Zach was my second best friend, and when I was in fifth grade I spent every other week at his house. Our favorite pastime was the cape game, so called because one of us would wear a glittery silver cape while we played it. The cape game was whatever we wanted it to be: we would duel with toy lightsabers, uncover buried treasure in the basement, or climb to the top of his makeshift treehouse (really just a nailed-up wooden slat) and peer out over the neighborhood. Or we would play with Legos; Zach had a whole series of skyscrapers built in his bedroom. I had my own sets at home, but I never brought them. I was scared they’d fall and break in the backseat of the car ride over.
That day the cape game was bounty hunter, which basically meant hide-and-seek. One of us donned the attire—the cape, the plastic Boba Fett helmet, the bolt-action Nerf gun—and the other hid. Hiding was way more fun, because you got to sit in the shade and watch the other person search for you and laugh when they walked past your spot for the fourth time. Then they’d find you and shoot you, of course, but still.
I was the guest, so I got to hide first. The rules were simple: you weren’t allowed to go indoors, you weren’t allowed to switch spots, and you weren’t allowed to leave the property. All of which suited me fine; I’d discovered what I knew to be the best hiding spot, around the outside of the wooden fence encircling the backyard. Technically it wasn’t “on the grounds,” but the idea was too inspired for me to care about an inch or two of wiggle room.
Zach found me in about five minutes. He rolled his eyes as he shot me, and once I’d dusted myself off he passed me the outfit and split. After two loops around the house I realized the problem: Zach knew the area around his place too well. There were too many nooks and crannies, plastic slides and whirring air conditioners and pine trees with thick trunks that made it impossible to notice a sneaker sticking out.
I looked at the afternoon sun, beating down, then I went inside. I passed his mother in the kitchen, where she was putting a pan of brown casserole into the oven.
“Oh, hi Alex. You guys are done?”
“Yep,” I said, and I headed for the living room. Zach’s TV was small but serviceable, and I rooted around in the DVD collection before selecting Walking with Dinosaurs, which we’d gotten halfway through on my last visit. I inserted it into the player and fast forwarded to the place where we’d stopped. Outside the light was starting to dim.
Eventually the screen door opened. A big black dog barreled in, furiously wagging its tail, followed closely by Zach. His face was smeared with tree sap and sweat.
“What are you doing?” he said. “You’re supposed to be hunting me.”
“I got bored,” I said, keeping my eyes on the screen. “It’s just a dumb game, anyway. Let’s do something else.”
I knew he wouldn’t be mad. Zach never got mad, never raised his voice or argued or tried to sock me in the shoulder. It was one of the most frustrating things about him. He just stood there for a moment, silent, his face reddening. Then he took a seat in the big chair across the room, where he watched me watch poorly-rendered prehistoric carnage.
After a minute Zach got up and left, presumably heading towards the stairs to his room. I stayed where I was, on the overstuffed couch, pretending not to notice that he’d gone.