The Leveller - Julia Durango Page 0,54

Goose book that she’d kept from her own childhood.”

“You mean like ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’? You must have fallen asleep instantly,” I tease.

Wyn gives me a little push and I return a light elbow. “It wasn’t that boring,” he says. “Sometimes we’d have a contest and change the words, to see who could make the other laugh.”

“Give me an example,” I say. We’ve reached the homemade jungle swings Wyn made yesterday while I waded in the nearby stream with my fishing net.

“Well, pick a nursery rhyme and I’ll make one up for you,” Wyn says as we start swinging.

“‘Little Miss Muffet,’” I order as I pump my legs beside him.

He quickly obliges. “Little Miss Bauer sat in her tower, eating a burger and fries. Along came a spider who sat down beside her and said ‘I prefer zee french flies.’”

I snort and shove his swing with my foot. “That’s so bad it’s almost good. Almost.”

“And I suppose you spent your childhood engaged in much more sophisticated activities like studying Latin and practicing your posture?” he asks, shoving me back.

“Not even a little bit,” I answer, remembering ragtag summers spent running around the neighborhood with Chang and Moose. The memories make me smile.

“Then what did you do?” Wyn asks.

“I’ve told you about Chang and Moose, right? When we were really little, preschool even, Chang used to orchestrate these absurd games for the three of us to play. No matter how crazy they were, Moose and I would always go along with them, just to see what Chang would do next.”

“What kind of absurd games?” Wyn asks.

I think back thirteen years ago. “Well, so one rainy afternoon Chang makes an elaborate fort out of couch cushions and tells us it’s a drive-through restaurant called Nacho Burger,” I begin. While I talk I start pushing myself in circles, twisting the ropes of my swing into a tight spiral. Wyn does the same with his. “So Moose and I pretend to drive through in our imaginary cars and we place our orders. Moose orders nachos. ‘We don’t have any nachos,’ Chang hollers at him. So then I come through and order a burger. ‘We don’t have any burgers,’ Chang hollers at me. ‘So what do you have?’ Moose and I both ask, baffled. ‘Chicken!’ he yells, like we’re total idiots, then slams the couch cushion window shut in a fury. Moose and I laughed the rest of the day . . . we still laugh about it sometimes. And for years we used to beg Chang to play Nacho Burger again.”

“So, how many Nacho Burger adventures did you have?” Wyn asks. Our swings are now wound all the way up to the top.

I shake my head. “Just the one. Chang was always on to something new, quickly bored by us lesser mortals. He’s too smart for his own good, if you know what I mean. Always two steps ahead of everyone else.” I look up at our tightly wound swings. “Me, I’m much more easily amused.”

Wyn grins at me. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I say, and we both release our swings.

Wyn bellows and I shriek as the vines spin us around like wind-up toys. We’re going so fast that by the time we unspin all the way, our swings dump us into a heap on the ground.

We stumble to our feet and stagger around like dizzy, punch-drunk sailors. I grab Wyn’s arm for support and pull him off balance instead. We topple back down to the ground, laughing, but now Wyn is on top of me, and we find ourselves pinned to each other again, face-to-face. Our laughs die into smiles and neither one of us moves.

Wyn’s face softens as he looks into my eyes.

“Wyn—” I start to say, because I know what’s coming next. “I’m not sure we should—”

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, tenderly brushing the hair away from my face. “None of this is real, remember?”

And then he rises from the ground, pulling me to my feet.

There is something sad in his face.

Again, it’s something I’m missing. I know it. Something I have forgotten.

More than before, I have the sense that it is something worth fighting for. Something that I want to get back. Something that matters in the real world, not just here in the MEEP.

I look across the water toward Havana.

It sits darkened in a shadow thrown by a passing cloud.

Wyn beckons me toward the treehouse. “Snack, rock star?”

And in that moment, the real world seems farther away than