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Karen didn’t remember everything. There were bits and pieces her young mind forgot the moment she found a cool stone or saw a pretty doll. She was selective about which memories were saved and which were happily forgotten. There was only one person, one lovely girl, she remembered almost everything about.
Sometimes she only remembered a smell, or a colour, or a place. Maybe just the person she was with. Usually, she remembered the colours first.
Pink, especially.
Her dress was the prettiest shade of pink she’d ever seen. It came from a department store in town, and it had cost more than most of her play clothes, which meant it came with rules. Don’t sit on the ground. Don’t run. Don’t pull the bow. Don’t wrinkle it. Don’t play in the mud. Don’t spill any juice. In short: act like a young lady.
The sash was wide and tied into a bow in the back. The skirt puffed out when she spun, though she wasn’t supposed to spin too much. Her mother had ironed it that morning, so it still smelled like her vanilla perfume.
Her socks were white and cuffed, stretched over her little round calves. She could even see her own reflection in the toes of her shoes if she bent down. Her father had just taken her into town to get his own shoes shined, and he figured she might as well get a polish too.
Her cheeks were round, permanently flushed whether from heat or shyness or nothing at all. Her hair, dirty blonde and a bit wavy, had been brushed until it looked straight for at least ten minutes before the wind and humidity fluffed it up again. When she smiled, and she did that often, her whole face seemed to lift with it.
“Such a happy little thing,” people would say.
She didn’t know what to do with that except smile harder. It felt good to be praised, even if it was for something as simple as being cheerful.
She was six years old and only recently so. Her birthday was in early August, and the month was almost over. She felt strange about being six, since it still wasn’t old enough to be considered much more than a child. A baby, even.
Just beyond the fence of her family’s house, a patch of wildflowers grew. It didn’t technically belong to them, since the property line was a little crooked, but no one corrected her when she called it hers. It had been there longer than she could remember, coming back every spring fuller and fuller.
It was a stretch of lilies and daisies and tall purple flowers that brushed her knees when she walked through them. Usually, it smelled like warm soil and sweet pollen in the summer. She imagined winter would give it a different scent, but she wasn’t allowed out there then. It was off-limits in the wintertime because the ground was too icy, and her father said there were more wild animals.
Karen loved that patch of flowers more than anything. She loved that her mother didn’t hover over her shoulder the way she did on the porch. She loved that the tall flowers made her feel smaller. She even loved the bugs.
Well, sometimes. When they were ladybugs or bumblebees.
That was until she loved something, or rather someone, a little more.
Joyce’s mother came up the dirt path just after lunch, calling toward the front of the house for Karen’s mother.
Karen had been crouched near the fence, prodding at an anthill with a twig and watching the tiny bodies scatter. She stood when she heard a voice and brushed her hands against the cleanest bit of grass she could find.
Joyce walked behind her mother, kicking at loose pebbles in the path. She was still five, a few months younger than Karen, and shorter by a noticeable inch or two. Her bangs were cut blunt and a little crooked, like someone had attempted to trim them at home and it had gone wrong.
When Joyce squinted up into the sun, Karen could see the gap where a tooth had recently gone missing. There always seemed to be one missing, one growing in sideways, or one that wiggled if she pushed it with her tongue.
Her blue dress had a split seam in the sleeve, white thread pulling apart at the edge, and the rest was smudged icky green. Her leather shoes were scuffed around the toes and deeply creased across the top. The buckles were broken.
Joyce’s mother reached the gate and rested her hand on the latch. She was a pretty lady with warm skin and dark brown hair. She had lovely eyes and smelled like honey.
“I hope we’re not intruding,” she said as Karen’s mother stepped out, wiping her hands on an old dish towel.
“Hello!” Mrs. Childress replied brightly. “No, no. Of course not. It’s good to see you.”
The two women met at the gate and exchanged pleasantries, air-kissing each other’s cheeks. Karen didn’t bother listening to what they were saying. It was hardly ever interesting when it came to her mother and her friends.
The women separated and looked down at the girls.
“You remember Joyce, don’t you, Karen?” her mother prompted.
“And Joyce,” Joyce’s mother said gently, nudging her daughter’s shoulder. “You remember Karen.”
Joyce had been dragging her shoe through the dirt, carving a thick line into the path. She stopped to inspect what she’d made, then looked up.
Up close, her eyes were darker than Karen expected. Her lashes were thick and dark, and a small scatter of freckles dusted the bridge of her nose. Her cheeks weren’t as pink as Karen’s, but they were just as round and soft-looking.
Their mothers continued talking, discussing the heat and a good sale downtown. It all faded into background noise, important to them and meaningless in a little girl’s world.
“Now you girls play nice,” Mrs. Childress said, giving Karen a little shooing motion with her hand. “Stay where we can see you.”
“And stay off the road,” Joyce’s mother added.
There was an awkward pause once the attention shifted away from them.
Karen stepped forward, because that was what she had been taught to do when someone arrived. Don’t hide behind your mother, don’t stare, and always introduce yourself properly. Act like a lady.
She wiped her hand discreetly against the side of her dress, just in case it had gotten sweaty in the heat, then held it out.
“Hi,” she said, her voice a little higher than usual.
Joyce stared at the offered hand. Her own hands were not prepared for introductions. There was dried sap along the heel of her palm, something purple staining the side of her thumb, and dark patches of dirt under her fingernails.
She flexed her fingers and glanced toward her mother’s back. The women were still deep in conversation, bending their heads toward each other to whisper. There was nobody to tell her what to do, or tell her she was doing something wrong.
Joyce carefully took her hand.
Her skin was warm and felt nice, though it was definitely a little sticky. There was a grass stain on Joyce’s knee, dark and dried in the centre, which caught Karen’s attention as well. She seemed prone to accidents.
“You live there?” Joyce asked, tilting her chin toward Karen’s house. “It’s big.”
“Yes,” Karen said, turning so she could see it too. “My room is on the second floor.”
From this angle, it did look large. Two stories. A wide porch. White windows. The paint was clean and straight. Her mother washed the front steps every Saturday morning. The curtains inside were cream and matched the tablecloth in the dining room. Karen knew that because her mother had told her so. It looked big enough for a little girl to run around in, and most days Karen did get lonely running around it on her own.
Joyce squinted toward the second floor. “Do you like it?”
“Sometimes.”
Joyce kicked at a clump of grass beside her. “My room’s next to the kitchen. We don’t have a second floor.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Karen understood, somewhat, that there was a difference between her house and other people’s. She didn’t have words like “income” or “mortgage” or “privilege.” What she understood were new dresses with tags still attached. Second helpings at dinner. Shoes that fit before they had holes. A yard with flowers nobody argued belonged to her family. Hearing the refrigerator because there wasn’t enough space for a little girl to sleep elsewhere. She understood she was lucky.
“Do you want to pick flowers with me?” she asked suddenly.
“There’s probably bees. I don’t like bees.”
“They don’t sting if you’re nice.”
“That’s not true.”
Karen frowned. It had never occurred to her that it might not be true. The bees had never stung her. She always moved around them, never shouted, and didn’t swat if they buzzed near her ear. In her mind, that counted as being nice.
“Well, they haven’t stung me.”
Joyce glanced back toward the patch of flowers. “If one chases me, I’m gonna run.”
“But you’re not supposed to run.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Joyce seemed satisfied with that answer. “Okay,” she said. “Then I might run. I don’t want a bee to sting me.”
She lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun, though it didn’t seem to help much. She squinted toward the far edge of the field.
“Maybe there’s frogs over by the ditch.”
Karen followed her line of sight.
There was a shallow runoff ditch near the edge of the field. Her father had pointed it out once while explaining drainage, using a stick to trace where the water went when it rained too hard. Karen had nodded at the time, though she hadn’t quite understood. To her, it had always just been the place where the grass grew darker and thicker. A place you didn’t need to visit or look into.
Frogs belonged in storybooks or muddy puddles, not in the field she loved.
“Really?” she asked, unable to hide the spark of interest in her voice.
Joyce stepped straight through the flowers without worrying what they might do to her dress.
Karen, on the other hand, hesitated. She glanced back toward the house, though nobody was watching. Her mother and Joyce’s mother had migrated inside.
She gathered a bit of her dress in her fist and followed.
The grass grew thicker the farther they went. It brushed against her calves and tickled her skin. Something dry scratched the back of her knee. A bee buzzed too close to her ear and she flinched, lifting her free hand before quickly remembering not to swat it.
When they reached the edge of the field, both girls were breathing a little harder. The ground beside the water was soft, almost spongy. Joyce crouched, balancing easily on the balls of her feet. She leaned forward with her hands on her knees, close to tipping over.
Karen hovered behind her at first, uncertain how close she was allowed to get. The mud looked sticky. She imagined her mother’s face if she saw it on her pink dress.
After a long second, Karen bent her knees too. She didn’t squat easily. Her heels wouldn’t stay down, and she wobbled before catching herself on the ground. The dirt was cool, and she made a disgusted face, but didn’t stand again.
They were quiet for a while, searching for any sign of movement. A dragonfly skimmed the surface of the water and darted away. Karen leaned forward, trying to see beneath the algae. The water looked empty, with only a few sleepy looking fish drifting around near the top.
A sudden splash broke the surface about two feet from them. Ripples spread in widening circles, distorting the reflection of the sky.
Karen gasped.
“Told you,” Joyce whispered.
It was greener than Karen expected, but definitely not the bright storybook green she had imagined. A frog had surfaced near the bank, half in the water, half out. Its throat puffed like it was blowing up a balloon.
“Want to hold it?” Joyce asked.
Another frog crawled its way out of the brown water, dragging its belly through the mud before sitting on the edge.
“No, thank you. They’re slimy.”
Joyce pushed her hand into the thick grass. There could have been anything in there, like sharp sticks, beetles, or something that bit, but she didn’t seem to consider it. Karen watched in a mix of horror and fascination.
There was a quick splash, a burst of movement.
Joyce’s hand lifted, and suddenly she had a frog. It was bigger than Karen expected, almost the size of Joyce’s palm. It kicked, its long back legs jerking against her fingers. Its body was slick with mud and a thin, cloudy film. Joyce grabbed it with her other hand too, cupping it awkwardly so it wouldn’t slip away.
Karen instinctively stumbled back. “Oh!”
Joyce held the frog up. Her bangs fell into her eyes, and she blew at them without much success. “Are you sure? He doesn’t bite.”
“I can’t,” Karen insisted, shaking her head. “We ironed my dress this morning. I can’t get it dirty.”
Joyce couldn’t imagine a world where a dress mattered more than a frog in her hands. “You could wash it.”
Karen glanced at the mud dripping from the frog’s back, her cheeks puffing slightly as she held her breath, debating.
Joyce giggled at her expression, her missing tooth showing again. She crouched down and set the frog back into the water. It paused, then leapt into the tall grass with a deep croak.
She wiped her hands on the thickest patch of grass she could find, dragging her palms back and forth. It didn’t help much. Her skin was left with murky brown smears and bits of crushed grass clinging to her fingers.
Karen took a step back, watching as Joyce lifted her hand toward her again.
“No!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me. Your hands are gross!”
“They aren’t gross!”
Karen hugged her arms around herself, protecting the front of her dress. “You’ll get it on me. I’ll be slimy.”
There was a second where Joyce might’ve decided to lunge just to see what would happen, but Karen didn’t wait to find out.
She turned and ran.
Her legs went as fast as they could, which wasn’t very fast at all. The front of her pink dress bunched awkwardly and she tried to weave around the brighter patches of flowers, lifting her feet so she wouldn’t crush them.
Behind her, Joyce ran too. Joyce did not weave. She went straight through, bending stems and flicking petals up into the air behind her.
“Come back!” Joyce shouted, laughing too hard to say more for a second. “I won’t get it on you!”
“Stop it!” Karen called over her shoulder.
Joyce’s laughter was loud enough to startle a pair of birds from a nearby tree.
Karen tried very hard not to laugh with her. She was supposed to be upset, after all. Her dress was at risk. Her shoes were getting wet.
But every time Joyce shouted her name, something fuzzy in her chest grew stronger.
She wasn’t used to this kind of play. The girls she knew liked sitting on porches, brushing doll hair, and setting up pretend tea parties. Karen liked those things too, and she liked being good at them.
This was different. The wind rushed past her ears, turning the world into a blur of green and gold. Grass brushed her calves, and her heart thudded so hard she could feel it in her throat.
She ran harder.
The field felt enormous, stretching farther than it should. Everything felt enormous at six. The sky, the trees, even the rocks buried in the dirt. Especially the rocks.
She didn’t see the stone until her shoe caught on it.
To anyone older, it would have looked ordinary. To her, it might as well have been a boulder. Her toe got stuck, and her body fell forward. She thought she could catch herself if she swung her arms. She couldn’t.
She hit the dirt, catching her weight too late. Her dress flipped up, exposing her white bloomers. Her knee scraped against the edge of the rock, stinging immediately. She collapsed fully onto her stomach.
The grass was dry and brittle. It scratched along her forearms and into her cheek. The smell of hot weeds and dirt burst into her nose, too close and unpleasant. A small cloud of dust puffed up around her face.
Joyce stopped running. Her laughter died as she watched Karen hit the ground. She stood a few feet away, her chest heaving from the chase.
Joyce was used to falling. She was used to skinning her knees and scraping her elbows and getting back up again. Usually, she’d look around to see if anyone important had seen it, spit on the scrape, rub it with her hand, and carry on. If it bled, it bled. If it stung, it stung. The sting always faded.
But this wasn’t her knee.
And Karen didn’t look like the kind of girl who would appreciate being spit on.
Karen rolled slowly onto her side, then pushed herself up until she was sitting in the grass. Her face had already changed. The fun had drained out of it completely. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her mouth turned down.
Her soft brown eyes, caramel in the sunlight, glossed over. Tears pooled, making her lashes clump together. Her lower lip wobbled, and she pressed her teeth into it, trying to hold it back.
She lifted her knee and brought it closer so she could see.
The scrape wasn’t deep, but the top layer of skin had peeled away in a rough oval, exposing tender redness beneath. Tiny beads of blood were beginning to gather along the edge.
Joyce didn’t know what to do.
She shifted her weight awkwardly, then dropped down beside Karen and folded her legs beneath her. She gently tugged the front of Karen’s dress back down where it had ridden up, covering her bloomers again.
“Are you okay?”
Karen nodded. “Mhm,” she mumbled as a tear slipped down her cheek. “M’fine.”
“It isn’t that bad,” Joyce said, though she wasn’t entirely sure. She leaned a little closer. “I’ve had worse.”
That didn’t seem to help.
A second tear fell, then another. Karen tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand, embarrassed by how quickly they came. She took a shaky breath that turned into a small whine.
“It hurts, Joyce.”
Her tears started falling faster, collecting on her chin and dripping onto the front of her pink dress, leaving darker spots in the fabric. It didn’t seem like she was in unbearable pain so much as startled by how quickly it had happened. Her dress was wrinkled. Her socks were dirty. Joyce could see it all dawning on her at once.
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t see the rock. It was—it was so big. It really hurts.” Karen whined again. “Please help me.”
Joyce searched the ground around them for something useful. A leaf? A chunk of wood? There was nothing but dry grass and dirt or miscellaneous farm items.
She hesitated, then wiped her hands on the least muddy part of her dress and awkwardly wiped Karen’s cheeks, catching some of the tears before they could fall.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered. “You were just scared.”
Karen looked down at her knee again, as though to confirm the scrape was still there. “You won’t tell, will you?” she asked quietly.
“Tell what?”
“That I was running.”
The idea hadn’t even crossed Joyce’s mind. “I won’t tell. You only fell because you were trying not to squish the flowers.”
Karen’s eyes widened. “I was only trying to protect them.”
“Yeah.” Joyce shrugged. “But I squished them.”
A tiny smile broke through the tears.
Joyce didn’t like how Karen’s mouth kept wobbling even with the smile.
She leaned sideways and grabbed the nearest flower from the patch beside them, though she didn’t pinch the stem like Karen would have, yanking it free.
“Here.”
Karen blinked at it, unsure what it was meant to fix. She wiped her cheeks, smearing dirt across her skin, then took the flower.
“It’s for you,” Joyce added. “So you feel happy.”
Karen sniffed, still shaky from crying. “Thank you.”
Her face was blotchy down to her chin. The skin under her eyes had gone puffy. She sniffed again, hard, but it didn’t quite work, so she wiped under her nose and only smeared things further.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Joyce said, nudging a pebble with her shoe. “You almost messed up your face. And you’re pretty, so that’d be bad.”
Another tear slipped down Karen’s cheek, but no new ones followed. “I’m pretty?”
Joyce shrugged. “Yeah. Your eyes look better when you’re not crying. I can see them better.”
Karen’s bottom lip wobbled, but this time it turned into a full smile. She seemed to forget about her knee. Shyly, she took Joyce’s hand.
Joyce had almost forgotten her hands were still covered in frog water and mud and whatever sap she’d gotten on them earlier. The stickiness transferred immediately, and she assumed Karen would recoil from it.
Instead, Karen held on.
Joyce scrambled to her feet and pulled gently, helping Karen stand. Karen wobbled, favouring her scraped knee.
“It’s not bad,” Joyce said again, mostly to stop Karen from crying. “It looks bad, but it isn’t.”
As they walked back to Karen’s house, Joyce noticed Karen limping, though she was trying very hard to disguise it. She’d step normally, hesitate on the sore leg, then overcompensate with the other. Joyce slowed her pace a little so Karen could keep up.
When they reached a bumpier patch of ground, Joyce squeezed her hand and guided them around the worst of the rocks. Karen leaned closer, relying on Joyce’s arm instead.
── .✦
By Thursday, Karen couldn’t stand it anymore. She tried very hard not to think about it, about her, but failed miserably. Every time she turned around, she imagined a beautiful little girl in a blue dress behind her. When her mother called her pretty, she imagined Joyce calling her pretty too.
At breakfast, she pushed her oatmeal around the bowl with the back of her spoon until it was gooey. She dragged it up the side and watched it slide back down again.
“Darling.” Her mother cleared her throat. “What are you doing? Do not play with your food.”
“I’m eating,” Karen said quickly, and to prove it, she scooped up a large spoonful and shoved it into her mouth.
Ever since Joyce had held her hand all the way back to the kitchen, even when Karen insisted she was fine, and stood nearby while her mother held a wet cloth against her knee, Karen hadn’t been able to clear her head.
Joyce hadn’t let go until she absolutely had to.
Just as the dishes were being dropped into the sink, the question burst out.
“Mommy? Could we call Mrs. Maldonado? So Joyce can visit again?”
Mrs. Childress paused with a dish in her hand. She looked surprised, but not displeased. Karen didn’t usually ask for specific children. Playmates appeared when their mothers arranged it; that was how things were done. They had enough presence in Hawkins that Karen never needed to worry about other little girls liking her.
But of course Karen had to choose the Maldonado family.
“Well,” her mother said slowly, “that’s a nice thought. You did seem to have a good time.”
Karen shrugged as if she didn’t care very much. “We played in the field. I think she’s nice.”
“Mhm.” Her mother hid her smile.
Once the dishes were stacked and the sink was rinsed, Mrs. Childress walked over to the phone. She tucked the receiver between her shoulder and ear while dialling the Maldonado house. In the back of her mind, she worried nobody would answer. The Maldonados weren’t known for paying their bills on time, and who knew if they’d even be home, considering both Mr. and Mrs. Maldonado worked.
Karen positioned herself behind the doorway, half-hidden by the wall. She pressed her back flat against it and tilted her head, catching the end of the brief conversation.
“Oh, that would be lovely…Around two?…Perfect. We’ll see you soon.”
Karen ducked away before her mother could turn around, rushing to the couch and pretending she’d been sitting there the entire time.
“You may have a guest this afternoon,” her mother called out, amused. “She’s quite excited to see you.”
Karen was dressed long before two o’clock. She asked for her hair to be done “nicely,” which meant sitting on the little stool in the bathroom while her mother brushed through the tangles. Karen tried not to squirm, but it hurt whenever the brush got caught.
“Hold still, darling.”
“I am.”
“You are not. You’ll only make it worse by squirming.”
Karen squeezed her eyes shut and counted in her head until it was over. When the ribbon was tied, she reached up to touch it, just to make sure it felt secure.
When she went to choose a dress, she picked something she normally wouldn’t have even considered. Her pink one was clean and hanging in the closet. So were the red and the white.
She reached past them all.
The yellow dress was softer and thinner, its colour faded from too many washes and too much sun. There was still a milk stain on the cuff from when she’d tripped at lunch a few months earlier. It wasn’t ruined, just imperfect.
It was perfect for what she had in mind.
“Karen,” her mother said, “you may wait in the laneway so you can see her coming. Do not go on the road.”
The laneway had a clear view of the road, but it wasn’t what Karen wanted.
“I’ll wait in the field,” she mumbled back.
Her mother looked mildly confused, but didn’t argue. “Don’t go too far, darling. She won’t see you if you’re hidden in the long grass.”
“I won’t.”
Karen sat in the long grass anyway, because it was the only place she could sit without getting muddy. The ground beneath her was dry and prickly, and after a while it made her legs itch, but she didn’t move. She fixed her skirt over her knees, folded her hands in her lap, and tried to look like she wasn’t waiting.
Dragonflies flew across the tops of the flowers, their wings catching sunlight and flashing into her eyes. Everything moved painfully slow. Every sound made her head lift. A car in the distance. A dog barking. A church bell tolling. A bumblebee buzzing by her ear.
What if Joyce didn’t come?
Maybe Joyce hadn’t liked watching her knee get cleaned. Maybe she thought Karen had cried too loudly for too long. Maybe she’d gone home and said, I don’t want to play with her again. She’s a baby. She’s a prissy little girl.
Karen twisted a daisy between her fingers, winding the stem tighter and tighter until it snapped.
What if Joyce simply didn’t like her?
She hadn’t meant to miss Joyce. They’d only really played together once. Once and a half, if she counted the walk back and the cleaning in the kitchen. All the other times had been brief, and they’d hardly spoken. Joyce wasn’t easy to get to know, and most of the other girls Karen knew didn’t seem particularly fond of her.
But the field hadn’t felt the same all week.
Yesterday, Karen had stood by the ditch alone, poking at the water with a stick. One frog had jumped near her shoe and made her gasp, but there had been nobody to look at afterward. Nobody to say, did you see that? to.
Karen sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin against them, then remembered the scrape and lowered one leg again. A small scab had formed, and she’d been very good about not picking at it.
“Oh, please come,” she muttered under her breath.
At first, she thought the heat was playing tricks on her eyes. The road looked wavy and bright in the distance, stretching much farther than it really was.
Then a small figure separated itself from the shimmer.
It was Joyce. It had to be.
Karen jumped to her feet and forgot about waiting patiently. She took off toward her, then stopped herself after three steps, remembering the rock. Instead, she bounced on her toes, holding her hands tightly under her chin while she waited for Joyce to reach her.
When Joyce finally got close enough, they collided shoulder to shoulder and knocked each other sideways.
“Hi,” Joyce said, bending over with her hands braced on her knees after running the whole way there.
“Hi!” Karen exclaimed. “I’m happy you came.”
There was an awkward second where they only smiled at each other.
Karen continued before she could change her mind. “I want to hold a frog.”
“You what?”
“A frog,” Karen repeated, lifting her chin. “A real one.” She pinched the fabric of her sleeve and held it up, pointing to the milk stain. “This dress is old. See? It already has a stain. I wouldn’t mind getting it slimy.”
“Oh.” Joyce smiled. “Okay. Let’s go!” She spun on her heel and took off toward the ditch, then stopped and walked backward. “Don’t fall!”
Karen made a sour face, but followed after her. She stepped around the bigger rocks and watched where she placed her feet. Her knee still felt a little tight when she bent it, and she didn’t like imagining what would happen if she fell again.
Joyce was already crouched at the water’s edge when Karen reached her. She’d shoved both hands into the tall grass leaning over the pond, parting it roughly and sloshing the water around.
“You need to get under them,” she muttered. “That’s where they hide.”
Karen crouched too, copying Joyce, though she kept her knees pressed together while Joyce absolutely did not. The smell of the ground was stronger from this close. Wet and earthy and a little rotten. The heat only made it worse.
Joyce’s arm disappeared into the weeds up to her elbow. The water made soft glugging noises as she moved around in it.
Karen wrung her hands together. Her stomach felt fluttery. Not sick, she’d been sick enough times to know she hated that feeling. She was nervous. She wasn’t sure she’d ever noticed this kind of nervousness before, but she could tell it was a good nervous. Maybe that was a thing.
While sitting alone in the field, she’d pictured herself scooping up a frog and laughing while Joyce looked impressed by how brave she was. But now that Joyce was actually digging through the muck beside her, it felt very different.
What if it jumped at her face?
What if it wiggled too much and she dropped it and Joyce rolled her eyes?
What if she screamed?
“Get ready,” Joyce said suddenly.
The frog wasn’t enormous, thank goodness, but it wasn’t tiny either. Green and brown and shiny with pond water, its legs twitching. Its belly pulsed as it breathed.
“He isn’t gonna hurt you,” Joyce said. “Just don’t squeeze him.”
“I wouldn’t squeeze him,” Karen said, sounding almost offended. “I’m not a squeezer. I’m very gentle.”
“Put your hands out.”
Karen hesitated, her hands hovering uncertainly in the air.
“You said you wanted to,” Joyce reminded her.
“I do.”
She didn’t want Joyce thinking she’d changed her mind. She wasn’t a baby. She was brave.
Karen held her hands out, curving them the way Joyce had shown her before, making a little bowl and pressing her fingers close together so nothing could slip through.
Joyce scooted closer and nudged Karen’s thumbs inward.
Her fingers were rougher than Karen’s, and much warmer.
Karen nodded to show she was ready.
Joyce lowered the frog, tipping her hands so the small body slid forward. The frog’s cool belly finally touched Karen’s skin. Joyce kept her own hands underneath, ready to catch it if anything went wrong.
“You’re okay,” she reassured.
Karen clenched her jaw and held still.
One back leg kicked against her finger and she squeaked, but her hands stayed together. She was holding a frog. An actual frog.
“It’s strange,” she whispered.
“Yeah. That’s the best part.”
The frog wiggled again and Karen laughed. It kicked once more, and she loosened her fingers so Joyce could slide her hands in and take it back.
They both leaned forward to watch as it sat on the edge again, stunned, before deciding to hop back into the water.
Karen started to giggle. “I did it.”
Joyce wiped her hands on the sides of her dress and tilted her head at Karen. “Why did you want to hold a frog?”
Karen rocked back on her heels. Her hands felt strange now that the frog’s warmth was gone, cooling and a little sticky. She rubbed her fingertips together and made a face at the texture. “I didn’t want to be a baby anymore.”
Joyce frowned. “You aren’t a baby. You’re little, but not a baby.”
“But I am,” Karen sighed, twisting her fingers together. “I act like one. Because I cry. And I don’t like dirty things. And I fall a lot.”
“Crying doesn’t make you a baby. Babies can’t talk, and you talk a lot.” Joyce didn’t like the anxiety in Karen’s voice. “You’re smart. You know big words, like slimy. Babies can’t say big words.”
Karen felt her cheeks go warm again. “I wanted to do something new,” she admitted quietly. “Like big girls do.”
“Well,” Joyce nudged her with her elbow. “You did. You held a frog. And that frog was pretty big.”
There was a small pause after that. It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt longer because neither of them knew what came next. Karen’s thoughts drifted, unable to stop new questions forming in her head.
“Joyce,” she asked, “is blue your favourite colour?”
“Huh?”
“Your dress,” Karen clarified, pointing with two fingers. “You wear blue a lot.”
Joyce shrugged. “It’s what I’ve got.”
“What do you mean?”
“This one and the other one. They’re blue.”
Karen tried to picture having only two dresses. She had a pink one, a red one, a white one, the yellow one she was wearing now, and at least two others in her drawer.
“I like pink best,” she said, filling the silence. “It’s the best colour. The other ones are okay, but they’re not as good as pink.”
Joyce nodded, though she didn’t fully understand. Colours weren’t especially important to her, but if Karen said pink was best, she was willing to believe it.
“Pink’s happy,” Karen continued, bouncing on her toes. “And it matches almost everything. And it looks nice on me.”
“You do look nice in pink,” Joyce agreed, though a yawn escaped her afterward. She didn’t bother covering it.
Karen stared at her in mild horror before instinct took over. She yawned too, though she quickly lifted her hand to cover her mouth the way she’d been taught.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled.
“I’m tired,” Joyce said, rubbing her fist into her eye. “We were at the shops all day. Had to go to two places to get bread. My legs are tired.”
Karen tried to imagine needing to go somewhere twice for bread. It seemed like an awful lot of work for something that appeared in the breadbox in her home.
“Why didn’t you get it at the first place?”
“It cost more.”
Cost more. Karen had heard adults say that before. Usually her mother said it while talking about meat or butter. But it had never meant having to leave and go somewhere else.
“You can have ours,” she offered softly. “There’s always lots in the box. Sometimes it goes hard and nobody eats it.”
“I don’t like bread that much.”
Karen’s eyebrows shot upward. “You don’t?”
“It’s boring.”
“Oh.” Karen thought for a second. “I like it with jam.”
“That’s because of the jam.”
They both giggled.
Everything felt a little funnier when they were together. The serious talk about being a baby fell apart almost as quickly as it had begun. Karen still thought about it somewhere in the back of her mind, but it didn’t sting as much now.
Joyce had said she wasn’t a baby, and that felt important.
“We could take a nap,” Karen suggested, watching Joyce blink slower. She really was sleepy.
Joyce wandered a few steps away without paying much attention to where she was going, drawn toward a patch of flowers that had been baking in direct sunlight all afternoon. The grass there was thinner and soft-looking.
She plopped down flat on her back.
“What are you doing?” Karen asked, hurrying after her.
“Napping.”
Karen glanced toward her house. She could just make out the kitchen window, where her mother and Joyce’s were probably still talking. “I have a bed,” she offered. “We could share it. I wouldn’t mind.”
“I like the sun.”
The idea of lying on the ground on purpose felt strange. Ground was where bugs lived. There could be dirt in Joyce’s hair, or a bumblebee could plop down on her stomach. A grasshopper might even jump into her ear.
But Joyce looked comfortable.
Karen laid down beside her, making sure her dress wasn’t bunching underneath her. She stretched her legs out in front of herself, then reconsidered and bent one instead.
The ground was warmer than she expected. Heat soaked through her dress and into her back, almost cozy, though the dry little stems prickled against her skin and made her feel slightly itchy.
Joyce pushed her bangs off her forehead and scooted closer, brushing her shoulder against Karen’s. Karen let her arm rest beside Joyce’s instead of pulling it in politely the way she might have with someone else.
She turned her head to study Joyce’s face.
The freckles scattered across Joyce’s nose were easier to see now. There was a tiny scratch near her eyebrow Karen hadn’t noticed before, too. Looking at her felt a little like looking at the field: it was strange and pretty and full of things Karen wanted to understand better.
“What’s your favourite food?” she asked quietly.
Joyce took longer than usual to answer. “Tuna casserole.”
“I like that too!”
Joyce cracked one eye open. “You do?”
“Yes,” Karen answered, delighted to have found something else they shared. “We make it on Sundays. With the crunchy bits on top.”
Joyce’s eye opened a little wider. “With the chips?”
“And peas. I don’t really like peas by themselves, but I like them in it.”
“That’s because they’re hiding.”
Karen smiled and let her head sink back into the grass. A piece tickled the back of her neck, making her giggle.
“Are you always this happy?” Joyce asked. “You’re always smiling. You must be happy.”
Karen had never really thought about it before, but she supposed she did smile a lot. She liked things. She liked flowers. She liked pink dresses. She liked tuna casserole and jam on toast. Apparently, she even liked holding frogs. But around Joyce, all of those things felt different. Better. She acted happier because she was happier, even if she didn’t fully realize it. She liked Joyce. She liked being around her. She liked her blue dresses, her little freckles, and the way she never managed to keep her hair out of her eyes.
“I am happy. But I feel more happy with you.”
She picked at a blade of grass near her elbow, tugging it out and shredding it into smaller pieces. Her anxiety was taking over again.
“Are we friends, Joyce?”
“Huh?”
“Are we friends?” Karen repeated, tugging her sleeve down over her hand to hide it. “I wasn’t sure.”
Joyce’s forehead wrinkled. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I cry, and I don’t like getting dirty, and—”
“You held a frog,” Joyce interrupted. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow. “You share. You said I could have your bread. You play with me. You’re nice.”
“Oh.” Karen hadn’t realized any of those things counted.
Joyce dropped back into the grass again. “We could be best friends,” she mumbled. “What do you think?”
Best friends.
That was bigger than just friends. Bigger than frogs. Bigger than the whole field. It was the biggest thing Karen had ever heard of.
“I’d like that. I would really like that.”
Without looking, Joyce reached over beside her, her hand searching blindly until it bumped against Karen’s. Their fingers tangled together clumsily.
“Then we are,” Joyce murmured. “You’re my best friend.”
Karen smiled so hard her cheeks started to hurt. She could feel dirt against her face and grass brushing her ear, but none of it mattered anymore.
“Don’t ask silly things like that,” Joyce added sleepily. “You’re my best friend now. Always.”