With Ben out of commission, the Floyds enrolled Cody in the first session of Nature Day Camp down the street at the Tallahassee Museum. By the second session Ben, Justin, Jemmie, and me were down there too, as volunteer junior counselors. According to Ben, he now had a dozen “little bothers” to keep track of. We all complained about the mosquitoes, but mostly we shined ourselves up with spray-on repellent and had a great time.
In the evenings when it was cooler we were back on the street, shooting hoops.
“Shotgun! Over here!” Uncle Paul would wave his arms. “I’m open!” And Ben would pass the ball to him—unless Jemmie intercepted it. Some things never changed.
But plenty had.
We didn’t play Girls vs. Guys anymore since Uncle Paul had been added. And Cody. Some nights Ben’s dad would play too.
Uncle Paul wasn’t big on following the rules. He liked making up his own. It got even more confusing when he brought a second basketball home with him from his part-time job at Sports Authority (my sister said he got the job because of the great haircut she gave him). Next paycheck he came home with a third ball.
Sometimes we had all three balls in play, stealing and shooting nonstop. Uncle Paul wasn’t a good player, but he would try anything. He invented new games and made up rules on the spot, like the double-man rule that let Cody sit on someone’s shoulders when he was trying for a free throw. Doing that, Cody made his shots most of the time. He said it was better than a magic hat, which was lucky because the magic hat was gone.
And so was Nowhere—I mean, the building was there, but we weren’t. That secret place of our own was beginning to feel like something out of a story I’d heard a long time ago. Once upon a time, in a deep, dark woods…
Summer was almost gone too and all of us were thinking about what would come next. But that was okay.
Maybe it was time for a change.