“Swimming is good. Why aren’t you doing that?”
“Too many grown-ups in the pool.” Christian frowned.
“What have you got there?” Sheldon referred to the book in the boy’s hand.
Christian, never breaking stride, held it out so Sheldon could read the cover. “Chet, the Cowboy,” Sheldon said out loud.
“They make us read at least a book every two weeks at camp.”
Sheldon nodded. He was impressed and thought that was a good idea. “What else do you do at camp?”
“Most of it is fun. We go to a park and play baseball and basketball. We swim, watch movies. I take a class on how to use my camera.”
“That does sound like fun. Where’s the camera?”
Christian pulled a small digital camera from his back pocket and held it up for Sheldon to see.
“Have you learned how to use it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “All you have to do is look through here.” He indicated the viewfinder. “And press this button.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”
“There is, but I haven’t learned it yet.”
“So you’re reading and taking pictures?”
“I have to bring the pictures to camp. I take the camera and they use the card inside to get the pictures off. Can I take one of you?”
Sheldon grinned. “Sure,” he said.
Christian was already moving the camera up to look at the small screen. Sheldon stood still. He was considerably taller than his photographer. Changing his mind, he sat on the ground and crossed his long legs, and looked straight at the camera.
Christian snapped a picture. Then he moved several steps and took another. Again, several more steps, this time to the side, and snapped a photo.
“Enough,” Sheldon announced, getting to his feet. “I’m not that interesting. What about the marina. The boats there are beautiful and would be good subjects for you.”
“I already took a lot of those,” he said.
The two began walking again. “Have you taken some of your friends?”
“Yeah,” he said as if he’d exhausted all the subjects he knew. “My grandma, too.”
“What about buildings? There are some cool houses around here. There are the stores in town. You could choose one subject and take a lot of that type. Do a study of it.”
“What do you mean?” Christian frowned up at him, screwing his face into a peculiar mask.
“Well, you could choose windows and take pictures of the windows in a lot of places, stores, houses, boats, cars. Or you could choose doors, roofs, cars...”
“Cars,” he stopped Sheldon. “I like cars.”
“There are some terrific ones around here. But,” he cautioned, “if you see the owner, be sure to ask permission first.”
“I will.”
They reached the Laundromat. Sheldon held the door and his small charge went inside. While the dryers produced heat, it was still cooler inside than out. Sheldon went directly to the washers. He was familiar with this place, coming once a week to clean his clothes. Once he put the clothes in the machine, he lifted Christian onto it and the two of them sat and waited for the clothes to be washed.
“You wanna know what else we do at camp?” Christian asked.
“I’d love to.” Sheldon smiled. He hadn’t had much interaction with children in his past and he found he loved hearing about the world through the eyes of this nine-year-old. Everything was wonderful and new. It was like he discovered the world every time he turned a corner.
“We were playing a game one day when it was raining and we couldn’t go to the park.”
“So what did you do?”
“We talked about places.”
“What places?”
“A lot of them. Our counselor is from way up north in Canada and he told us about where he was born and what they grow and eat there. Then he asked us what we knew about where we lived.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t know a lot.” He twisted around and looked at Sheldon. “I told them about the beach and that there were a lot of fish in the ocean. That there were sea shells in the sand and sometimes we collected them and made things. I told him there were a lot of boats in the water and that you cleaned the bottoms.”
“You told them about me?”
“Was that all right?” Immediately, Christian was defensive.
“Yes, that was all right.” He reassured him.
“I told them that the boats couldn’t go very fast if you didn’t take care of them.”
Sheldon smiled. That wasn’t exactly the truth, but for a nine-year-old to distill it to that level was fine.