So we rushed through the door and out onto the green, counted to three, and took off. I thought I would be faster. I was so much taller than Lee, after all. But he shot out ahead of me and kept his lead until we collapsed, panting, at the far edge of the field.

We raced again and again—he beat me each time—until we were both tired, lying on the grass.

“Lee,” I said when we had caught our breath. “Do you know any fairy tales?”

“Sure,” he said. “Plenty.”

“I was thinking. Maybe we should make up fairy tales of our own, from our own lives.”

“Like how?” he asked.

“We take things that happened to us, but we make them different.”

“Okay,” he said. “You go first. I think I almost understand.”

“All right,” I said, the cold, still-damp ground beneath me. I closed my eyes and I could just make out the sound of waves crashing. I opened them again to a flock of white birds passing soundlessly above. And then I was ready.

“Once there was a girl who was raised without a father, until her mother fell in love with a wolf.”

Lee turned. I could feel him watching me. I thought of what to say next.

“She took her daughter to a wild place, for what wolf ever lived between walls? Her mother said, ‘You must call him father. See how gentle he is?’ and the wolf showed them his sharp smile. He growled and the mother said, ‘Hear how kind he is? See how he loves us?’ and he tore out the girl’s heart with his teeth.”

Lee sat up, quick.

“Oh, buddy,” I said. “I’m sorry. Was it too scary?”

He pressed his hands together. Set them in his lap. Pressed them together again.

“No, I’m not scared,” he said.

“I’ll stop, though. I know it wasn’t a very good story.”

“No,” he said. “It was really good. You can keep going. How does it end?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him. I had been thinking too much of myself, not nearly enough about him.

“Here,” I said. “Let me tell you a better one. A happier one.”

He nodded.

“I’ll get all that badness out of your head.”

Again, he pressed his palms together. “Thank you,” he whispered.

I almost cried, seeing how I’d scared him. I would need to be more careful. “Okay. This one takes place before all of that.”

Lee lay back down in the grass.

“Once, my mother was a girl of fifteen.”

“Like Emma.”

“Like Emma,” I agreed.

“Sorry for interrupting.”