When I woke up, it was still on.
“Turn off the TV and go to sleep, stupidhead,” I said, sitting up in my sleeping bag. The twin bed was empty, and the bedroom door was slightly open. I pulled myself up off the floor and went to the bathroom to pee.
He still wasn’t there when I came back, so I crept downstairs. It was dark and still, too quiet for him. A movement out the sliding-glass door in the kitchen grabbed my attention, and I moved closer and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I slid it open a little more and looked out. Where was he?
I heard a light tapping to my left and watched as a form emerged from the darkness, running, and as he passed I saw that his eyes were wide and he was whispering a scream: “Aaaah!” I watched him disappear around the corner of the house, and in a few seconds he appeared from the other side again, again with the silent scream. On the third try I timed my own harsh whisper with his fast circle: “Andy, stoppit!” But he kept going.
I watched him pass once more and then, as I heard his feet coming around the corner, I braced myself and jumped out from the door and clobbered him. We fell to the ground. His feet seemed to continue shuffling and then finally he came to a stop, heaved a few breaths, and was still.
“Stupidhead,” he said.
“Stupidhead,” I said, and stood up. The grass was dry and a little warm on my feet. He rolled up and off the ground and started to walk around the corner of the house.
“Where are you going?” I began, then jogged after him. I was relieved that he didn’t head back across the face of the house but began walking down the driveway to the street.
I hadn’t checked the clock before I left. It must have been two or three in the morning. My dad would go crazy if he knew we were still awake, much less outside. He gets mad if we’re still doing magic tricks in the playroom even a minute after he goes to bed.
Andy sat on the manhole cover in the middle of the cul-de-sac. I walked around him a few times.
“I don’t wanna be here,” he mumbled.
“Come on,” I said, stretching my hands out to grab him and pull him up, then deciding against it. His arms were tightly crossed over his knees, anyway.
“And I don’t wanna go anywhere,” he continued. He rocked on the manhole.
“We used to play that this was the White Stone Tower, right here in the middle of the street, and you had to go up this huge spiral staircase to get to the top,” I said, remembering the game Tim and I used to play.
“How did you get back down?” he asked in a flat whisper.
“Like this!” I said, and I began running in fast-growing circles around him, getting a couple inches further from him with each circuit until I reached the point where the straight street met the circle of the cul-de-sac.
He whispered something, and then he was following his own spiral toward me. He stood next to me for a moment, and I think I saw his eyes flash toward my face. When I looked, his eyes were closed. He opened them.
“Let’s go,” he said, and started walking down the street.
We walked slowly under the yellow light of the streetlamps. I noticed the small stones of the road press into my heels. I looked over. Andy’s feet were also bare.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The lake,” he said. The lake was far. He really was crazy. “The lake and the dock and the stars,” he continued.
“What if someone see us?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said.
We passed dark houses. I could see the bush hiding the window Tim slept in front of. He’d never believe I was out this late at night, or that I was hanging out with Andy.
The quiet broke up ahead, and then we saw lights. Andy grabbed my arm and pulled me into the yard across the street from Tim’s house. We crouched behind a tree and waited for the car to pass.
When it was dark and quiet again, we followed the street to the beginning of the asphalt running path that led to the lake.
“Why are we going to the lake?” I asked.
“Because,” he said.
Cicadas beat against the silence. The path was a pale gray strip winding through pine saplings and dogwood.
“Ow,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Stepped on a rock.”
We walked slowly for a long time.
“Do you think we’re the only ones awake?” I asked.
“There’s other parts of the world, you know,” he replied.
“I meant here,” I said.
We could smell the water as we approached the hill leading down to the lake. In a few breaks in the trees we could see the moon flash over the surface.
It was much brighter when we emerged from the woods. We walked the path along the edge of the lake. I could see lights from a few houses on the other side, but it was dark on this side except for the moon and a few of the brighter stars.
Andy walked toward the fishing dock, which was dark against the lake. I could not see where it ended out over the water. The dock creaked as his bare feet left the earth. I stood on the path and watched until his shape disappeared out over the water. I ran down the dock.
“Where are you?” I whispered. Then I saw him sitting with his feet over the side, leaning against one of the corner posts.
“Floating,” he said, and I felt his form lean back and lay against the boards. I crouched down and waited until my eyes could find his in the dark. His eyes were closed.
He gasped once, then let out a long, slow breath. His stomach raised and lowered evenly in the moonlight. I held my hand over his chest. The back of my hand glowed, and I followed the source of the light up to the moon and back. My hand floated down with the light until it touched something real. My hand raised and lowered evenly in the moonlight.
* * *
I woke terrified and sat up in my sleeping bag. He was there in my bed, his face turned away from the light coming through the window. I pulled myself up off the floor, and the movement woke him.
“I don’t wanna grow up,” he said into the pillow.
When I came back from peeing, he was snoring.
“Wake up, stupidhead,” I said, pulling the blanket off of him. His bare feet, black with asphalt, twitched in the sun.
