“Did I frighten you?” I ask.
At first, she looks like she’s not going to answer me, and I remember she’s angry. But then, she gestures downward. “It’s a pretty scary scene, isn’t it?”
From the tree, I survey the damage on the ground below. The giants were here, if not last night, then during the day. Everything is ransacked. A Styrofoam cooler I bought is crushed like a peanut in the hands of an impatient kid. Shoes, clothes are everywhere. The food is gone, wrappers strewn like seaweed across the dirt, hanging from the weeds.
Nearby, the grass and pine needles are mottled down in what is unmistakably the shape of four giant legs and two giant rear ends. Maybe they thought we’d come back, so they could eat us.
Meg peers through Wendell’s binoculars.
“Any sign of them?” I ask.
She shakes her head and hands them to me.
I look and see nothing, even far off in the distance. “Maybe we should go down,” I say.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
I don’t want to answer her, so I pretend I don’t hear her. I wish.
I land in a leg print more than three times the size of one of my own legs. I could lie down comfortably in each of the giant rear end prints (not that I’d want to).
“Only a giant could kill something this big,” I say.
Meg’s examining a handprint the size of a puddle, but when I say that, she stops. “You know, you’re right.” She grins, happy I’m giving up, I guess.
“Don’t gloat.”
“Gloat? Who’s gloating? I have an idea.”
An hour later, we return from Winn-Dixie, toting five whole turkeys, some rope, and a bag of rocks. We gathered the rocks on the walk there, but we used the cloak to get back. Turkeys are heavy. Now we’re prepared.
“‘Between saying and doing,’” I say, “‘many a pair of shoes is worn out.’”
“Who said that?” Meg asks.
“I’m not sure.”
Meg sits lookout in the tree while I arrange everything. I know the traps I discussed with Wendell won’t work, but this one just might. I take the turkeys and place them inside the tent. I open the wrappers to give the giants the scent. When it’s all ready, I take the bag of rocks and go high into the tree, where Meg’s scanning the horizon.
“Nothing so far?” I ask.
Meg shakes her head. “They’ll be here, though. They’re looking for food. They know we’re camping here, and based on experience, they know you’re slower and easier to catch than a Key deer.”
“Gee, thanks. Nothing yet?”
She shakes her head. I imagine what it would be like to be a deer or a mouse, something chased and preyed upon all the time. These past few days, I’ve felt like that. After a while, you must get good at hiding. Either that or you get dead.
It makes my life seem pretty easy.
Meg lowers her binoculars. “Have you ever thought of how it would be, being married to Victoriana? Like, what would you do all day?”
I say, “I guess I’ll have no problems. I’ll hang with Victoriana.”
“And what? Make out all day? Sounds like a good life—if you’re Ryan. But I always thought you wanted to accomplish something.”
“I can’t accomplish anything now. If I was married to Victoriana, I could still design shoes. I just wouldn’t have to repair them. I wouldn’t have to scrounge for materials either. I could be one of those celebrities who has a hobby like writing children’s books or releasing albums of my songs.” But I see her point. I remember Victoriana, led around by bodyguards, having to hide in bathrooms to get a moment alone, to put on a façade so the press doesn’t know what she’s really like. It could be hard to have things that easy.
And I’d miss Meg.
“Maybe you could come visit sometime,” I say.
She sniffs. “I don’t think I’ll have time.”
Neither of us speaks for a while after that, Meg scanning the treetops with the binoculars, me doing the same with my bare eyes. Gradually, the sun turns the sky red and orange, pink and gold, as if one of the giants has used a paintbrush on it.
“Ho-hum,” I say. “Should have brought a deck of cards.”
“We could play Four Truths and a Lie.”
“What’s that?” I shift in the tree.
“It’s where you say five things about yourself, and the other person has to guess which one is false.”
“But that would be too easy. We’ve been friends forever.”
Meg’s shadow moves in, staring at me. “Sometimes, people have secrets, even from their closest friends, things you’d have thought they’d tell you, since you’re such a good friend.”
I get it. I didn’t tell her how bad our finances were, and I didn’t tell her about Victoriana either. I say, “Okay. Why not? I’ll go first.”
I try to think of something tricky, but it’s hard. Finally, I say, “My first kiss was with Jennifer Garcia in seventh grade.”
“Jennifer? Eww.” Meg holds her nose.
“She’s pretty.”
“Pretty mean. I hope that’s the lie.”
It isn’t. I go on. “I haven’t seen or heard from my father since I was two. One day, he just disappeared. Three: I sent a secret admirer valentine to Hailey Feinberg in eighth grade.”
“That was you?”
“Yep . . . I mean, maybe. I mean . . . four: I got an A on my trig final. Five: I stole a bag of chips out of your backpack yesterday.”
“I knew that was what happened to them.” Meg slaps my shoulder.
“See? There’s no way to fool you.”
“I bet I can fool you.”
“Okay, so which one was the lie?”
“I’m hoping it was Jennifer, but I’m pretty sure it was the trig final. No way you aced that. I only got a B, and I’m smarter than you.”
“Are not . . . okay, you got me. Now you go.”
She thinks a minute, then says, “All right. One: I do one hundred percent of the cleaning in my family’s business.”
That’s true. Her mother is old, and her brothers are complete bums.
“Two: I have a box of ashes from when I burned the letters Andrew gave me.”
Andrew. Her ex. Total jerk. He dumped her for another girl, and I can totally see Meg doing that. “You should toss them. He’s so not worth it.”
“Three: My family buys some of the pastries we sell as homemade.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Four: I can’t whistle.”
I know she can’t. I’ve heard her try. I’m about to say this, but then, she says, dramatically, “And five: I am secretly, madly in love with you.”
“Aha! That’s obviously the lie. You made it too easy.”
She chuckles. “Yeah, I guess we can’t fool each other.”
And then, in the distance, I see something moving. Something big. I tap Meg on the shoulder and point.
“Do you see them?”
I point again to the moving spot, then up at her binoculars. She twists her body, shoulders making contact with mine, and looks. Then she hands the binoculars to me.