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again?”
    “Betsy.”
    “That’s old-fashioned. Heavens to Betsy.”
    “More like to hell with Betsy’s all I hear,” she said.
    Derek laughed. “That’s pretty sharp. But don’t pity yourself. You’re young and nimble, sweet and petite. Look at me. By comparison I’m old, slow, slovenly, and overweight. I should be complaining, not you.”
    “You are complaining.”
    “Good. Order has been restored. Now listen up. I want you to come down to the middle of your lawn, and stand just opposite me here. C’mon, you’ll like it!”
    She kept her arms stiffly at her sides to show her reluctance, but she did as he asked. He stepped off the chair he had been standing on, and disappeared behind the fence. She could still hear his voice.
    “Are you facing the fence?”
    “Yes.”
    “Close your eyes,” he said.
    “No!” She giggled nervously.
    “Come on, Betsy. For the full effect you gotta close your peepers for a sec. Are they closed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Keep ’em closed.”
    “They’re closed.”
    Her ears were assaulted by a burst of unhappy metallic scrapes and squeals, and un-oiled springs stretching and straining.
    “Keep ’em closed!”
    “They’re closed, they’re closed!”
    “Okay, open ’em!”
    She saw the fence, and in midair above it, Derek suspended as if weightless for an instant. Then he fell to earth, or at least fell out of sight behind the fence, and the unseen springs shrieked again, and he shot back skyward to new heights, then fell again, and rose, fell, rose, and fell, again and again. For good measure with each rebound he attempted some kind of goofy pose—hands on hips, or thumbs in ears, or biceps curled like a body-builder. The whole thing was so unexpected that Betsy, entranced, giggled delightedly. Then suddenly he flew dangerously off kilter and sideways skyward, a panicked grimace on his face. “Oh shit,” he muttered, and plummeted down out of sight. She heard a soft thud as he hit the earth.
    Betsy rushed to the fence and tried to peek through the cracks. A knothole gave the best view—she saw a weathered trampoline, its skin stretched tight by equally aged springs, hooked to a base that might once have been painted blue.
    “You like it?” Derek asked. He was back on his feet, dusting himself off, looking a bit woozy.
    “I love it,” she squealed. “Where did you get it?”
    “It’s amazing what people throw out in the trash,” he replied. “It’s perfectly good, except where it’s broken. Not broken. Bent a little, I should say. Would you like to try?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “My mom would freak and have a heart attack and die.”
    “From a little old trampoline?”
    “No, from me going to your yard.”
    “No no, don’t worry about that, my dear. The toy is for you—I brought it home specifically with you in mind, because I’ve seen you wandering aimlessly around your patch of perfect lawn over there. You’re like some poor little waif in a children’s book praying for an imaginary friend to come along. Here’s my advice—keep hopping on this little number and chanting I think I can I think I can , next thing you know, you’ll be in orbit with the space shuttle. Or at least you’ll get some exercise, get the kind of colour in your cheeks all boys and girls your age and ethnicity should have. A girl like you should be ruddy-cheeked and ready to ride a balloon to the moon, right?”
    “I guess so,” she said. She wasn’t sure what he had in mind.
    “Stand back,” he said. “Way, way back. In fact, go up on the deck.”
    She did as told, and from there she could see him work. “See these planks?” he asked. “They’re two by tens, twenty-four feet long. Almost impossible to find such a thing anymore. People say my back yard is just junk, well I say look again.” He took the two planks and leaned them against the fence on a sloping angle, so that their midpoint was on top of the fence, like the midpoint of a teeter-totter.