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straight back home.
    For years, we had begged to go all the way into Horton by ourselves. We dug our battered Schwinns out of the shed and coasted down the long gravel driveway toward the road, making elaborate hand signals in case my mother was watching from the kitchen window. It was a warm, humid day. The east wind off Lake Michigan, which usually cooled our afternoons, had been stalled by a low, gray bank of clouds at the horizon. Buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace choked the ditches, and every now andthen we passed a pale green patch of wild asparagus, delicate as mist. At first, we raced each other, because the flat length of road was a novelty, but after a mile or so we settled into a steady rhythm, side by side, and we felt how small we were, surrounded by fields of corn and alfalfa and, occasionally, cows. They were Holsteins mostly, and because of the heat, they clumped together beneath what shade they could find, usually small stands of trees that the first German settlers had left behind. Sometimes there was an old foundation beneath those trees, a boarded-up well, a scrap of rotting fence—all that was left of an original homestead. The cows watched us pass, releasing powerful streams of urine that splattered their legs and bellies, their silent mouths working, working.
    Horton was the sort of town that happened all at once. It began with an old grain mill, the only warning before an eruption of close-set houses that led toward the downtown. If you looked between those houses to the west, you could see the fields that stretched behind them; if you looked between the houses to the east, you could see more fields, and a glimmer of aquamarine that was Lake Michigan. We propped our bikes against a telephone pole and went into Becker’s Foodmart. As usual, it was crowded with cans of food that no one ate unless it was a holiday: cranberry relish, Boston brown bread, mandarin oranges. The Dessert of the Day was always arranged on a long, low table by the grocery baskets. This time, it was a strawberry shortcake, cut into crumbling cubes. My mother never let us try these samples, though she sometimes took a plastic cup of the complimentary coffee for herself. Who knows how long that’s been sitting there ? she’d whisper, sweeping us past and into the sour meat smell. Now we popped the largest pieces into our mouths, but they were dry, too sweet, disappointing.
    Mr. Becker prided himself on greeting everyone who came into his store. All children looked alike to him, so he simplified the matter by calling boys Bobby and girls Susie. Today he wasstocking soup; we tried to slip past him to the household aisle, but there were jingle bells attached to the electric doors, and he’d heard them when we came in.
    â€œSusie! There’s my girl,” he bellowed, dropping the carton of soup cans and charging up the aisle. “What can I get for you now?”
    â€œWe know where everything is,” I said, in the voice I saved for adults like Mr. Becker. But Mr. Becker dropped one cold, heavy hand on each of our shoulders.
    â€œWhat have you got to say for yourself!” he shouted at Sam. Sam looked at the floor and did not speak; I fixed my gaze on a pyramid of Fancy Artichoke Hearts. We both knew that when attacked by a bull or a bear, your best option was to play dead. “Cat got your tongue?” Mr. Becker asked, and then, mercifully, he released us and chuckled his way back to the soup. Sam and I headed for the dishwashing liquid, embarrassed for both ourselves and Mr. Becker. Rounding the next aisle, staring grimly ahead, we saw a tall, thin girl slipping a package of Hostess Ding Dongs into her purse.
    She was about fourteen. She wore silver sandals and a gold ankle chain and frayed jean shorts that crept so high you knew she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Her shirt was a man’s white T-shirt with the sleeves and the collar ripped off. A gold star, the kind the teachers stuck