Last Summer Boys(17)

“Come on, come on,” he says. “Get on with it.”

“Let him take his time,” Pete replies, not bothering to open his eyes. “We got all day.”

I see a heron drop from a tree on the far bank and go to point it out to them.

“Hey, you guys—”

Without a word, Frankie steps off the piling and into thin air.

I gasp.

Frankie falls. Arms out, toes together. It feels like forever. And still Frankie keeps on falling, getting smaller and smaller against the vast, deep green of the Sucker Hole.

His splash is a quiet little sound. Pete misses it entirely. By the time he peers over the edge, Frankie has already broken the surface. He treads water for a long minute, his head bobbing up and down in foamy white water. Then he looks up at us, and he waves.





We spend the rest of the afternoon swimming in the Sucker Hole. When our fingers get to wrinkling, we crawl out of the creek and lie on the sandy bank all in a row, like crocodiles, to dry in the sun. After a spell, the Sucker Hole gets glassy-smooth and peaceful again. It’s about three o’clock, and in sun that bright all you can do is close your eyes and watch the orange, fuzzy shapes that flit and float behind your eyelids.

I am almost asleep when Frankie asks his question:

“You fellas ever eat an eel?”

“Can’t say I have,” Pete answers sleepily.

“I have.”

That makes me open an eye. “That so?”

“Every Christmas,” Frankie tells us. “My grandmother dices them and fries them in a pan.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, and you want to know something else?” Frankie asks.

“What’s that?” Pete yawns.

“They jiggle.”

“They what?” Pete looks at him.

“They jiggle,” Frankie says again. “The meat twitches in the pan. It looks like the frying pan is filled with live pieces of eel. Something about the heat makes the meat twitch. They’re ready to eat when they stop twitching.”

Pete chuckles. “That so? I’ll bet they taste like chicken,” he says.

We lie in silence for a time. Beyond slow-moving water, Knee-Deep Meadow hums.

Will starts snoring.

I imagine a panful of twitching eel meat and my stomach does a somersault. But then the valley sighs, and I feel its gentle breath move over my bare skin. That sun ain’t so bad when there’s a breeze blowing. And when the leaves whisper to each other . . .

Pete drifts off next.

It’s a little while before Frankie’s easy breathing tells me he’s fallen asleep too.

I lay an arm across my eyes to block some of that sun, and the orange, fuzzy shapes swimming across my sight go dark . . .





Sun is sinking low in the treetops and long shadows are stretching themselves across the bank when I wake up. Everybody else is still asleep, their easy snores drifting downstream in the current. I lie a while on coarse creek sand and wait for sleep to take me again.

What does sizzling eel sound like? The thought squirms into my head and I sigh. I push it away and turn on my side.

Maybe it sounds like bacon, frying up on the stove? That might be right. Sort of a crackle and maybe even a hissing . . .

I sigh long and easy and try to let myself wander off again. But my mind won’t quit, and now I’m wondering if maybe frying pieces of diced eel meat might sound like a girl giggling.

Now, John Thomas, that is surely one of the oddest thoughts you have ever had.

I shift again in the sand but I’m still hearing somebody giggle in my mind.

And across the creek.

I come a little more awake.

Another giggle.

I go suddenly very still.

Holding my breath, I listen—to Apple Creek’s murmuring, Knee-Deep Meadow’s humming, and my own beating heart, which is getting louder and louder inside my head.

Every boy has a sixth sense that lets him know when he’s being watched, and right now mine is buzzing like crazy.

The sound comes again! This time I sit bolt upright, certain now that someone is watching us. I snap my head about the bank, searching, but I see nothing, not a thing—but then movement catches my eye, movement from across the creek: a splash of sunlight on bright colors beneath the trees, white and blue against the darker greens. Floral patterns? Slowly my mind picks the colors apart, and I piece it together that I’m seeing sundresses on Apple Creek’s far bank.

Sundresses?

Girls!

Three girls stand on the far bank, pointing at us and giggling.

And us boys are as naked as can be.

My blood runs cold.

“Fellas, wake up!” I shout and roll over to cover myself up. But it don’t do me much good because now I’m mooning the three girls across the creek. Their giggles turn to howls.

“Pete! Will! Frankie! Wake up!” I give Will a swat and he sits up slowly, rubbing his eye with a fist.

“Jack, what the—”

He sees the girls and freezes as the color drains from his face.

“Holy smokes!” he cries out as he rolls over too, and now we’re both mooning those girls. They shriek even louder, and that jolts Frankie awake. Seeing the girls, he instantly flattens himself on his stomach beside us.

“You said no one comes down here!” he shouts at me.