He'd found something. Alan leaned in and saw that it was a milkweed pod. "It's an egg," Bobby said. "No, it's a weed," Alan said. Bobby wasn't usually given to flights of fancy, but the shape of the pod was reminiscent of an egg. Billy clucked his tongue. "I *know* that. It's also an egg for a bug. Living inside there. I can see it hatching. Next week." He closed his eyes. "It's orange! Pretty. We should come back and find it once it hatches." Alan hunkered down next to him. "There's a bug in here?" "Yeah. It's like a white worm, but in a week it will turn into an orange bug and chew its way out." He was about three then, which made Alan seven. "What if I chopped down the plant?" he said. "Would the bug still hatch next week?" "You won't," Billy said. "I could, though." "Nope," Brad said. Alan reached for the plant. Took it in his hand. The warm skin of the plant and the woody bole of the pod would be so easy to uproot. He didn't do it. That night, as he lay himself down to sleep, he couldn't remember why he hadn't. He couldn't sleep. He got up and looked out the front of the cave, at the countryside unrolling in the moonlight and the far lights of the town. He went back inside and looked in on Benji. He was sleeping, his face smooth and his lips pouted. He rolled over and opened his eyes, regarding Alan without surprise. "Told you so," he said. # Alan had an awkward relationship with the people in town. Unaccompanied little boys in the grocery store, at the Gap, in the library and in toy section of the Canadian Tire were suspect. Alan never "horsed around" -- whatever that meant -- but nevertheless, he got more than his share of the hairy eyeball from the shopkeepers, even though he had money in his pocket and had been known to spend it on occasion. A lone boy of five or six or seven was suspicious, but let him show up with the tiny hand of his dark little brother clasped in his, quietly explaining each item on the shelf to the solemn child, and everyone got an immediate attitude adjustment. Shopkeepers smiled and nodded, shoppers mouthed, "So cute," to each other. Moms with babies in snuglis bent to chuckle them under their chins. Store owners spontaneously gave them candy, and laughed aloud at Bryan's cries of "Chocolate!" When Brian started school, he foresaw and avoided all trouble, and delighted his teachers with his precociousness. Alan ate lunch with him once he reached the first grade and started eating in the cafeteria with the rest of the non-kindergartners. Brad loved to play with Craig after he was born, patiently mounding soil and pebbles on his shore, watering him and patting him smooth, planting wild grasses on his slopes as he crept toward the mouth of the cave. Those days -- before Darcy's arrival -- were a long idyll of good food and play in the hot sun or the white snow and brotherhood.