Off a faint and narrow trail above the home place grew a perfect old tree that, about three feet off the ground, bent even with it, making a perfect throne.

“TRAV’ler!” I whistled for him to keep up.

From my perch, I could see all my world, the little valley and its costume changes, from bright spring green to golden summer to coppery fall. From that height, the world didn’t even appear to be crumbling the way it felt. The air was crisp and clear and sparkled and glowed, brittle with weak sunlight but full of possibilities, of beginnings. Soon we’d know if we had a new president to take us all in a new direction. But even Mister Roosevelt wouldn’t be able to fix the mess I was in. I’d been in school for near a month, and couldn’t see an end in sight. I shivered. Might be some rain in the air too.

Momma loved the rain. She’d look toward the sky but shut her eyes, sniff, and say, “There’s a change in the wind,” and sure enough it would soon be raining. First rain after a dry spell was best. Momma would sit on the porch rocker and watch the drops bounce off the ground in a kind of wild dance. Sometimes she’d close her eyes and listen to the music with a Sunday-church face of joy and contentment.

“Change in the wind,” I told Traveler, who joined me on the throne. “It’s marchin’ brisk and lively.” Marchin’ around me for sure. Maybe marchin’ all the way to Washington. Wish it would stay up there and away from me.

I watched leaves dance and spin, and I wanted to go where they were going. I felt restless. If I sat too long, I got ideas I didn’t want and thoughts I couldn’t understand. Had to keep movin’.

Sure enough, before I was home, the rains came. I did my best to stay ahead of them, or at least dance between the drops. A fool’s errand, as GrandNam might have said.

For the rest of Saturday, the rain fell in oceans; winds howled like dogs locked up during turkey dinner. The wet Sunday after I was certain I had ruined Tully’s future with Mary Grace, he left a message for me. It was three rocks laid like a triangle, with a fourth balanced on top, and left in a certain place we both knew to check. That signal said to meet at our secret place the soonest I was able.

I FIGURED TULLY WAS ABOUT to tell me he’d gotten over his crazy business and back to his regular old Tully self. My heart filled to bursting with the thought we’d soon again be friends made right. I even told Trav to stay where he was in front of the stove and keep dry, figurin’ I could do without him for a few hours long as I had Tully.

I followed the fat, happy creek along, watching water jump to catch sunlight, wrapping its babble around twigs and rocks. I imagined the water boasted it was going places they—or I—never would. But I knew I would someday go places too, like the women Miss Arthington told us about, women like Clara Barton and Miz Eleanor Roosevelt and even Miss Arthington, who brought her Yankee self all the way here from New York just to teach the likes of us about the likes of them.

The creek might dry up to near nothing during the hottest days of summer and leave a rocky sand path past our tree, Tully’s and mine. But now it was fall, the tree near-bare and the water rushing. I figured I’d find Tully on the big sturdy limb, about halfway up, holding the string to a trap we’d built. The string was tied to a stick that propped open the door. What we did was lay out bait, and when a muskrat wandered into the box, we pulled the string.

Muskrats, like so many of God’s creatures, never look up. Long as the wind was with us, we could sometimes sit so long and quiet as to catch a pair in an afternoon, enough to feed both our families.

It was like that being with Tully, as comfortable and calm as muskrat trapping.

I followed the creek like usual, so when I rounded the last tree, I came to a full-on stop and nearly fell in. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing.

Behind the tree was an embankment, if you knew where to look. The tall oak with the swing had no lower branches, which made it perfect for keeping out busybodies. In the tree was our swing, which we kept tucked in the crook when not in use. Daddy made it for us from a smooth, sanded board and two thick ropes that filled our hands with little twiney splinters till Momma discovered what Daddy had done and gave us rags to cover the rope where you put your hands.

When you swung out over the embankment and the creek was full, like it was then, it felt like you were flying above treetops and oceans and the whole world. When I pumped my legs as hard as I could, that swing gave me a glorious feeling of flying, of freedom, of being able to go anywhere and do anything.

But on that day, I felt like the board had fallen away beneath me and dropped me cold into the creek. For as I approached what I saw was Tully sitting below our tree, staring up moon-eyed. And when I followed his gaze, what I found at the other end was that Mary Grace Newcomb, whose piggy legs were sticking out from my swing!

This was at least a double-triple betrayal.

I reached for my flip but didn’t have it. Since I couldn’t bean either one of them, and seemed struck dumb to boot, I sat and just stared.

Next thing I knew, a friendly breeze helped me hear some of what they were saying. Some folks might consider that eavesdropping, excepting as it was my secret place and my best friend and my swing, I figured it was my right to hear any words that might drift about in these here vicinities.

Plain as her face, Mary Grace was talking dirt about me throwing a snakeskin at her ma.

Tully smiled all big like and asked her didn’t she think it was fine.

I saw Mary Grace’s face twitch like a billy goat’s.

“Did—” She put her foot to the ground to stop the swing’s sway, and I was pleased to notice her shoes were muddied up to her socks. “Did you have something to do with that … thing, Tully Spencer?”

Tully grinned like a brass band. “You don’t get hold of a fine skin like that every day,” he said proudly. “So ya liked it? Really truly?”

Mary Grace sputtered up a cough. “It sure is … differ’nt.”

I could’ve given her credit for being slippery, but I didn’t.

“I could pro’ly get you another, if you wanted,” Tully said.

I wondered how he planned to do that. Maybe off Mary Grace’s own backside. The snake.

“No!” Mary Grace shouted. Then quieter, “No, thank you, Tully Spencer. I do believe one present from you is just about the right number.” She smiled at him like a sick calf. She fluffed her black curls. She blinked at him like she had dirt in those scum-green eyes of hers.

And Tully looked like pulled taffy.

I don’t know why I’d thought Tully would see through that shabby pantomime—maybe he’d been bit by a wild dog.

Then he did the unthinkable, the unforgivable. He pushed her on the swing, and—I almost fell over—he commenced to singing. “I’ve told every little star / Just how sweet I think you are / Why haven’t you I told you? / Da-dumb, da-da-da-da-da-da-dum, da-dum-dum, dummy—”

Actually, he sounded more like a bull moose in rutting season. And I was pretty sure he had most of the words—and notes—wrong.

I hightailed it, scheming the whole while for something fitting to get back at Mary Grace, but nothing seemed terrible enough compared to stealing a person’s best friend and their swing and their Secret Spot, all in one rain-soaked afternoon.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Tully had given everything away. Showed how little he thought of me. I felt like dirt on a worm belly, only worse.

Were all boys and men so shallow and gullible? It occurred to me then, out of the blue, only the day was gray, that Jump Justice being a mature age fourteen would never treat a person like Tully was treating me or like Daddy was treating the memory of Momma. I was sure of it.

Suddenly, I knew just where I wanted to be. I’d ask Jump for advice. He’d taught me how to tie a horsefly once. Maybe he could help now, especially with Tully, who seemed an equally knotty mystery. I swayed my hips and patted my hair pretending I had piggy curls as I watched my reflection in the creek. Was there something Momma hadn’t told me? Hips bouncing and giggle-simpering. But Momma had never done such silly nonsense. Still, I wondered what it was all about. Persons with common sense, the like of Daddy and Tully, turning all to mushy rotted potatoes over such silly lady stuff as bobbed hairs and lacey dresses.

Next thing I knew, I found myself coming up on the Justices’ place. And wouldn’t you know, like if wishing could make it so, that once I had it in my head that I was looking for Jump, that’s when I ran into him. I mean, smack-crash into him, though he looked no worse for it.

“Jarvis, you maggot milker!” he barked at me.

I was flat on my back in the mud. When I sat up, I saw stars, and Jump saw me.

“Possum Porter? You ain’t Jarvis. You awright?” He reached out a strong, tan hand and took mine, easily pulling me from the mud, which released me with a thwuck.

“ ’Course I’m all right,” I said, mentally checking for broken bones. “You?”

“ ’Course I am,” he said. “ ’S’you I was worried ’bout.”

“Worried, really?” I looked at him looking at me and suddenly remembered to take back my hand, which I quickly wiped uselessly on my now muddy coveralls.

“Not worried-worried, I mean—What the cock-a-doodle you runnin’ from anyway?”

That bristled me. “Why you think I’m running from a thing, Jumper Justice? I ain’t afeared a nuthin’.” I pulled myself to my full height, despite sinking a little into the mud.

Jump scowled. “Then how’d my milk get to be a mud shake?”

I looked at the ground. Sure enough, a battered tin pail lay at my feet, traces of white bubbling into fresh wet tracks. “Oh!” I bent to pick up the pail. So did Jump.

Crack!

We straightened, each rubbing a forehead. I could feel a knot building.

“Cricket spit, Possum. You okay?”

“I said I was, didn’t I?” I summoned what dignity I could. “If you could just tell me where I could find June May … ”

Jump grinned and pointed to the house. “Reckon you can make it without hurtin’ yourself?”

My face felt hot with pique, and I spun on my heel. That was when I tripped on the pail and fell face-first into the mud.

When I got up, Jump was nowhere to be seen. At least he had that much sense.