“Not now. Just be careful. Your girls are only what, a year apart? Irish twins? Beautiful girls in full bloom.”

“He doesn’t think about them like that.”

“Whatever you say. You know, I heard about a couple who woke up from a nap to find their foster kid standing at the foot of their bed with a hunting knife in his hand.”

Mr. Frederickson’s words were always in the back of Michael’s mind, especially when Ed and Connie asked him if he’d like to join them on “the Cod,” as Ed called it. Michael said yes, although the trip filled him with as much anxiety as excitement.

And now here he was.

He turned back and looked at the steep sand dune he’d just run down, and the dark, jagged path the beachgoers had cut into it. The parking lot was up there, and Ed and Connie. Why hadn’t they come down yet?

He had to leave. He needed to escape the girls with their long, knowing looks, and the ocean, and all those strange people dotting the beach who were nothing like him. Nothing.

He made a run for it.

Where are you going? The girls’ high voices were drowned out by the wind and surf. Where was he going? He had no idea. He only knew they couldn’t keep up, not even Ann. She had good endurance and could hold her own against the guys on the team, but Michael was a sprinter. He’d set the school’s record for the 100 meters. He could run fast to a finish line, but he ran even faster when he had something to run away from.

When he got to the top of the dune he was exhausted from his intense burst of effort uphill through the deep sand. He could see the heat hovering over the parking lot as if he were looking through a veil of sheer plastic wrap. The asphalt was hot as molten lava. Aside from the thump of his heartbeat and the sound of his bare feet hitting pavement, it was suddenly quiet, an eerie peacefulness he found both welcome and disconcerting.