There were no oars in the rowboat, so they took turns pushing it. One boy rode while the other hunched against the stern, his legs churning the shallow water, his feet digging into the mud and roots at the bottom of the wide, squarish lake. The green metal bow wedged through the water, its speed varying, and it weaved from side to side, in time with the submerged stride of the boy pushing it.

Right now Andy was pushing. He suspected it was George’s turn, but they didn’t have a watch. George had already been whining that Andy wasn’t doing his share. To prove he wasn’t shirking, Andy kept grinding through the dark water, conjuring a tan trail of slurry that drifted to the surface in their wake.

In the boat, George looked to the right, surveying the alternating mud and grass of the bank. His hair whipped in the wind, strands of it catching the sun and glowing white.

“I wonder if this lake is full of snakes,” he said, still watching the shifting seam between the water and the land.

“Shut up,” Andy grunted.

“I mean, it must be. They stock it with fish, and once you got fish, snakes are gonna come. Moccasins and all. My uncle used to go hunting for the nests at night. Or, he’d leave a fish on a gill line off the dock, just hanging in the water, and after a while, if he left it long enough, there’d be a snake hanging off the fish, and he could yank it up.”

“Why’d he want to catch snakes?”

George shrugged. “Skins, mostly. Belts. Whatever else they make from snakeskin.”

Andy angled the boat a little further from the bank.

“Look out!” George yelled. “Moccasin!” He flung his arm to the side, pointing.

Andy kept pushing the boat. He stared at George’s back. After five or six seconds, George started laughing soundlessly.

“I swear to God,” Andy said. “I’ll drown you in the water and sink this boat on top of you to hold you down.”

“Nah. I go missing and they’ll haul you right in. Shoot. You’d never make it in jail.”

“I’d be long gone by the time anybody’d think to miss you.”

George leaned forward, looking at his hands, doing something. Andy shoved the boat a few feet, and then he said, “Sorry.”

George shrugged. “It’s about time for me to take a turn,” he said.

“Getting late. You want to just head back to the motel?”

“Not really. I guess we should, though. Your mom and dad might be waiting on us.”

“They’d just yell down the road if they were. But let’s go anyway. I don’t want to stay out here after the sun goes down.”

Andy turned the boat and guided it back along the shoreline toward the dock where he and George had found it. As they approached it, he started pushing faster, sprinting awkwardly, gouging into the shifting mud of the lake bottom. The bow rose slightly as the boat coasted through the water. George laughed shrilly, his mouth open to the wind.

They reached the dock, and George crawled over the bow onto it. Andy dug the mooring rope from the bottom of the boat and tossed it to George, and then he wrestled himself, dripping, onto the dock.

“Loop it twice,” he told George.

“It was only looped once when we found it.”

“Well, let’s leave it better than we found it. Like a campground.”

“Campground,” George muttered. “Okay, whatever.”

Andy sat on the edge of the dock and kicked his feet in the water to get the mud off them. He straightened his legs to inspect his toes—the skin between them was still grayish-brown. He stuck his feet back underwater and rubbed them against each other.

“Andy,” George said.

“Yeah?”

“I think we might…”

“What?”

“Run, Andy, run!”

George thumped over the dock and started sprinting down the road. Andy pulled his feet out of the water and stood up. He looked around. A man stalked along the edge of the road toward the dock. He was still a hundred feet or so away. He pointed toward Andy and shouted something.

Andy ran after George, who had already reached the crossroad. He stopped for a second, looking back at Andy and waving backward frantically. Then he turned right and ran toward the motel.

Andy ran until he reached the crossroad. He thought about going left, which was what George should have done, to keep that guy from figuring out where they were staying. He looked back down the road at the man, who had stopped at the dock to check his boat. The man flung an arm dismissively in Andy’s direction, and then he started walking back in the direction from which he had come.

Andy turned right and ran after George. He caught up with him a minute later in the motel parking lot.

“Thanks,” he coughed, bending over. “Thanks for just leaving me there.”

“I said run.”

“Yeah. Then you ran off.”

“It’s not my fault you can’t run as fast as me.”

Andy stood up and walked past George to the door of their room. He dug in the back pocket of his shorts for the key. “I did run fast,” he said as he unlocked the door.

George followed him inside. “You think that guy’s going to come after us?” he asked.

“Nope,” Andy said. “He went on home. He didn’t care, once he saw the boat was okay.”

“We better stay away from that side of the lake.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow, so I don’t think it’ll matter. Anyway, he should lock his boat up if he doesn’t want people taking it. If he did come over here, we’d just say we thought the boat was for people staying here. That it was the motel’s boat.”

George nodded rapidly. “Motel boat. Right. Okay, that’s good.”

Andy started walking toward the bathroom, but two brisk knocks sounded on the door to the room, and then the door handle rattled. George jerked his hands to his mouth.

“It’s no big deal,” Andy murmured as he went to the door. “That’s just my parents.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s how my father always knocks.” He pulled the door open.

“Why was this locked?” his father demanded as he strode into the room, looking from spot to spot as if searching for clues. Andy’s mother wandered in, digging through her purse.

“It locks by itself,” Andy groaned. “We’re not doing anything.”

“I know. I was just joking around. Let’s keep it that way, though, boys.”

“Yes, sir,” George said. Andy rolled his eyes again.

His mother looked up. “Oh my God, you’re filthy. You’d better take a shower and put something clean on. Don’t get on the bed in those clothes. No telling what you’ll leave there.”

“I was just going! I was right on the way to the bathroom, right this minute, when you knocked!”

“Okay, then. What were you doing to get so dirty, anyway?”

“Nancy, let it alone,” his father said. “Don’t discourage him from getting some exercise. What do you think they were doing, anyway? There’s a lake, and hiking trails, and everything—they were doing what boys do.”

“Don’t jump down my throat, please.” She turned to Andy and handed him some money. “We’re going into town for a couple of hours, but we ordered a pizza for you two. Take a shower first. Before you eat it.”

“Mom. I’m going. To take a shower. Right now.”

“Can we go into town, too?” George asked.

“What for?” Andy’s father barked.

“Like, to the movies, or an arcade, maybe?”

“There’s nothing like that there. The town’s for the adults. Out here is for the kids. You’ve got everything you need—there’s the lake and the woods—”

“It’s just about dark,” Andy said. “We can’t go in the woods in the dark.”

“Who says?”

“I say,” Andy’s mother said. “But, anyway, right now you should be resting from all the lake and woods you had earlier, especially if you want to do anything in the morning.”

“Like what?” Andy asked.

“Well, there’s that amusement park on the way home.”

His father started to groan, but Andy interrupted him. “Okay, we’ll stay here.”

“And go to bed early. No later than ten-thirty. I’m going to check when we get in. Give me that key.”

Andy fished it from his pocket again.

“Yuck, Andy,” his mother said. She took the key into the bathroom, holding it by its tip.

“Try to limit yourself on the pizza, too,” his father said. “Keep it down to two slices.”

Andy looked at the dark brown-and-gold carpet. His father waited for him to respond. Finally, he shook his head and turned away. “Come on, Nancy!” he called. “Everybody’s going to be waiting!”

“I’m coming. Geez.” She hustled back into the room, shaking water from the key. She dropped it in her purse. “Okay, boys. You’ll be asleep, so we’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” Andy said. “Night, then.”

“Good night, Mrs. Sharpe,” George said.

“Good night. Nighty-night.”

The door closed. Andy waited.

“Jesus,” he said. He threw the money on the table. “Guess I’ll go shower my fat ass.”

George studied the card on the nightstand between the beds, running his fingertip down the list of telephone numbers. Andy squatted at the end of his bed and fumbled in his suitcase. He yanked a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and a pair of underwear out, and then he stood up, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.

He pulled his dirty T-shirt over his head, and he dragged his shorts and underwear down his legs and stepped out of them. He hung the dirty clothes over the edge of the sink to dry. He scraped at a dot of paint on the edge of the sink with his thumbnail, and then he took a step back to look at himself in the mirror.

He wasn’t that fat. There was some slope along his sides, sure, but it wasn’t like you couldn’t see his muscles or anything. You could even see them in his stomach when he flexed. He held his breath and tightened his stomach muscles. Turning slightly to the side, he prodded the straining flesh with two fingers.

Letting his breath out, he bent and turned the shower on. The spray of water slowly grew hot. He adjusted the tap once, twice, and then he stepped in.

When he got out, the mirror was fogged, so he couldn’t see himself. Something like him moved in the glass, but it was diffuse, ghostly, like an energy creature in a science-fiction movie.

“I wish I was,” he mumbled as he sat on the toilet seat and slithered his legs through his clean underwear and shorts. “I wish I could be just an energy creature.” He stood up, shrugged into his clean T-shirt, and opened the bathroom door. Shedding steam, he stepped back into the motel room.

“Pizza’s here,” George said. Two lines of white cheese hung from his mouth. He tongued them up, eating them as they rose.

Andy went to the table and opened the pizza box. He yanked two feet of paper towels from the roll next to the box and folded them into a square on the tabletop. He pulled two pieces of pizza from the box and put them on the paper towels. He hesitated, and then he took another slice and laid it across the other two. He flipped the lid of the box shut and slid his hand under the paper towels to lift his food. He went to his bed.

“Uh, didn’t your dad say two pieces?” George asked. He was still sitting at the table.

“Yep. But he doesn’t know.”

“Won’t he know when he looks in the box?”

“He won’t if you say you ate four slices instead of three.”

George chewed for a minute. Then he said, “I don’t know—you want me to lie to your dad?”

“It’s just a slice of pepperoni pizza. And he probably won’t ask, anyway. Whatever. Do what you want.”

“No, I’ll do it. I will! I’ll do it. But—just—”

“What?”

“Well, you’re always complaining about your dad, but maybe he’s just worried. Like, maybe he just wants you to be healthy, is all.”

“Healthy enough not to be a fat ass in front of his friends.”

“Just healthy, period. I don’t know. Don’t you think you’re lucky? Compared to a lot of kids, anyway? I mean, look at me—my folks are splitting up, and I’m not even sure if I’m going to see my dad anymore. So, don’t you, you know, don’t you think it’s lucky, that your dad is still around and worries and all? That he wants to still be here?”

Andy bit and chewed. He swallowed, bit again, and chewed some more. He finished one of the slices of pizza. Then he spoke: “He’s not really my dad. I mean, he’s not my blood dad. I don’t even know who that is. At least you met your dad, at least you knew him for a while, at least. And you’ll keep seeing him, probably. But I’ll never meet my real dad.”

George sat, holding a crust, his brows furrowed. “But, your last name is Sharpe,” he said. “And Mr. Sharpe, he’s always been your dad.”

“My real dad left my mom before I was born. And then, when I was two, she married my father, and he adopted me. That’s why my name is Sharpe. I don’t know what my real name would have been.”

George ate the crust in two bites. He shook his head. “I still think you’re lucky. So, he’s not your birth dad. But he decided to be your dad, and he stuck with that. So, when you think about it, that seems even more—”

“You know, I really don’t feel like talking about it, even. Let’s just—I don’t know, put the TV on and see if there’s a movie or something to watch.”

George stared at him for a few seconds, but then he stood and went to the television. He turned it on and pressed the row of buttons, jumping through the channels. He stopped on an episode of Star Trek. On the screen, a Greek god, weakened, staggered back from the crew. George went back to the table and picked up another slice of pizza.

When the episode ended, he got up and dug in his backpack. “I’m going to take my shower,” he said. Andy watched the television as the closing credits flickered across alien faces. George stalked into the bathroom.

Andy finished his pizza. He wiped his mouth with the paper towels, and then he wadded them up and dropped them on the nightstand. He pulled the bed covers back and wriggled under them.

When George came out of the bathroom, Andy lay with his eyes closed.

“Andy?” George said.

Andy kept still, breathing shallowly.

George moved around the room, shuffling things. He switched through the channels on the television a few times. Finally, he turned it off.

For some time, he sat at the table, doing nothing, as far as Andy could tell with his eyes closed. Eventually, he turned off the overhead light and stumbled into his own twin bed.

Several minutes later, wet, whimpering noises came from George’s bed, muffled by the covers, the pillow, something. Andy almost spoke. He watched the shadows in the corner where the ceiling and the walls met. They shifted. Dark amoeboid patches floated through the gloom.

Sporadically, George lapsed into silence. After a while, he breathed steadily.

Andy turned over carefully, facing George. He watched the dark lump of bedclothes, but it didn’t move. He closed his eyes.

He woke to something scraping. The door opened a foot and then stopped. Several people started talking, almost shouting as their broken words rose over each other, but it was only the grown-ups, laughing out there.  "I just—hush down, y'all!" his mother whispered, louder than she thought, probably, trying to make the others hear. “I need to check on them, just quick.”

Andy kept his eyes closed as she stepped near his bed. Her shadow fell over his face, thrown by the light from the open doorway. Then it shifted away.

Andy slowly cracked his eyes. His mother bent before the other bed, her back to him. She reached down, adjusting George’s blanket, maybe.

“Poor boy,” she murmured. “Poor little boy.”

She stood upright. Andy closed his eyes again. His mother’s footsteps scratched across the carpet, and then the door slowly closed, until the bolt clicked.