In fourth grade, Max and I walked to and from the bus stop together, books in our arms. Lilly tagged along behind us, a first grader. After school, she stayed home, but I changed out of my dress and into pants so I could play outside. School shoes off, sneakers on. I was a tomboy and proud of it. I kept up with Max, running through the cornfields and slapping the stalks, climbing trees to the top, racing our bikes up and down the hills. Almost a year had passed by since I moved to the neighborhood. Max was a welcome visitor in my home, but I had never gone over to his house to play in that whole time. One day after school it was drizzling out and he invited me in. Nobody else was there. Downstairs in the basement, we built a tent, draping sheets artfully over the laundry line. It was gloomy inside, but cozy. We collected boxes and baskets from around the basement to furnish our new abode. Max fetched a lamp to light the space, but we couldn’t plug it in. The cord wouldn’t reach. Maybe it was my idea. I don’t remember saying we could light candles instead, but maybe I did. Or maybe Max decided to go upstairs into the dining room and get them. Soon our tent was aglow. We turned off all the lights to savor the soft light. “Let’s get a snack,” Max suggested. Upstairs, we took a box of Cheerios down from the cabinet and ate them right from the box, but then we heard the garage door opening. Max panicked. I could see the terror in his eyes. “We have to go, NOW!” he cried. That was when I suddenly realized we should not have been in Max’s house at all. We shoved the cereal back in the cabinet and raced down the stairs, quietly sneaking out the back door. From there we ran along the back of his house, cutting across the yard and ducking in the side door to my garage. Max trembled with fear. We hid in the garage until he calmed down. Eventually we went into my house. “Hi, Mom – I’m home!” I sang out. “Is it OK if we have Max over?” My mother and Lilly were in the kitchen, the smell of fresh cookies in the air. The kitchen was warm and bright. Max and I pulled up chairs and helped, eating as many cookies as we baked, laughing, drinking milk. The rest of the afternoon, we watched cartoons with Lilly on the black and white TV in the family room. Max left before dinnertime and I thought no more about him. It was sometime after dinner, but sometime before bed, that we heard sirens. Alarmed, we rushed out into the street. Next door at the Hallmans’ house: blue and red flashing lights, smoke, flames. Max’s mother, sobbing. His Page 19
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