“Don’t know.” With obstinacy that sounded like reverting to the adolescence he’d begun to leave behind he said “Maybe we will.”

“Was it worth the journey? Quite a way without a car.”

“I’d say it was.” At once he added “Worth it. Bell does.”

I suspected those two statements were inseparable. “Whose idea was it?”

“Both of ours.”

“And what was the place like?”

“It just looked like a field to me. Felt colder, though.”

“Colder than what?”

“Than walking to it, and when we walked back to the station. The sun was up above us all the time.” After a pause he said “And you couldn’t see the far side.”

“I don’t understand. It was in your photograph.”

“Maybe I started seeing like your aunt did after all.”

Other than uneasy, I was unsure how this made me feel. I was reaching for another question when I heard a man’s voice. “Excuse me, what are you doing there?”

A silence left me wondering as well, and with increasing nervousness. Perhaps it simply meant the activity was being completed, since Bella ended the silence by saying “Just taking a sample.”

She’d given the voice time to approach. “Who gave you permission?”

“I don’t think we need that, do we? Look, I haven’t taken much.”

“You don’t remove other people’s property without asking first.”

“Come on,” Roy protested. “It isn’t anybody’s property, or it’s everyone’s.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, son.”

“You are now.” As I willed him not to become embroiled in an argument, especially when I had no chance to intervene, Roy said “It’s for a project at our school. We have to take them from all over.”

Even if he was lying on Bella’s behalf, I was disconcerted by his glibness, which I’d never known him to show. “Which school?” the man said.

“The earthen college,” Bella said.

“Never heard of it.”

“Unearthing knowledge, that’s the slogan.”

“Never heard that either.”

“The school isn’t round here,” Roy said.

I could tell the man was growing more suspicious. “Then don’t you be.”

“We’re going now. No need to watch.”

I would have spoken except for listening to reassure myself they’d left the altercation behind. I heard nothing for some moments, and then Roy said “Sorry, dad.”

“For what?”

“Leaving you like that. I expect you wondered what was going on.”

“You didn’t leave me. I could hear the whole thing.” When this brought no audible response I said “Just where are you?”

“On our way to the station.”

“You know exactly what I mean. You may have played a game just now, but please don’t try it on with me.”