Hide and Seek

over his head. We watched them twist away behind us. He looked at

me.

"You next."

"Not me."

"Come on."

I tried to look as serious as possible. "You know I hate people to see

the catheter."

We made it to our deserted rocky spot on the beach without incident. We

ate the odd smorgasbord lunch.

"You know," I said, "I keep wishing for a ham sandwich."

Steve nodded. "Yeah. I got to stop stealing."

Kim halted in the middle of a bite of cheese and cracker. She looked

at us and then at herself.

"What are we gonna do about going home?" she said.

I laughed the caviar all over my hand.

The day turned sour.

I was lying on my back, half-asleep, letting the sun bake me. By now

my ass was as brown as the rest of me, my modesty having long since

gone the way of caution in anything which was related to them. Kim was

sitting beside me on a towel rubbing oil into her arms and shoulders. I

heard the shout from Steven and the hissing intake of breath from her

simultaneously. Both sounds full of sudden fear.

I was up and on my feet in an instant, while Kim was still reacting to

what she'd seen.

Part of it I understood immediately.

Steve and Casey had been standing atop the same rock she and I had

climbed the first day, that place where gulls had littered the surface

with the shells of crabs and oysters. Now she was alone there. Looking

down at Steven. In her posture there was a strange tension, not of

fear but of anger.

There was something disjointed-looking about his limbs, a loss of skill

in both arms and legs that made me worry not so much about breakage as

concussion.

I ran. I sensed Kim a few steps behind me. When I reached him he was

trying to rise again. He fell back heavily on his chest. There was no

sand where he was, only stones. It must have hurt him. I