Chapter 10: The Fence

The school playground was fenced in chain link, and the parents who came to watch recess stood along the east side with coffee.

We stood there too.

It was ten past ten on Monday, and the sun was out on the frozen blacktop.

Emmett had not said a word since we left the shop.

He had shaved that morning and cut himself on the jaw, and a small red dot of blood was drying near his ear.

The children's mother had stayed in his kitchen with the door locked.

She had said she couldn't stand at that fence until she had earned it.

Emmett put his fingers through the wire.

"Which one?"

"The one with the red hat."

Milo was at the far end of the yard with four other boys.

He had a rubber ball and a missing glove, and he was explaining something with both arms.

His red hair stuck out from under the hat.

I heard Emmett's breath go in and not come out.

"I never thought past a baby," he said. "I thought about a baby for eleven years."

Out in the yard, a boy kicked the ball too hard.

It sailed over the others' heads and came down on the blacktop and bounced against the fence, a few feet from where we stood.

Milo came running after it.

He stopped at the wire.

He looked at the ball, and he looked up, and he saw me.

"Jo!"

"Hi, bug."

"You came!"

"I told you I'd still be around."

He bent for the ball and held it against his stomach.

Then he turned his face up toward Emmett, and his eyes went over the hair and the jaw, and the cut with its small dot of blood.

"Hi," he said. "You're Emmett."

"I am."

"Do you really build boats?"

"I do."

"Grandma says you're a bad man."

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