It was an earthworm, thick with loamy soil.
"You!" he said, casting about for a curse of sufficient
vehemence. "You!"
She hopped from foot to foot in front of him, clearly delighted with
this reaction. He reached out for her and she danced back. He took off
after her and they were chasing around the yard, around hopscotches and
tag games and sand castles and out to the marshy woods. She skidded
through the puddles and he leapt over them. She ducked under a branch
and he caught her by the hood of her windbreaker.
Without hesitating, she flung her arms in the air and slithered out of
the windbreaker, down to a yellow T-shirt that rode up her back,
exposing her pale freckles and the knobs of her spine, the fingers of
her ribs. She took off again and he balled the windbreaker up in his
fist and took off after her.
She stepped behind a bushy pine, and when he rounded the corner she was
waiting for him, her hands clawed, digging at his tummy, leaving him
giggling. He pitched back into the pine needles and she followed,
straddling his waist and tickling him until he coughed and choked and
gasped for air.
"Tell me!" she said. "Tell me your secrets!"
"Stop!" Alan said. "Please! I'm going to piss myself!"
"What's that to me?" she said, tickling more vigorously.
He tried to buck her off, but she was too fast. He caught one wrist, but
she pinned his other arm with her knee.
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