They hadn’t bargained on how heavy the raft would be, but one of the great things about Larry was that he never got discouraged. Even when they hit on an obstacle like not being able to budge the raft they’d spent two days building, he’d just grin at the challenge. In the end, they had to borrow Mr. Kowalski’s tractor to haul the raft up to the catchment pond. Then they nudged it into the water and held their breath.

The raft bobbed neatly at the water’s edge; it even kept afloat when they hopped on board. For a couple of minutes the two of them just stood there on the lashed-together barrels, laughing. Then, with the pole Larry had found in the barn, they pushed off and set sail.

All afternoon they floated their raft. There weren’t that many places a person could go on a pond, and within half an hour, they had explored them all. This wasn’t the Mississippi River, that much was for sure. Still, when Nate closed his eyes now and thought back to that day when he and Larry had lain, shirtless, on the wooden deck of their oil-drum vessel, drifting on the water, looking up at the sky, the memory of happiness filled his chest. He could see Larry holding out a piece of gum to share, remember the corny jokes they’d told each other, and the two of them singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” all the way down to one.

“Let’s raise something really neat on our farms when we grow up,” Larry had said. “Like popcorn. Or sassafras trees, and we’ll sell the roots to A&W for root beer.

“No more milking for me,” he went on, chewing his wad of gum. “Only animal I’m having on my ranch is hogs.”

“Hogs! Who wants a pen full of big old muddy hogs?” Nate answered.

“See if you still feel that way when I invite you over for a nice ham dinner, cooked by my beautiful wife, Hayley Mills.”

“Well, anyway, I’m going to be an astronaut,” Nate told him. “Either that or a ballplayer. Major league, hopefully.”

“And I’ll come to see you in the World Series,” Larry said, making their special handshake. “Friends forever. Sink or swim.”

Laughing, he pushed Nate off the edge of the raft then. And cannonballed in after.

Five

USUALLY WHEN NATE CAME DOWN THE STAIRS IN THE morning, his mother was standing at the stove fixing pancakes, wanting to talk about the day ahead. His brown-paper lunch bag would be sitting on the counter with a sandwich, fruit, drink, and homemade dessert packed, next to his sister’s / Dream of Jeannie lunch box. But today it was Aunt Sal and Poppa sitting there with a box of Cheerios and a pitcher of milk.