger puppets from the dime machines at the grocery store, plastic monster figurines she’d gotten out of cereal boxes, a Pez dispenser with a clown head. Frankie knelt down on the floor next to the tub and Jennifer sat on the lid of the toilet. “Poseidon’s problem is that the citizens are being unruly,” she said. “They’re refusing to stay underwater.” She reached over and flicked one of the monsters into the tub. It sank an inch or so, but then rose to the surface. Frankie poked at it with his finger.

“See?” Jennifer said. “That behavior is unacceptable. There’s a curfew, and everyone is supposed to be indoors, asleep.”

Frankie put on one of the finger puppets and jiggled it up and down, making its rubber arms flap. In a high, squeaky voice, he said, “We can’t help it!”

“Yes you can,” Jennifer said. “You’re being unruly, and you’re all going to be punished.”

“Have mercy!” Frankie said, jiggling the puppet. “Give us one more chance!”

“Poseidon is not a patient god,” Jennifer replied.