He was quiet for a minute, studying my face. “Does that mean you —?” He paused, looking awkward. “Does that mean you like girls?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure about that. “I guess I don’t know how I feel at all,” I said.

He nodded and then got quiet for a while. “It’s OK,” he said finally. “This stuff is confusing.” And that was the end of the conversation.

But sometimes, like now, the issue comes back silently. And silently, we let it slip back away.

Chapter Four

“The Townsends stopped by today to return my pie plate,” my mom tells me when I get home that afternoon. “They also wanted to see you,” she says. She looks a little sheepish, so I bet this can’t be good.

“Me?”

“I know you have your heart set on getting more babysitting hours, but the Townsends have an offer I think you should consider.”

“What is it?”

“Well, the way they explained it is that they moved here to start a farm, of sorts, but they have a summer home on the lake up in Northfield and want to spend most of their time there this summer, only now they have several animals that need caring for.” She rolls her eyes disapprovingly. “And they’re looking for someone to tend the animals while they’re at their lake house.”

“Me?”

“They’ll pay you.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know, but they certainly seem like they could afford something reasonable. If you want the job, you should get over there and let them know before someone else takes it.”

Lately my mom has been so moody and abrupt. Especially when we talk about anything that has to do with money.

I think about the Grayson kids and their horrible pranks. About how their house smells weird and their little dog wipes his bum on the rug because, according to the twins, he’s too fat to clean himself there, and how the food the parents leave for me to make for dinner always makes me feel sick after, no matter what it is.

“I’ll take it,” I say. “Do I just walk over and tell them?”

“I should think so.”

I slip my flip-flops on and cross the street. The driveway still smells like new, hot tar, and I imagine that for the rest of my life, when I smell this smell, it will remind me of the house that took away our field.

The front steps to the house are made of beautiful chiseled stones that they probably took from the field and that were never meant to be chiseled. Or stepped on.

A dog comes out of nowhere on the other side of the glass door and leaps against it at me, barking ferociously. Luckily it’s a small dog, so he can’t break the glass.

“Chablis!” a voice yells. “Stop that racket!”