I usually don’t play with most of them because they’re heaps younger or older. But last June, when the sky stayed light forever, we all started getting together for hide-and-seek. It was fun with so many kids, but mostly I just liked being out till it finally got dark. Sometimes I’d sneak away from the game and hide in my secret spot. It’s in the corner of my backyard, between our cedar hedge and Mrs. Petovsky’s bramble bushes and Mrs. Carol’s fence, and there’s a sort of little clearing in the middle of everything just big enough for me. I’d lie on the grass and look up through my “sky window” and see the stars and think about what our minister read from the Bible about the heavens and the earth and about dividing the light from the dark. I’d get all shivery down my back just like the time I snuck into the Sanctuary when it was all dark and there wasn’t anyone there. The Sanctuary with a capital S is the part of the church you go to on Sundays to sing and pray and listen to the minister.
