Pretty soon Sandy said to me, “How soon do you and Pee-wee have to go home?”
“Not till the camp closes up,” I told him.
“Oh boy!” Dub said.
“Me till August twenty,” Sandy said.
“Me till next Saturday,” Dub said. “Hard luck, hey? After I get home I’ll be thinking about you jollying Pee-wee.”
“Will you think about me answering him back?” Pee-wee piped up. “How I beat him in arguments?”
“Sure,” Dub said. And he just went along, kind of smiling and not saying anything. None of us said anything.
After a while the kid said, “Why do you have to go back?”
“Shut up,” I whispered to him. Sandy looked at the kid, too, and sort of frowned.
“Oh just because,” Dub said. “It’s like having one little sliver of pie—you only want more. I wasn’t thinking about it when we started out. Will you fellows be here next summer?”