The Woods

Excerpt from The Red Ant House, Ann Cummins:

       She stretched on her tiptoes and looked down the mountain. She turned around, her face twitching to go.

       I crawled out, too. The evening breeze had a sting, and the sun was sitting on the mountain. Scrub oak leaves were crackling all around. 

       "Nobody's coming," she whispered. She squinted down the path. 

       "That," I said, "is an optical illusion."

       At the bottom of the hill in the back of Sick Slim's house, a light went on, and then Sick Slim was standing at the window, looking up Smelter Mountain. We scatted back into the hole. The Bean starts giggling and whimpering. "He saw us," she said. "We're trapped."

      "Him?" I hooted. "He's blind." Then I remembered what my dad had said, how ever since he got back from playing soldier, Sick Slim didn't like anybody at his back. But we were at his back. Two naked children. I laughed. 

      "What?" the Bean said. 

       I crawled back out into the sun. I stood up and walked to the edge where he could see me good. I put my hands on my hips like King of the Mountain. I couldn't see his face, couldn't see him looking, but I knew he was. 

       I said, "Next time, we'll make him give us money."

      "How?" the Bean said. 

      I didn't know exactly how. It was coming to me. It was a dream in the distance.