The next afternoon we scarfed down our lunch in record time.

“Time to go fishing,” Bobby Gene announced. We scooted out of the house while Mom had Susie still bunched up in the high chair. We grabbed up our poles and hiked through the woods to see if Styx wanted to come along.

Styx and Pixie were waiting for us at Styx’s office.

“What’s she doing here?” Bobby Gene took the words right out of my mouth.

“I beg your pardon,” Pixie said. “I’m brightening up the place, don’t you think?”

Her skirt had reflective sparkly things all over it. So technically, yes, she was brightening up the place.

“We only have three poles,” Bobby Gene said, as if that kind of logic was going to deter her. I mean, this was a person who owned multiple headbands with ears. Today they were tiger-striped cat ears.

It didn’t escape my notice that both Styx and Pixie had beach towels slung over their shoulders.

On the way to the pond, Pixie was less enamored with the mermaid tree than I expected. I made a point to show it to her and everything. It seemed like the sort of thing a girl might like.

But she only shrugged. “I want to see the water.”

So much for that.

Pixie stood on the shore of our pond and declared it good. “It’s an oasis,” she said. “A place that revives weary travelers and gives them strength for the rest of the journey.”

An oasis. I liked that.

“What’s its name?” she asked.

“The pond? Uh, I don’t think it has one.” I glanced at Bobby Gene.

He shrugged. “We just call it the pond.”

Pixie frowned. “Unacceptable. Everything this good should have a name.”

“I guess we can come up with one for it,” I suggested.

Pixie looked us up and down. “I don’t know if you can be trusted with that kind of power,” she said. “Naming is a very big deal.”

We took off our shoes right away. There was barely room for all four of us up on the log. I got tucked between Styx and Pixie, our legs dangling over the brook. Her toenails had sparkly polish.

It was probably only a matter of time before Styx or Pixie would suggest we swim. Now there were four of us. That seemed like a drown-proof number. (Mom would not agree, of course, but Mom wasn’t here.) I was feeling okay about the possibility.

Styx brought up a fishing pole and studied the winding mechanism.

“Ahhh, Styx!” Pixie squealed as the other end of the pole bounced around in her face.

“My bad,” he said with a grin. He tossed the pole back to the shore.

“How’d you end up with a cool name like Styx?” Bobby Gene asked.

“I’m named for a river,” he said.

“A river around here?” The only river I knew the name of around here was the Wabash, but I’d like to see a river called Styx.

“It’s from Greek mythology,” Styx said.

“The river of death,” Pixie said, in her very un-deathlike voice.

“Yeah, it’s the river you have to cross to get to the underworld. You gotta put pennies in the ferryman’s hands to get you across it.”

That sounded awesome.

“What kind of people name a kid after the river of death?” Bobby Gene blurted out. I gave him a side-eyed glare. Sometimes he didn’t know any better than to put his foot in it.

Styx raised a shoulder. “The same kind that don’t stick around.”

“I’m named after our dad,” Bobby Gene reminded everyone. Then helpfully added, “And Caleb’s named after nobody.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

He looked at me. “Well, you’re not.”

Maybe it was best to change the subject. “So this motor? What’s the deal there?”

Styx nodded. “We need a whole day, is the problem.”

“But we still have another week of chores with Cory.”

“Yeah. But the motor we can trade for is a ways away, and there’s some timing to consider. We have to leave in the morning, come back in the afternoon. No other way.”

A whole-day adventure? Brilliant.

Pixie wrinkled her nose. “I will not be going on that trip,” she said. “I’ll be here at the unnamed oasis, if anyone needs me.”

Styx continued, unfazed. “Can we get Cormier to cover for you?”

Bobby Gene looked skeptical. “It’s risky.”

“We can try,” I said. “It would mean he’d get out of chores too.”

“Or we can wait the week,” Styx said. “Maybe it’s not such a rush, you know?” He pointed his face to the sky and breathed in sunshine.

“The sooner we get it, the sooner we can ride,” I said. I had my mind set on the museum, after all.

“True.”

It was funny. Sometimes Styx acted all intense about it, like the trade was everything. Other times it was all, let the good times roll and we’ll work it out in the end. He could be chill like that. Real smooth. And it was easy to be lulled by Styx’s tide. Easy to forget the taste of Dissatisfied. Ordinary.

But it wasn’t going to go away.

Unless I made it. Time to be the new me. Brash and bold and taking the world by storm, that was Caleb Franklin for you.

I pushed my feet down until they touched the water. The cold felt good. “So are we going to swim, or what?”

“Heck yeah,” Styx said. He stripped off his shirt and jeans, revealing a pair of gray boxers underneath. He balance-beamed across the log and climbed onto the mound of rocks at the far edge of the water.

Then he dove straight in. Like a madman! Lesson one of natural water: never dive in blind.

Styx surfaced in the middle of the water. “This is great,” he called. “Come on in.” He wasn’t really that far away, but it was like he’d entered another world.

To my surprise, Bobby Gene followed him. Not with a fancy, splashy dive, but a slow ease, up to his ankles, then his shins. He bent and touched the water with his hands.

“We can be the lifeguards, if you want,” Pixie said. Maybe she sensed my hesitation.

“Nah.” If Bobby Gene was going in, there was no way I was missing out. Styx might’ve been the first in the water, but it had been my idea to swim.

Pixie and I climbed down from the log. We stood on the shore long enough to strip out of our surface clothes. Under all the sequins, it turned out that Pixie had on a proper bathing suit. My shirt landed easy against my shoes. My shorts—

I hesitated. I didn’t have a bathing suit. Or boxers like Styx. Mine were run-of-the-mill tighty whities. Except they had blue bands at the top, so Mom could tell mine apart from Bobby Gene’s.

“Oasis Pond,” I said. “Maybe you already named it.”

“Yeah,” Pixie said. “That suits it. Are we going in?”

“Don’t look.”

She shielded her face with one hand. I pulled off my shorts. Pixie eased her sparkly toes right up against the fishing poles, where we’d left them lying on the shore. “Hmm,” she said.

I rushed into the water, dipping straight past the reluctant Bobby Gene. I kept going until my underwear was covered.

“Okay,” I called.

Pixie entered the water as daintily as you might expect of someone who routinely wears tutus.

“Hmm.” She lay back and her hair fanned out against the water.

“What?” I asked.

“I think I’ve put my finger on why you’re not very successful fishermen.”

Oh. Ha. “Don’t you mean you put your toes on it?”

Pixie smiled at the sky. “Indeed.”

I grinned, kicking my legs up. “Someday we’re gonna catch something. Really. Someday we might even put the poles in the water.”

We laughed.

“Are there even fish in here?” Pixie asked.

Bobby Gene’s voice floated from above. “We’ve never seen any.” He splashed around in the shallows.

“Why did you get the nickname Pixie?” I figured it was okay to ask since we’d been talking about names earlier.

“I picked it out.”

“Why?”

“I have a brother now. I thought we should match.”

It took me a while to work it out. Pixie and Styx. Pixie Styx?

“You’re a freak,” I informed her.

“I’m original.” She enunciated each syllable.

“Freak.”

She grinned, as if she knew that secretly I was thinking: No one would ever call Pixie “ordinary.”

“What?”

She grinned wider. “Shut up,” she said. “You know you like me.”

“Shut up,” I said. Because I did.

The sudden awkward feeling between us was covered by a splash. Styx climbed out of the water and back onto the rocks. “Starfish!” he called out. I spun in time to see him toss himself, spread-eagle, into the sky above us.

His dive lasted forever. He hovered, as if he’d flapped some unseen wings.

I held my breath. There was no boundary he couldn’t touch, no field off-limits, no end to what was possible.

Styx Malone knew how to fly.