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as his long arms reached easily over the roof of the car to wash it. His height was going to be an asset in this job. “Sounds like it would be hard to sleep,” I said. The slippery, soapy lather smelled like cherry foam.
    He laughed a little. “It’s trippy. I’ll be honest. Fairbanks has this summer solstice celebration, and the whole town stays out super late. We have a baseball game that starts at ten thirty at night, and we don’t even use any artificial lights. Stores stay open later. Last year, a couple of my friends and I headed out to Cleary Summit, about twenty miles outside town, and stayed there for hours watching the sun. We camped out, and Beth did this long-exposure photography thing and ended up with a picture of the Chatanika River Valley with about a dozen suns in the background.”
    I wondered if Beth was his girlfriend but couldn’t think of how to ask.
    The hose and high-pressure sprayer attachment I used to clean out the wheel wells made a loud, rhythmic trill against the metal, so I spoke louder when I asked, “So, what about winter then?”
    â€œWinter is kind of a beast,” Silas admitted. “The temperature is moody, depending on where the wind is coming from. So it goes from just an average cold down to, like, cold -cold and back up again. And meanwhile, it’s dark out and purple . The sun sets before school’s out. That is a terrible feeling.” He laugheda little. “I literally could not go running in daylight because the sun didn’t come up until three hours after school started. I kinda hated it. Laurel really hated it.” Again, he looked as if he was going to say more. He chewed on the inside of his mouth, still undergoing some internal debate.
    I remembered the Nikes peeking out from under his bed. “You run?” I asked, immediately regretting giving him the easy way out.
    â€œWhat?” he asked, as if distracted. “Yeah, I love it. Like mother, like son, I guess. I run my best and hardest when I’m frustrated . . . which is why it’s great to have Laurel as a sister. No one more frustrating than her.” He grinned at me, lips pursed mischievously, eyebrows raised—an oddly suggestive look, as if he’d just made some outrageous or even salacious proposal.
    â€œI refuse to believe that until you meet Libby and Shea,” I said. “They’re twelve and seven and watching us through the window right now.”
    Silas looked over at the window and waved. My siblings ducked out of sight. I pictured them giggling on the floor.
    â€œWhat are you doing after this? Wanna get lunch?” he asked, pushing his thick hair out of his eyes.
    â€œNot really. Your moods are kind of giving me whiplash here,” I confessed.
    â€œI’ll behave. Promise.”
    The afternoon stretched out before me, empty of friends and responsibilities. If I could just get through the day, I couldcall Elliot and Trudy later on to catch up.
    Silas held up three fingers—Scout’s honor—squinting at the sun in his eyes. “I promise,” he repeated.
    â€œYou’re annoying,” I said again.
    â€œIs that a yes?”
    â€œFine, whatever.”
    â€œIs that a yes?”
    â€œYes.”

four
    We went to the Red Owl—which has technically been a SuperValu since before I was born, though no one in Green Lake calls it that—and bought pop and apples, along with a bag of cinnamon-roasted almonds and some sandwiches from the tiny deli section, then biked to the park that brushed up against the pointer finger of the town. We ate lunch on the swing set near the lake.
    Just the sight of the playground made me ache for Trudy, who had accompanied me to these swings since the days when we’d buy Pop Rocks and magazines with our allowance money and listen to the carbonated candy fizzle on our tongues while we debated the merits of various teen stars. I smiled thinking of the