CLARA LAY WITH HER head resting on her arms. Her eyes were closed. The smooth, rhythmic rise and fall of the waves soothed her. She felt at peace for the first time since she had arrived at the beach. The world liked her after all, she thought. It had taken her, a troubled child, onto its lap and was rocking her, soothing her.

She was glad she had found the float that morning in the hall closet, all bunched up in a plastic ball; glad she had spent the morning straightening it out, blowing it up. She smiled slightly. Puffy cheeks are good for something after all, she told herself.

The sun was warm on her back. The water that lapped over the sides of the float was cool on her stomach. She dipped her hands into the water and made a few strokes to keep the float from drifting back into the breakers. Then she folded her arms back under her cheek.

Overhead the gulls were crying. The sound seemed soothing now. She was sleepy, relaxed.

She lifted her head. The float was in the same spot, had not drifted either way. She dipped her arms into the water, paddling slowly, idly. She watched the shore, the long white curving beach, the dunes blown up from the beach into a double line. The dunes had overtaken the trees in some places, and the twisted trunks stuck up in the sand.

Clara closed her eyes. I think I’ll just stay out here until it’s time to go home, she thought. A week on a raft. She would write a book about it like John D—How I Avoided Embarrassment and Personal Misery and Attained Peace and a Union with Nature in Seven Days on a Raft: A Story of Inspiration and Courage by Clara Malcolm.

She wondered idly what John D’s book was about. She knew he was writing one because she had seen Chapter Two at the top of a page, and then the words How to—Probably “How to Bring Misery and Discomfort to Those Around You,” she decided. “Twenty Ways to Make People Feel Awful, with a Special Pictorial Section on Insulting Looks.”

And, she went on, her father’s book would be How to Have a Vacation with Your Daughters Without Noticing They Are Present. She frowned slightly, opened her eyes, and stared at the waves.

And Delores. Clara paused, waiting to think of what her book would be. How to Ruin the Vacation of the Daughters of the Man You Love. It would be the shortest book in the world—one sentence. “Go along on their vacation.”

Clara blinked her eyes against the glare. The salt spray had dried on her arms, giving a frosted look to her skin. She touched her arm with her tongue, tasted salt. She closed her eyes.

She would put all the books together in a box, like a set, she decided, and the set would be called Two Weeks in—she paused—Two Weeks in the Wrong Place with the Wrong People. She sighed. At the Wrong Time for the Wrong Reasons.

She lay without moving, her hands trailing in the water. She could hear the waves breaking on the shore, but it was like the distant boom of thunder. Her breathing grew regular. She drifted toward sleep. “Mnnn,” she sighed.

On the shore Deanie continued to turn in place. Her eyes were closed, her face lifted to the sun. Her feet were wearing a circular pattern in the sand.

On the porch John D continued writing his rules for concealing stupidity. He paused, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and waited for inspiration. Then, abruptly, he began writing again.

Clara’s float, borne now as easily, as lightly, as a toy, moved, rose, fell, shifted, turned, and bobbed idly on the waves.