We live in a trailer park attached to a KOA, which stands for KAMPGROUNDS OF AMERICA. One side is for people who are driving across the country and who wouldn’t spend more than one or two nights if they could help it, and on the other side there’s a baseball field for middle-aged people who played softball games until late at night, yelling things like “Hey, Fatty! Hit the ball!”

Going through all of that there’s a river and a running and biking trail that leads clear to the lake.

Anyway, this means all the time, all day all night, whether campers over at the KOA, spectators at the softball games, or joggers in spandex and hats, there are people watching us.

Watching us sit on the tramp.

Watching us eat pineapple on the roof.

Watching us lay in the kiddie pool.

It also means that we get to watch them right back.

We watch the softball games and find quarters under the bleachers.

We throw pebbles at the campers and eat their leftover chips.

And most of all, we make fun of the people who exercise on the river trail.

Dad and I would play this game we called “Guess Who’s Coming,” which is where we would sit on the front porch and watch the running trail. We’d make guesses who was going to come around the bend next. We’d give them a name and an occupation and see if it fit.

Dad was always the best at it.

He’d say, “The next guy that comes is going to be Earl, a businessman by day, candymaker by night.”

“Candymaker?”

“Sure,” he’d say. “A famous one. Known for his caramel lollipops with Argentinian ant legs inside.”

I’d laugh and then, some man with skinny arms and a bald head in tiny shorts would show up. He for sure was a businessman, but you could also see how he could have an exotic sweet business on the side.

Or Wanda, a deep-sea diver who lives in Utah because she is scared of water.

“What?”

“Long story,” Dad would say, and then, just like that, a lady would come around the corner wearing all black spandex from head to toe. Even with a tight skullcap.

Amazing.

Now that he was gone, I tried to get Berk to do it with me.

She didn’t really get it and usually it was just teenage jerks, who we don’t look at because they yell at us and say dirty things.

But still.

A lot of people come on that trail. Some you expect and some you don’t.

One day we were sitting on the tramp, me working on figuring out what x means in 2x-8=4 from my textbook and Berk coloring Aurora, and on that day, we heard something.

Usually you don’t hear anything that much because the river’s too loud.

This time, though, whoever it was, he was louder than the river.

He was yelling something. Or singing something.

About burning down a house.

Berkeley looked at me. I looked at her.

Then we both watched to see who it was.

“A crazy man named Ted who flies airplanes and wins hot-dog-eating contests,” I whispered to Berk.

“What?” she said, but then he came into view.

A regular-sized boy, brown hair, white sweatband around his head, normal face except for lots of freckles, yellow tank top that said “I hate cats,” and baggy jeans.

He was also sweating and sort of jogging, if you could call it that, and, like I said, singing.

Loud.

I couldn’t help myself, I laughed.

Berkeley laughed, too.

When he got to the break in the chain-link fence where you could come into the trailer park rather than keep going on the trail and where there’s a bench, he sat down.

He was breathing hard, his chest going up and down, gulping for air, and even though we were ten feet away, he hadn’t seen us yet.

He kept singing to himself. People on their way to work said, Baby what did you expect. Gonna burst into flame, go ahead.

~

He had a bad voice, I’m sad to say, and he had to be about my age. Twelve or thirteen.

He looked at his watch.

Then he looked over at the trailer park.

Berkeley whispered to me, “Who is he?”

I shrugged and put a finger to my lips to keep quiet.

He stood up.

Pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.

He studied the paper for a bit and then came right through the gate. He didn’t look our way and I was glad. It wasn’t often people who didn’t live here went through the gate and in my opinion it was quite suspicious.

Suddenly he turned and said, “Olivia?”

And I said, “Who? Me?”

And he said, “Olivia Hales, right?”

And I said, “Uh. Yes.”

And he said, “It’s me.”

And I said, “Who?”

And he said, “Me.”

And I said, “Who are you?”

And he smiled, his face bright. Then he said, “I’m from the lottery. You’ve won three hundred and twenty-four million dollars.”

And my heart beat like a tambourine and Berkeley said, “What does it mean?”

And he said, “It means you and your sister are going to be very happy.” Then he took out a camera from his baggy jeans and he said, “What do you want to say to the world, now that you’re rich and famous?”

And I was overcome with emotion, tears pouring out of my eyes, and all I could say was, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

And then, because he couldn’t help it, he took me into his arms and we began to kiss.

“Olivia?”

I blinked a few times.

“Olivia?”

It was Berkeley.

“What?”

“You were doing it again,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Doing that thing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

And we were going to get in an argument but then I remembered.

“Where is he?”

She pointed to the boy who was now across the way, looking in the windows of some of the trailers.

Which was definitely not allowed.