Sixty-Two ☼ Phan

Nine

"Holy cow."

The three of us stopped in front of the stone house, at the little pathway. The girl was staring, mouth wide open at it, her basket nearly dropped and hanging from her fingertips. I put a hand on her shoulder, feeling a smile fall over my face at the familiarity of the situation. Phil started forward and I followed. She stood another moment before scurrying to catch up.

"What is this place?" she asked, little feet tapping loudly like she had no control over the way she walked.

"A secret," Phil told her. "Only we can know about it. Okay?"

She nodded promptly as Phil pulled a brick from a more crumbled side of the building. The pile of rubble didn't move but a moment, and the only acknowledgment that a piece had been stolen from it was the piece itself.

"It looks like a castle," she said quietly, looking between us. "Are you two the kings?"

I opened my mouth to deny, tell her it was far from a castle and I far from royalty, but Phil stopped me. He slung an arm around my shoulder loosely.

"Sure are. You can even be a princess, if you want."

My mouth shut closed and I looked at Phil, a little startled. He was, surprisingly, rather good with kids. That did not fit his personality at all. I was learning more and more about him by the day. Her face lit up, childlike excitement glistening with a hint of reluctance.

"What? No, I couldn't. I'm too old for silly things like that."

I felt a sudden need to be included. Braving myself up, I cut in.

"If you're too old, then what does that make us?"

She smiled shyly. I stepped forward, feeling Phil's eyes on my back, walking past her and leaning down near the grass. Flowers sprouted at my feet, little dandelions and tiny purple ones I didn't know the name of. They watched me curiously.

"What are you doing?" she asked, coming up next to me as I sat down.

"Every princess needs a crown, right?" I plucked a couple of flowers.

Phil handed me a bristled vine from one of the trees, as well as one for her and himself. We all then sat in a small circle, quietly winding tiny flowers around into crowns. I leaned forward, biting off the end of the base to knot it. The sun was shining brightly above us, scavenger hunt long forgotten. It was like being swept away from reality, into a slightly happier fairytale where flowers were the only thing we need worry about.

Only when the loud echo of a bell ringing across the treetops reached us did we finally come back to our senses. We'd all just barely finished, dirt smudging our fingertips.

"Oh," the girl mumbled. "I didn't get all the things on the list."

"That's okay." I leaned forward and put my crown on her head.

She beamed happily. I went to stand up, but stopped short as I felt something on my own head, light and combing into my curls. Phil was standing above me, adjusting the crown he'd made. His face was gleaming, almost the way I'd seen in the pictures. A fraction of happiness. Not even, maybe, but peaceful in the least.

"What about mine?"

We both looked over at the girl the same time. She was messing with the one she'd made, slightly nervous as she plucked a petal off one of the flowers in anxiousness.

"For me, of course," Phil said.

A small giggle slipped from her mouth as he leaned down and let her put it on. Then, each of us taking one of her hands, me holding the basket and Phil the list, we walked to camp.

When we got back, there was a crowd of children-slash-younger-teenagers all lining up to have their findings examined. She let go of our hands, overtaken with excitement, and began to run to join them after snatching her own objects from us.

"Wait." She stopped, turning around. "I never got your names."

"Dan and Phil," I told her, pointing to the both of us in order. I liked the way our names fit together, rolled off the tongue in three simple syllables.

"I'm Louise," she adjusted her crown. "Thanks so much for everything."

Louise gave a tiny wave, her pink-sparkle-painted nails shining in the sun, before turning and actually leaving this time. We both watched, almost with relief, as the responsibility was finally lifted from our shoulders.

"That was exhausting," I mumbled, walking alongside Phil back to the main hall.

"Kids will do that," he chuckled. It sounded hollow.

His sad tone was back. The effects of braiding flower crowns in the forest were wearing off. Reality was once more present, like an annoying fly that doesn't die even when you squish it.

I chose to stay silent, not wanting to make him any more upset about whatever it was, to avoid prodding an open wound. Something apparently happened, that was obvious, involving a kid, most likely. I was very curious, and the more time I spent with him, the more there was to be curious about. It was a maze. Everytime I turned down one corner, away from something that needed to be solved, there was another waiting. Corners and corners of puzzles and tricks and more and more doors to this whole world I didn't know about behind his sad eyes.

We were not the first at the main hall. Lunch was due anytime now, moments away perhaps, and a small group of hungry not-so-actual parents were also waiting for the doors to open. The kids in the nearby distance, still bouncing around with their baskets, made the atmosphere buzz with noise. I was not used to seeing so many children, given that the lower aged cabins were on the opposite side of camp, in one place at one time.

Finally, a counselor showed up to let us in, just as the bell rang again. We cheered, thundering inside as a stampede of wildebeests, a cloud of dust wearing behind us. To be truthful, it actually wasn't that dramatic. We were more like slightly enthusiastic zombies. I wondered when I changed from a happy child, like Louise, to some zombie. How many years would I need to take off my mentality to be excited for a scavenger hunt?

Peej and Chris were wherever. Not at the table when Phil and I sat down, hands clasping two trays of grilled cheese, at least. Nothing unusual. They were always doing something somewhere. If not one thing in one place, then another thing in another place.

Phil did not touch his sandwich, and neither did I. An unspoken aire of acceptance that something was off. The happiness of flower crowns was far away, in the back of his mind, overtaken by other matters that I was still unsure of. I could just feel it, words itching my throat but unable to find some sort of sentence to break the tension we were stuck in.

I imagined a stack of game cards in front of us, questions on all of them. Whoever pulled one asked a question about the other, perhaps. We were both still on equal grounds with knowing each other, afterall. Balanced. A game of monopoly, a puzzle, a maze, whatever. I'm mixing up my metaphors.

It was Phil who finally took a card. Metaphorically, still. And the winning question! Finally revealed. I nearly laughed when it turned out my imaginative prediction was right, because he actually did ask me something.

Just not what I expected. In fact, the words that came out his mouth next were far from anything I would have ever even considered at the time.

"Why do you burn things?"