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Greg’s next stomp.
      “Stop!” I shout.
      I dive to the ground to prevent him from striking a third time, but Greg has already given up. He’s stepped back from the scene of carnage long before I can shield the ants with my body.
      Poor ants. Victims of us humans and our games. I wish my powers could heal your crushed bodies.
      “Wow, you really are a telepath,” says Greg.
      “Murdered unexpectedly in the prime of their lives without affection, when they were treasured of their peers and queen.”
      “Aww, Kwan, snap out of it. It’s just a bunch of ants.”
      “Tell that to the ants who just died.”
      “Come on, quit crying. It was a joke. I didn’t think you’d get all funny about it.”
      Greg grasps me by the shoulders to pull me to my feet, but also blanketing me in his feelings with the contact. He’s annoyed with me for making a scene about this. And he’s disgusted with me for crying. This sets me to bawling. I twist from his grasp and run away from him.
      “Kwan! Wait!”
      I ignore him and run on. He lets me get ahead, stopping to grab up my purse that I dropped. Why did I go and leave that behind? Now I have to let him catch up. At least he’ll have to work for it.
      I make him chase me for a block before I slow enough to hear out his apologies. Finally, I snatch back my purse.
      “Stop apologizing to me. It’s those ants back there you should be making amends with.”
      “Look, I’ll bring them tiny flowers tomorrow.”
      The thought of ants accepting flowers makes me want to laugh. I fight it because I’m supposed to be angry, but the corners of my mouth betray me.
      “So, we’re good?”
      “Absolutely not.”
      “Thank you, Kwan. You know I love you.”
      “What if I died and came back as an ant? Would you stomp me too?”
      “You’d be the ant with the prettiest, most flowingest hair known to ant-kind.”
      “That’s not going to score you any bonus points.”
      We reach the park shortly after. Lots of kids are playing there from school, since it’s the first day of the weekend. I spot three boys I know, boarding on the ramps. And there’s a group of girls from school too, gathered under the trees where I like to sit. In fact, Sanny’s there with Francesca. Sanny blows me a surreptitious kiss.
      “Great, actions happening,” says Greg, smiling. “I gotta go run a lap before the lines get big You want a candycone first?”
      “No thanks. It’s too hot and sticky for that.”
      Besides, if things go right, I have to be able to fit in a wedding dress.
      “You sure?”
      And my resolve melts faster than a candycone left in the sun for five minutes.
      “Fine.”
      Greg takes me over to the food stands, but loses patience in the line. He ends up leaving me a few silver to buy it myself, before taking off with his board. It’s hard to blame him. The boys there are doing spectacular three-turn flips in the air.
      That allows me to buy a more makeup-friendly softcone and join the others in the comfort of the shade from the trees.
      “Sooo, that’s Greg, huh,” says Sanny as I sit on the rocks beside them.
      I stand out from them a little because they’ve worn their full-length dresses, hats and white gloves today. I rarely wear a hat or gloves, the former making me look too old and the latter being too expensive to maintain. Sanny, whose parents can afford corsets for her, looks especially fetching. She’s done up her short brown hair in ribbons under her broad-rimmed bright hat.
      “Yes it’s him,” I say. “Complete with skateboard his folks don’t know about.”
      “He’s not that good with it,” says Sanny. I expected her to say that: nothing ever seems to meet her approval.
      “Sanny, don’t be silly,” says Francesca. “How did the meeting go at the Lanarrs, Kwan?”
      There’s so much to tell them, and so many questions to answer. It takes a long time to relate it all.