Preacher's Boy

His eyes lit up. "Shhh," he warned. "Don't let Aunt Millie hear you."

We took our fishing poles to pretend we might be bringing home dinner, but once we were out of sight, we laid them down beside the road and took off flying down the hill to Main Street, south to Cutter's Pond Road, and out into the countryside below the eastern hills.

The smell of summer, even a dry and dusty one, is perfume to a boy's nostrils. The pastures with grass and even cow dung ... the fields of hay ... the dust puffing up from the road under our bare feet...

"Wait." Willie was panting and holding his side. "I got a stitch."

"Sissy!" I hollered, running on. True, I hadn't split a pile of wood that morning. But I would have kept running even so. The faster I ran, the farther behind I left the demons that had been at my heels for days. No more Zeb. No more Vile. No more Reverend Pelham or Deacon Slaughter. No more Elliot.

If I stopped pounding down the road long enough to think straight, I would have been ashamed, but I wasn't going to think—just slap down my bare sun-browned feet till they were lost in the dust of the road.

I didn't run the whole mile and a half. That was too much even for me that day. Still, I reached the pond long before Willie did. I threw myself on the huge flat rock at the south end that belonged to us boys by right of conquest, lay back, and let the sun bake my face. My limbs melted and I was nearly asleep by the time Willie came laboring up, still holding his side. He was breathing so hard, I could barely make out the words, but he was jabbering like a blue jay at me, full of excuses as to why he couldn't keep up. I just lay there, my face warm, my body still as the face of the pond. For that little while it felt as if all was right with the world.

Sometime later, after Willie had calmed himself down, we stripped to our birthday suits and dove off the rock. The coldness shocked our warm skin, but in a pleasing, bracing kind of way. I turned over on my back, spewing out a mouthful of water at the sky in my whale imitation. Then, forgetting even to show off, I just hovered there, feeling as though I was one of the clouds, floating lazily in the blue.

Long minutes later we climbed back up on the rock and fell asleep in the sun.

"Hey there, fellers! Havin' a nice nap?"

We both woke with a start and grabbed for our clothes, which were no longer there. Out in the middle of the pond Tom and Ned Weston were treading water, paddling with one hand, while holding something in the air with the other. "Need these?" Tom called, waving what looked like Willie's shirt and britches. Ned laughed and waved mine.

"Don't you dare!" I yelled. Willie didn't stop to yell, he just dove in and headed for Tom Weston as fast as he could swim. "Don't you dare!" I yelled once more before I dove in.

"Nyeh! Nyeh! Nyeh!" Ned waved my clothes toward me, but before I could get halfway across, he turned and hurled his bundle as far away toward the other side as he could. Then Tom threw his, but Willie had nearly caught up, and he grabbed his shirt and britches before they sank. Willie didn't wear underwear in the summer. He swam back to shore and pitched his soaking clothes up on the rock, then started out to help me find mine.

I had swum to the spot where Ned had thrown them. There was nothing to be seen, not even underwear. I dove over and over again. Each time I surfaced, I could hear Ned's "Nyeh! Nyeh! Nyeh!" They were both screaming with laughter.

"Forget them, Robbie," Willie was saying. I guess he could see something roiling in my face every time I came up for air.

Finally we gave up. It was no use keeping on. The pond was at least thirty feet deep in the center. "You little rat!" I yelled at Ned.

"Whatcha need clothes for, Robbie? Ain't you a monkey's boy?"

Tom began to laugh. "That's what his daddy thinks!"

"And he's got a brother to prove it, too!" Then Ned began to sing: "Wha a fen we ha in Sheeshush! Aw our shins and grease to bear!"

"Shut up, Ned!" I yelled. "Shut up!"

"Monkey sons! Monkey brothers! Monkey papa! Monkey boys—"

By this time the blood was raging between my ears. I swam like fury over to Ned Weston, and in the middle of his chant, I reached over and shoved him facedown in the water. He was flailing his arms. Tom and Willie both yelled at me. But I didn't let up.

Willie started toward us, crying out as he came, "Stop it, Robbie!"

I forced Ned's stupid little pointed head deeper into the water.

Willie snatched my hand and pushed me away. When Ned came sputtering up to the surface, still flailing, Willie hooked his arm around Ned's neck and held him up. Tom, looking scared and dazed, swam up to them. No one said a word. Still towing Ned, Willie turned his back on me and headed for the shore. Tom followed them in.

I watched from a distance as the two of them helped Ned onto land. The Weston boys pulled on their britches and, still buttoning their shirts, started for home. Willie put on his own sopping clothes, never raising his eyes to where I was treading water. It took me a minute to figure it out. He was fixing to leave me there stark naked.

"Hey!" I yelled, splashing for the shore. "Willie, wait!"

He glanced over his shoulder at me. I didn't like the look on his face.

I clambered out. I'd never been so aware of being naked in my life. "I wouldn'ta killed him. You know that."

"How could I know it?" he asked, so sofdy I could barely hear him.