In the Dark - Darcy Vebber

"Hide," he said. He opened the door to a shed next to his house. "Here."

Lisa took a gulp of air and dove in to the darkness. The floor was sand. She felt a spider web on her shoulder and arm. Something rattled but nothing fell.

Paul pulled the door closed behind him and crouched next to her. For a moment all they could do was work to catch their breath, one gasping gulp after another. Then he said to her, "Let's see."

They placed the figurines in a ray of light. They were about as big as Lisa's hand, each one a child dressed as an adult. They were porcelain, smooth and beautifully white. She touched the back and head of a boy in a top hat and tails. "What are they?"

Paul shook his head. His hair fell in his eyes and he brushed it roughly back. "Statues. I saw ones like them in that second hand store in Kemp. My mom wanted one but they cost too much."

"Are you going to give them to your mom?" Lisa was sitting on the sand. It got under her bathing suit no matter what she did and into the creases of her legs. She ran a finger under the elastics, pulling them away from her sunburned skin. The shed was warm inside and smelled like oil.

"You can keep some if you want." His voice was softer. He sounded embarrassed.

"Just one maybe." When she got home she would tell people her boyfriend on the east coast stole it for her for a present. "The boy maybe. With the hat."

He leaned back, away from her, listening to the world outside the shed. "No one's out there."

Lisa nodded. She wasn't ready for it to be over. She wanted to do it again, the two of them, the house, the feeling for a minute like they owned it, like they were a real couple, married, in a house and then the running. She loved the running. She moved closer to him, leaning over the line of figures, her knees in the sand now. Girls had told her sometimes you had to make the first move. Boys are scared, they said at night in the dorms. She leaned further forward and brushed her lips against his. She could feel his surprise, in the skin, in the dry, chapped skin of his lips, how he didn't react. She jumped up, knocking the boy in the top hat over.

"Hey" Paul said. "Hey wait."