“You and Arthur need to get over here,” Levi said.

“Remy’s grounded, remember?” I said. “We have no ride.”

“Then ride your bikes.”

Arthur shot me a look over his shoulder. “What’s he saying?”

“He wants us to ride our bikes over there.”

“Not want,” Levi said. “Need.”

“Tell him if he’s so desperate for company, he can ride his bike here,” Arthur said.

“What’s he saying?” Levi asked me.

“He says stop being a lazy asshole,” I replied.

“Frances.” Levi enunciated slowly: “Go out into your yard, get onto your bike, and pedal your little Schmidt hearts out. You need to see what my video camera caught.”

* * *

*

My handlebars shocked me so badly I flung the bike back against the shed where I’d left it leaning.

“What?” Arthur said, climbing astride his own. “Did you see a spider or something?”

I wasn’t afraid of spiders, but when I said so, my indignation was lost on him. He was already halfway across the yard.

Arthur never waited for me—he looked back to make sure I was there, and he constantly bugged me about bringing the Mace key chain he’d gotten me for Christmas—but he never waited.

He was morally opposed to slowing himself down, for anyone but especially for me. A few years ago he’d very matter-of-factly told me that the worst thing Mom ever did for me wasn’t leaving us, but babying me so much that I couldn’t handle it when she did.

It was the only time either of us had said it aloud—leaving us—but the fact that Arthur thought I couldn’t handle her leaving stung worse than the phrase itself.

I grabbed my bike again, this time careful to touch the rubber handle first, then took off after my brother. The back of my neck prickled, and I fought an impulse to look back. Dad wouldn’t be watching us from within the yellow glow of his bedroom window (he never was), and I’d feel stupid for even checking (I always did).

If we were being watched, it was probably by him, the creepy hermit whose property backed up to ours. He sometimes stood there, late at night, at the barbed wire fence that separated our field from his woods, looking like Frankenstein’s monster in his denim bib-alls.

I rode faster.

We turned up the access road to the train tracks, pedaling hard to keep pace as we thundered over the gravel, past the propane tank they used to heat the track switches in the winter and past the giant blue penis Nick had spray-painted on it, then cut through the woods to the back of Levi’s neighborhood on the literal far side of the tracks.

He, Sofía, and Remy all lived in the newer part of town—houses built on hills in the late 1950s, with fern-filled solariums and mahogany bookshelves like Sofía’s, or home gyms and stainless steel appliances like Remy’s. Houses with pools and gardens and forest views, and easy access to both Kroger and Walmart.

Levi lived at the end of a cul-de-sac in a sprawling, mint-colored house, a mid-century quad-level with wide windows, a nearly flat roof, and a lattice carport that jutted out over his parents’ twin Volvos. Foliage hemmed it in from all sides, blocking the pool and hot tub from the neighbors’ view.

As we glided up the driveway, Levi’s head thrust out of the window over the carport. “Finally!”

“Faster than if we’d had to wait for you to learn how to ride without training wheels.” Arthur dropped his bike in the yard. “Where are the others?”

I kicked my stand loose and followed Arthur to the front steps.

“Nick: work. Sofía: lacrosse,” Levi answered before disappearing deeper into the room. “They’ll be here later,” he shouted. “I called Handsome Remy, but the sheriff answered: He’s grounded until further notice. Toss those boxes up, would you? Shouldn’t be anything breakable.”

He was referring to the three Amazon packages leaned against the front door. “How many of those do you think are porkpie hats?” I whispered to Arthur, who considered seriously before saying, “One.”

Whenever Levi’s parents were out of town, they left him with a credit card “for emergencies,” but they never seemed to question what sort of catastrophe would require their son to order signed movie posters or bulk boxes of sour gummy worms or hats from L.A. specialty stores.

Arthur tossed the packages onto the carport roof, then scrambled up after them instead of just going through the ever-unlocked front door like a normal person.

I would’ve preferred the latter, but we all treated the flimsy carport roof like a ritual. So I climbed onto the metal awning, flattened myself to the siding, and shuffled over to swing through the window.

Arthur was already standing over Levi’s shoulder at his desk, last night’s footage pulled up on his computer.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Palm Desert,” Levi answered. He was wearing an entirely green outfit, including a hunter-green fedora, which made him look like a burly Robin Hood. “For Sable’s second birthday.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lindquist were much older than my parents, and both retired, and ever since Levi’s (much) older sister started having kids, they’d gone into full grandparent mode, with Levi and his nieces and nephew alike. They were all affection and no rules, and it seemed like they were visiting their grandbabies in California more often than not.