"Maybe tomorrow," said Mom with a shiver, standing on Old John’s steps and staring at the choppy clear green water.

Matt looked at her. "You always say that." He sat on the bank and picked at the grass.

"Don’t pull up the grass," said Grandma. "We have to work so hard to make it grow here." Matt frowned.

Jenny sat in the heavy black-wicker rocking chair on the porch and listened to the voices carry in on the evening breeze along with the earthy smell of the farm across the lake. From the kitchen near Grandma’s oatmeal cookies, Jenny heard Grandpa say, "Come out on the pier and watch the sunset. The sky has promise."

Pulling ragged jeans over sun-scratched legs, and grabbing three cookies from the bowl in the kitchen, Jenny followed Grandpa out through the slamming screen door into the thick, buttery cut-grass-and-pollen air. He gave her another cookie. "The meteor shower will be heaviest tonight," said Grandpa, adjusting his camera lens. Obligingly, the sun put on a spectacular performance and the sky prismed to violet-black around the edges.

"This is our last summer here," said Grandma to the flocking seagulls. She sat on the shore, precariously close to the warm asphalt road, half-hidden in the prickly evening shade of the cedar. "We’re selling the cottage in the fall." The others blithely ignored her, too caught in their own thoughts to hear the reedy ultimatum. Grandma stared grimly out from under her spreading straw hat. Jenny thought that if Grandma took off the hat, her shoulders might not sag so awfully much.

"Come swimming," said Matt, to anyone who would listen.

"It’s too late, honey," said Mom. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Since you’re moving to Pennsylvania—we can’t take care of all this alone." Grandma’s hat shivered as she spoke. The volatile little cottage had stood on the small tree-stuffed plot since forever. It seemed to sprout rooms and decorative changes like a cornstalk sprouts ears, but it was, deep down, still the little fishing shack that Great-Grandpa had bought just before World War I. The maple in the front yard was dying. "For $25 a year, Old John would start the water in the spring and turn it off in the fall, mow the grass, fix the roof, put in and take out the boat-lift and clean the gutters," said Grandma.

"Twenty-five dollars was a lot more money then," said Grandpa.

"He lived across the lake in a little cracker-box cottage. He took care of four other cottages. That’s all he did, just so he could keep his house and fish. He brought us fish sometimes. My parents never had to lift a finger to keep this place nice." Grandma looked up at Mom, meaningfully, then stared across the lake. "The bread-man doesn’t even come anymore," said Grandma, thoughtfully. "There used to be a bread-man."

"It’s going to be a good night," said Grandpa from the end of the pier. He smiled at Jenny. "There’s a heffalump in the clouds."

"Silly old bear," Jenny said. "It’s a woozle." Grandpa received a cookie-filled grin. She bounced out to the end of the pier where the peeling, whitewashed planks were warm and dry. She rolled up her pants and ploshed her dirty, scuffed feet into the cool water. Picking absently at a paint bubble, she watched as blades of grass and paint chips haloed around her ankles on the water. A speedboat bumblebeed its way home and fishing boats glided silently through the sleepy, bobbing seagull clouds that gathered with the evening mist upon the water. A fish twisted out of the water and a bat dove to meet its wavelets. For a moment, the only sound was the slap of the sailboat on soft night waves. Jenny kicked water at a cloud of gnats and watched them scatter. Dad woke up.

"It’ll be dark enough to see meteors, soon." Grandpa leaned back farther on the edge of the boat, his feet next to Jenny’s elbows as she leaned back on the rough boards of the pier. She had never seen meteors before. The two of them looked for the stars. Up on the bank, Dad leaned out of the hammock and picked up his book. "I’m going to bed," he announced. He crossed the road to the cottage and the front door creaked like an oversized cricket. Slam. A few moments later, the light went on in his bedroom.

"I can see the Milky Way," Jenny said.

"No, you can’t," said Grandma. "It’s too far away."

"No, look," Jenny said, tracing a finger across the heavens. "Right there—across the sky, there’s a faint, foggy cloud—"

"Exactly." Grandma glared at her. "A cloud."

"Maybe you’re right," said Grandpa. He crossed his arms over his ample stomach, harrumphed and looked thoughtful.

"I’m getting eaten alive," said Mom. "I’m going to go sit on the porch. The bugs are awful." Slam.

Matt amused himself by running up and down the pier, jumping on all the loose boards and swiping at the dancing fireflies. Jenny thought that the lightning bugs must look like meteors.

"Don’t run on the pier," said Grandma, "You’ll fall and hurt yourself." Rebuked, Matt turned to stomp inside. Slam.

"Can we go out in the boat, Grandpa?" Jenny asked.

"I don’t see why not."

"Just make sure that you cover it up when you get back," called Grandma. Together, Grandpa and Jenny unsnapped the heavy canvas and she carted it back to shore draped over her shoulder, filling her arms, dragging on the ground, smelling of algae.

Grandma sat silent for a while, then said, "My neck is getting stiff from staring up. I think I’ll go read on the porch with your mother." She was talking to Jenny.

"Goodnight, Grandma." Jenny walked carefully back to shore and gave her a hug. Slam.

Jenny splatted through the wave puddles on the warped shore-end boards of the pier, back to Grandpa. They climbed into the warm olive vinyl seats, the waffle-patterned floor rough beneath Jenny’s bare, wet feet. She pulled the bench flat and sat down. After the third try, the engine grumbled to life with a thick, asthmatic cough of gasoline fumes.

"We’ll have to run her fast to burn out the cobwebs," warned Grandpa as the boat jerked to life. As they jumped across the waves, Jenny stood, hands on top of the windshield, a princess in her chariot, racing homeward across her kingdom. She was flying. Hair blown back behind her, she laughed into the wind. It was deliciously illegal to speed after sunset.

Finally, they slowed, puttering past the misty phantom fishermen who danced jerkily on their wake. The boat lights lit the water red and green before them and behind, moon-white.

"We’re lit up like Christmas," Jenny said.

Grandpa smiled.

"Do our lights look like meteors to the fish?"

"A few of them think so. The rest are sleeping." He looked over the windshield at the stars. Jenny lay back on the bench and looked up at the dome of the sky. If she had tried, she could have grasped a star in her small palm. But Grandma said the sky went on forever. Jenny shivered at her smallness in the cool night air.

"There’s the Big Dipper," said Grandpa, pointing, "and the North Star, and the Little—there! Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"It’s started."

"Meteors?" Jenny sat up, excited.

"Watch." He spread his hands, as if smoothing the velvet cloth that held the stars. Streaks of silver flashed across Jenny’s vision. Like lightning, she was never quite looking in just the right spot. They sat together in silence, staring upward. Summer was almost over. Sleepily, she wished the heffalumps had been there to watch, too.