Things You Should Know Read Online Free PDF Page B

duck jumps into the pool and paddles toward the girl, splashing noisily.
    â€œThese feet,” she says. “They’re the opposite of high heels and still they’re so hard to control.”
    They float in silence.
    She sees her sister come out of her room. She watches the three of them, her mother, father, and sister, through the glass.
    She floats on the raft.
    Relaxed, the duck extends her neck, her feathers bleach white, and she turns into a swan, circling gracefully.
    Suddenly, she lifts her head, as if alerted. She pumps her wings. Her body is changing again, she is trading her feathers for fur, a black mask appears around her eyes, her bill becomes a snout. She is out of the water, standing on the flagstone, a raccoon with orange webbed feet. She waddles off into the night.
    Below ground there is a shift, a fissure, a crack that ricochets. A tremor. The house lights flicker. The alarm goes off. In the pool the water rolls, a small domestic tidal wave sweeps from one end to the other, splashing onto the stones.
    The sliding glass door opens, her father steps out, flashlight circling the water. He finds her holding onto the ladder.
    â€œYou all right?” he asks.
    â€œFine,” she says.
    â€œCome on out now,” he says. “It’s enough for one day. You’re a growing girl—you need your beauty sleep.”
    She climbs out of the pool.
    Her father hands her a towel. “It’s a wonder you don’t just shrivel up and disappear.”

GEORGICA
    A phosphorescent dream. Everything hidden under cover of night becomes abundantly clear, luminescent.
    Hiding in the dunes, she is a foot soldier, a spy, a lusty intruder. The sand caves in around her, the silky skin of another planet.
    What was so familiar by day is inside out, an X ray etched in memory. The sands of Main Beach are foreign shores. With her night-vision goggles she scans the horizon on the lookout. At first there is just the moon on the water, the white curl of the waves, the glow of the bathhouse, the bleached aura of the parking lot. Far down the beach Tiki torches light figures dancing, ancient apparitions in a tribal meeting. Closer, there is a flash, the flick of a match, a father and daughter burst out of the darkness holding sparklers. They have come to the sea to set the world afire; thousands of miniature explosions erupt like anti-aircraft fire.
    â€œMore,” the little girl shouts when the sparkler is done. “More.”
    â€œDo you think Mommy is home yet?” the father asks, lighting another one.
    Checking her watch, she feels the pressure of time; the window of opportunity is small, twelve to twenty-four hours. Ready and waiting; her supplies are in a fanny pack around her waist, the car is parked under a tree at the far edge of the lot.
    She has been watching them for weeks, watching without realizing she was watching, watching mesmerized, not thinking they might mean something to her, they might be useful. Tall, thin, with smooth muscled chests, hips narrow, shoulders square; they are growing, thickening, pushing out. Agile and lithe, they carry themselves with the casualness of young men, with the grace that comes from attention, from being noticed. These are hardworking boys, summer-job boys, scholarship boys, clean-cut boys, good boys, local boys, stunningly boyish boys, boys of summer, boys who every morning raise the American flag and every evening lower it, folding it carefully, beautiful boys. Golden boys. Like toasted Wonder Bread; she imagines they are warm to the touch.
    She checks to be sure the coast is clear and then crosses to the tall white wooden tower, a steeple at the church of the sea.
    She climbs. This is where they perch, ever ready to pull someone from the riptide, where they stand slapping red flags through the air, signaling, where they blow the whistle, summoning swimmers back to shore. “Ahoy there, you’ve gone too far.”
    She puts out supplies,