“You’re a mud pie.” Amber tops his head with grass.

“I’m the king of the forest,” Doug says gravely. “Except grass gives you chiggers. Brain chiggers, and I die.”

“The king can cure chiggers,” she says.

“Isn’t that scrofula?”

Amber’s suddenly tired. “Okay. I guess you’re dead then, sorry.”

“Is this just the pattern with us?” Doug asks. “Leap and leap and it’s all very lovely, until one of us asks where we’re going to land?”

She rolls away, then rolls back. “Maybe we keep jumping.”

“Might land in a mud pie.”

“I always,” says Amber, “ate the damn things anyway.”