Ione would like to talk or play Geography but Sophy is busy. Chard and Barbara are lawyers. They are building an indoor pool so Alexandria, their daughter, can swim in the winter. Right now Chard and Barbara, Ione and Sophy are waiting to pick up Alex after her swim meet. Dusty maples lean over the swimming hole, dropping circles of light into the leaf-brown water.
Kids are everywhere, making hoot-hoot noises and shoving each other in.
The trees are green still but Sophy will remember them red and orange. In children's books the boy and girl live in a town, swim in a hole, sled in the winter. They eat chestnuts and play Capture the Flag. They catch fireflies beneath maples, which are always fall colors unless it is snowing. Her name could be Alexy.