Page 62 of Wayfarers

“Along with being broke, I come from a pretty different . . . I don’t know what to call it. Social situation? And my contact with the outside world was pretty limited. So that’s what I’m trying to navigate. Clumsily, I guess.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Sylvie says, but with a lightness that lifts my heart.

“Can I tell you something else?”

“I don’t know, can you? Wait, do you know that joke or is that something only teachers from normal school do?” She says it fondly.

“I know that joke. May I tell you something else?”

“You may.”

“Meeting you was worth a broken arm.”

That gets her. Sylvie assesses me with a soft gaze. “You say that to all the girls.”

“Only the ones I break bones for.”

Sylvie hugs Winslow’s neck. “You should have figured out from the presence of Winnie-pooh here that I’m fine with freeloader boys. Huh, Winnie-pooh? You never ever pick up the tab do you, sweetie sweet?”

“See? I was worried you’d think I was leeching off you.”

“I’m kidding.”

“I have one thing on Winslow: I promise not to make you chase me through the woods at three a.m., if that helps.”

“If you do, I’m replacing you with whatever boy ends up breaking whatever part of himself trying to find you.”

“Deal.”

Sylvie

“Do we have to go straight to Springfield?”

“God,” I say. “I hope not. That’s not much of a vacation.”

“Is this a vacation?”

“It feels more like one now,” I say honestly.

Knox is scrolling on my phone. “So it’s okay if I’m looking at lists of the weird stuff we can do in southern Michigan?”

“Famously the weirdest place in the world.”

He smiles. “You can find weird in places you wouldn’t imagine.”

“Did you see a lot of unusual stuff, growing up the way you did?”

“Probably. It’s hard to tell what’s strange and what’s not, you know? You develop this baseline for strangeness. And my baseline is like . . .” He creeps his hands apart wider and wider. “It grew every year after we got on the road.”

“How long were you guys traveling around for?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Years. Would you believe me if I said I lost track?”

“I almost forgot my birthday one year,” I tell him. “I only remembered the day before.”

“So you believe me.”

“Sure.”