第1章 Prologue

Summer is different. Summer is strange. Time slows and drifts. Bees hover, suspended over flowers, their bellies brushed gold. School is out. Days are long. The sun lingers in the sky, and when it sets, the sky glows for hours. It's an in-between time. You are no longer in the grade you finished last spring; you are not yet in the grade you will start in the fall. There are no school days, no weekends. Monday is meaningless. One day slides gently into the next. It's hard to keep track. Days indoors. Days outdoors. Days down in your best friend's basement, searching for the seventh secret coin in the desert world of that one video game. Sprinkler days. Water balloon days. Days memorizing dance routines off the internet. The days trying all forty-three flavors of ice cream at the ice cream parlor, and the days figuring out the perfect combination of flavor and cone (sugar, cake, waffle; plain or chocolate dipped). Swimming days. Days looking up cheat codes for games you already beat. Days your best friend goes on vacation, and you watch TV shows you've already seen because you don't want to do anything new till your best friend gets back. Days making secret potions with stuff from the pantry. Days your dad makes you go golfing. Days building a waterslide park for ants. Days at the movie theater, in air-conditioning, sucking soda through a licorice straw while things explode on-screen. In the fall, it will be dark and chilly, and you will look back and remember fifty different kinds of day, and it will be like you lived fifty different summers. This book is about a summer in the woods.