He gave the man a dollar for ten arrows and the hawker gave him a smaller bow, a straight pull, not one of the pulleyed hunting bows. Sam took it and notched an arrow, the way he'd done at camp. He went into position and pulled the string back. His muscles were quivering and his fingers let go quickly, before he'd sighted properly. He hit the deer in the rump.

"Hey," the voice called, laughing, "Got him in the ass." Sam turned. It was one of the boys from high school. A senior, he thought. He believed his name was Ned. He was smiling but Sam followed the grade schoolers' general rule that every high school boy was a potential terrorist. They'd take your lunch away from you, tie your Keds together and swing them like gaucho's bolos over electric wires, swear and spit on you, use you for a sparring partner.

Sam swallowed and ignored him. He concentrated fiercely on the target, the way his mother had taught him when he shot-not paying attention to the bow or arrow, but to where the arrow should strike. He drew the bowstring back and fought the agony in his thin arms as he stared at his target. Finally, he released the arrow.

Thwack.

A heart shot.

"Fucking good," the boy was saying, shaking his head.

Sam looked at him cautiously. Ned wasn't being sarcastic. "Thanks."

Two more heart shots, a gut shot, and then his strength started to go. The next four hit the bale of hay, but missed the deer. The last shot was another gut shot.

"Okay, you won yourself anything from the bottom shelf, son. What do you want?"

Sam hesitated. The kid was going to take his football away from him. He'd just grab it and run. He muttered, "One of those footballs."

"Okay, there you go."

Sam took the green plastic ball. He started to walk away quickly but the boy was making no moves toward him. He just said, "That was some good shooting. I wish I could shoot like that."

Sam laughed involuntarily. Here was a kid who was, like, seventeen telling Sam he couldn't shoot bow and arrow as good as him! Totally weird. "It's not hard. You've just gotta, you know, practice."

"What's your name?"

"Sam."

"I'm Ned." He stuck his hand out. No high school kid ever shook hands with grade school kids. Sam reached out tentatively and shook.

"Hey, you wanta see something?" Ned asked.

"Like what?" Sam didn't feel uncomfortable anymore. The boy could have grabbed the football and pushed him down any time. But no, he was just smiling and seemed to want to talk.

"Something neat?"

"I guess," Sam said, glancing toward where his mother and Mr Pellam were walking slowly, the same way his mother and father walked.

The boy walked off into a thick woods off the side of the football field. "What's here?" Sam asked.

"You'll see."

About thirty feet inside the woods was a small clearing. The boy sat down. He patted the ground next to him. Sam sat. "Let's see the ball."

Sam handed it to him.

"That's all right." He tossed it in his hand. "Feels good."

"I'm going to give it to Mr Pellam. He's the man with the movie company."

"Yeah, I heard about that. Totally excellent, making a film here." The boy handed the ball back to him. "Here you go."

There was silence for a moment.

Ned said, "I like it here. It's kind of secret."

Sam looked around and thought it looked like a clearing in a forest. "Yeah, it's okay."

"You got ten bucks?" Ned whispered.

"Naw," said Sam, who did in fact have eleven dollars and some change in his jeans pocket.

"How much you got?"

"A couple dollars. I don't know. Why?"

"You wanta buy some candy?"

"Candy? Ten bucks for candy?"

"It's special candy. You'll like it. I thought I saw you had ten bucks when you paid the guy at the arrow shoot."

Sam looked away from the older boy and squeezed the football. "Well, that, like, wasn't mine. It was my mom's."

Ned nodded. "I'll give you a sample. Then see if you don't want to buy one." He opened a yellow envelope and shook a dozen cubes of crystal candy into his hand. He held his palm out to Sam, who looked at the tiny bits cautiously. Ned laughed at his wariness and put a candy in his own mouth. "Come on, don't be a wuss."

"I don't really-"

Ned frowned. "You're not a pussy, are you?"

Sam suddenly grabbed most of the candies and slipped them into his mouth, chewing them down.

"No!" Ned shouted in horror. "You stupid shit! You weren't supposed to eat 'em all! They're ten dollars each!"

"I didn't mean…" Sam backed away in fear. His mouth was filled with a powerful, numbing sweetness. "I didn't know. You didn'ttellme…" He suddenly felt warm and giddy and dizzy. In his mouth was a funny aftertaste, reminded him of the chewable vitamins he took in the morning.

Ned stepped close to him, reaching for Sam's collar; the young boy cowered away, feeling the heat and the dizziness flow over his body.

"Sam!" It was his mother's voice and from not very far away.

Then he was being lifted up. Ned had him by the shirt. "You dumb little prick! You tell anybody about this, I'll find you. I'll come get you and I'll beat the living shit out of you, you got that?"

Sam thought he should be afraid but he felt so good. He laughed.

"You hear me?"

Laughing again.

He felt himself falling into the leaves, which seemed suddenly like the ground in the Candyland game he played with his babysitter until he outgrew it. Cotton candy grass, marshmallow rocks. Candyland. Hey, just like the candy he'd eaten, he thought. That thought made him laugh too. He felt like laughing forever, he felt so good.

Strange thumping noises. He looked up. Ned was running, running fast, deep into the forest. Sam thought he saw the boy turn into a tree. He stared at the spot for a long time.

He tried to stand.

Laughing.

Fireworks, black sparklers, cascades, and Roman candles, pouring their fire all over him. A huge roaring hum in his ears.

Warmth and humming music.

"Sam?" His mother's voice was both magnified a thousand times and very distant, like she was trapped in an airlock on the Starship Enterprise.

Then the fun started to leave. He felt he was going to sleep, only it was a funny kind of sleep, like the way he felt when he'd had his tonsils out and woke up in terrible pain and so thirsty he thought he'd die. He'd been lonely when he awoke in the hospital and he cried for what seemed like forever, until he saw his mother, asleep, across the room.

That's who he wanted now. "Mommy," he called.

Sam managed to struggle to his feet. He walked forward a few steps. "Mommy, help me!"

A man's voice called, "Sam!" Mr Pellam's. And that reminded him of the football. He turned back into the black explosions, the heat, the cracking fireworks, the hum, and stumbled into the clearing, where he bent down to pick up the football. He was certain he had it but as he reached forward his hand came up with nothing more than leaves. He fell to the ground.

Then he saw nothing more; a huge wave of black filled his vision. But he kept patting the ground around him for the football. He had to find it.

He'd won it for Mr Pellam.