A few times here I played with Valerie. The Skeletons mostly live in the city which is one reason Father doesn't like them. They beg money and maybe steal. They only sleep in the forest park if they're afraid or if the police are sweeping or something so Father says if they're here it's bad for everyone. People were never supposed to live in cities. They gathered together since they were scared and then living like that only made them more and more afraid. Valerie is nice, though. She is a year older than me and hasn't hardly read any books at all and says she doesn't care. Last time she had a kitten that she let me pet. Black and white with runny eyes it could barely walk.
"Okay, Caroline," Father says. "Let's go now."
In two minutes the flies let up and the air is sweet again. It's like there are more birds and the leaves of the trees are greener the further away we walk.
"Richard," Father says, "stopped getting smarter a long time ago. You're finished speaking with him."
"Yes," I say. "It's weird," I say. "Going there."
"If you're going to say something," Father says, "be specific. You just said nothing at all."
"Well," I say, "you can go there and do nothing, really, and still when you leave you just feel tired."
"That's because of the way they live," he says. "They're tired all the time and they don't even know it. You're right, Caroline. However good the bartering, it's just not worth it. And today? Just these two blue tarps, one ripped. Not much, but better than having to carry all that junk we traded all the way back down to the city. Still, you're right. That's the last time we go there."
"Ever?" I say.
"I don't know if we're getting better," he says, "or they're getting worse or both, but it's just gotten to this point. And it's not good for either one of us, being exposed to that. Now look here," he says, and pulls back the bushes.
We're back at the dead deer and there are only a few tufts of hair, a dried-out strip of skin. The white skull is stripped clean and part of the rib cage and the bones are scattered around disappearing into the bushes like the skeleton fell out of the sky and shattered in every direction.
"Look at this, Caroline," Father says. "If you were in a schoolhouse you could never learn like this. You're going to be the smartest of them all."
We look at the deer a while longer, kicking gently with the toes of our shoes, before we turn and start back for home, walking again.
"You really don't like Richard," I say.
"What's to like?" Father says. "He's a fool."
"What about Nameless?"
"He wasn't there, was he? He's gone."
"He's still in the forest park," I say. "Just not in the camp. He left it."
"A fool also," Father says. "Have you seen him?"
"Where else would he go?" I say.
"We have the liveliest interest in a wild man," Father says. "They feel the impulse from the vernal wood."
Father will talk like this sometimes, saying things like he memorized them and someone said them before or he read them in a book. It's a hard thing to answer.
"But Nameless left the camp so maybe he's smart," I say. "He doesn't steal and he eats what he finds. He can run faster on all fours than most people can run on two legs."
"The liveliest interest!" Father says, his voice rising.
"What?" I say. "Do you think a person can really eat banana slugs? Richard told me that Nameless does."
"Maybe," Father says. "Look that up in your books, or next time we're at the library. Why not? People eat snails."
"Snails?" I say.
"What are you so worked up about?" Father says. He reaches his hand out and pulls me close, the side of my body against the side of his body. "You don't need to worry about these people," he says. "You're better than they are. Smarter and more civilized. We've already worked so hard. Are you ready to study this afternoon? Geometry?"
"Chess first?" I say.
"Only one game," he says, but once we get home and get settled we play three and the last one takes longer than half an hour.
In chess the knight is a horse and he moves in the shape of an L. I wonder what Randy thinks about that as a way to get around.
Two squirrels are chasing each other like they're not really fighting but playing like they're friends. Squirrels' memories are much shorter than ours even if their lives are much shorter too so maybe they remember more carefully and that's what sets them twitching and jerking around. In alone time I like to follow but it's not always easy to follow a squirrel. It depends what it's up to or where it wants to go and when two are chasing each other that makes it trickier so I just keep walking.