All this took its turn in June. Him and You, Jane and the girl known as You Know Who, they played these boy girl make like dog games when no one else was near to see them. They each took their turns, Him with Jane, Jane with You, You with You Know Who, You Know Who with Him, till June stretched thin and then turned to months that weren’t June. A year of not Junes yawned by. Then it was a month of June once more. The sky once more was the kind of a blue of a month of June kind of a sky. But then that June took You Know Who with it. Who knew where You Know Who had gone to. Not Him or You or Jane knew where the girl known as You Know Who had gone. She was just gone is all. Like a cloud that was there in the blue of the sky and then one day it was not. So then it was just the three of them now, just Jane with Him and You, which is how Jane liked it to be in the first place. That was how it was, with Him and You on their blue bikes, with Jane on the back of one blue bike, till the day they saw a girl who looked too much like You Know Who for this girl that they saw not to be her. But when they called out to this girl, Hey, You Know Who, it’s us, this girl who looked like You Know Who, this girl, she did not turn her girl head to these sounds. Hey, you, they all three called out to her twice more with a shout, till this girl said back to them Who and then What? Him and You pulled up with puffs of dust that rose up from the backs of their bikes. Where have you been? Him asked who he thought it was the girl they called You Know Who. I’m not who you think I am is what this girl said back. I don’t know who you three are. Jane said her name. My name is Jane is how Jane said it. And the girl said back, as if she’d not heard of this name till just now, Jane? I’m a Jane too. Jane? Could it be that there could be two Janes in our world? is what Him and You both at the same time thought. Him and You both said this name out loud in the dust that had now gone back to be with the dirt and like this they looked back and forth at these two girls. The Jane who had been the one Jane that Him and You till now had known said to this new Jane, We can’t both of us be Jane. So we’ll have to call you a name that is not Jane, Jane told her. I think we’ll call you what you look like to us. To us you look like a You Know Who Two. This You Know Who Two, as Jane had just named her, said to this new name, What’s in a name? She looked up at a tree. A tree is a tree, is what she then said. Call me what you want. We don’t name the sky. We don’t say the dirt is but the dirt. We just call it what it is. Him and You looked at the dirt and it was You who stepped up and said, to this new You Know Who Two, You know what? You’re right, You said. And so what I’d like to call you is Girl. Girl, since a girl is what you are. And so Him and You bobbed up and down their heads and Girl is what this new girl was named. But Jane said Wait, aren’t I a girl too? If she’s Girl what does that make me? You’re Jane, You said. That’s what you look like to us is how You put more of his own words to this. Jane gave this girl Girl a look. It was the kind of a look that said more than words said out of one girl mouth could say. What this look said was, You think you won. But I’m still here. We are not done with this game.
When Him asked Girl where it was she lived, Girl said in a boat is where she lived. On a boat, Jane said back. Not on, was what Girl said back to this. I said I lived in a boat. A boat where? was what Jane stepped in to say next to all of this. There’s no place in this town for a boat to be a boat on, no pond or lake to float a boat. The boat, Girl said to this, that I live on, Girl said, is just as much dirt as it is boat. It’s a boat up on land, is what this girl said. Hey, do you three want to go see it?
Him and You and Jane all three of them said all three at the same time, Yes, yes, yes we’d like to see it. We like boats, You said, me and him, You said, we do, when in truth not once had these boys set a foot on a boat. Him did not say a word to this, though with a nod of his head he too said: I like boats too.
What Jane said to this was, Fools, there’s no boat in a town where there’s no place for a boat to be a boat on.
Oh yeah, Girl said, then come see and I’ll show you how a boat don’t need a lake or pond for it to be what it is.
Girl took them, Him and You, by the hands and she led them on a path in the woods out on the edge of this town to where her boat was the place where she lived.
This path, through these woods, these two boys, Him and You, with the girl named Jane who kept two steps in back of these three, this path, in this town, not a one of them had set foot on. She called it, this path, this girl who led them on this path through the woods they now walked on, she told them, it was called, the dead man’s trail.
Why’s it called that? was the thing that You asked.
Why do you think? Jane said from the back, so that Girl would not have to, a man died here on this trail.
Wrong, Girl said. It was a boy, is what she said when she said it. It was a boy who drowned in the lake.
What lake? Him said. There’s no lake in this town.
But there was, Girl said back. Where these woods are we see, there was a lake here, Girl told them, where now all we see are trees.
How could what used to be a lake be what it is we see here as woods and trees? is what Jane said she’d like to be told.