There wasn’t much fun about the annual family reunion–at least not to Brandon. Happening one of the last weekends in August, it always heralded the end of another summer vacation and the dreaded return of another school year. It also meant a crowded pavilion full of people that he really didn’t know, but was expected to act like he did. There was one redeeming aspect of the otherwise pointless event, however, and that was the venue. For the last several years, the extended family had rented a pavilion nestled deep in the forested hills of Northeastern Pennsylvania on the sandy edge of a reservoir. The area was known for it’s lush campgrounds, and even though Brandon had never been camping a day in his life, his aunts, uncles, an cousins frequently did an always reserved spots the weekend of the reunion.

And so when the din of the pavilion became tedious after lunch, Brandon and his cousins would steal away into the woods, or perhaps down to the beach, or maybe off the to the campgrounds. This year, Brandon was paling around with Justin. Justin was closest to Brandon’s age of the vast quanities of cousins in the sprawling family tree, being but a few months onlder than he was, but the similarities ended there. Justin was significantly taller and had a lanky muscular build. He was known to hang out with his dad and go hunting, knew how to use the lawn tractor, and was on the soccer and football teams at school. Brandon, by comparison, had soft, fair skin and delicate frame, spending most of his time at home with his mom, cooking, drawing, and reading. It was an odd pairing, but the two always got along, although Brandon always felt a tinge of intimidation when they were together.

Brandon followed Justin up the gravel path which sloped upward under a dense canopy of long needle pine trees. Pine cones littered the road, and everywhere the air was sweet with the frangrance of the dry needles that carpeted the ground. At last they came to the campsite.

“This is our campsite,” Justin announced proudly, indicating small pop-up camper tucked between the sappy trunks of two trees. Brandon took it in, awed by a world he had never experienced before. A blue tarpaulin served as a porch off the door of the camper, covering a picnic table covered in neatly stacked provisions. Brandon eyed the camper with curiosity.

“This is so cool! Can we go in?”

Justin shrugged noncholantly. “Sure.” He pulled on the narrow door. Brandon watched as his Nike high tops stepped up into the camper. Brandon had always coveted Justin’s sneakers. He had begged his parents for years to let him have high-tops like his. High-tops were fashionable, a trait that guaranteed that Brandon’s parents would shy away from them indefinitely. High-tops were “a pain” and “not sensible shoes.” And so Brandon was left to lust after Justin’s shoes and wonder why his aunt and uncle didn’t think them so distasteful. Justin turned and looked out the door after him. “Well? Are you coming?” The crossed straps of his black and white Air Raids faced Brandon, as if they too were waiting expectantly for him.

Brandon pulled himself into the tiny camper, but exhilirated to be inside one and also feeling a taste of the forbidden. Neither his parents nor Justin’s had sanctioned this visit. Brandon marveled at the tiny bench that opened into a miniscule bathtub, the generous beds with screened windows on three sides that bookended the camper, the little foldout table with the prop leg, and for not the first time that day, wondered why his own parents weren’t as cool as Justin’s. “You sleep here?” Brandon asked, noting the the football patterned pillow tucked into a corner of the screened bed.

Justin nodded proudly. “For the last week now. Come on outside. I’ll show your our fire pit.”

Camper door firmly shut behind them, the two boys ventured down into a small hollow behind the camper and in the opposite direction of the road from whence they had arrived. A small path cut through a dense patch of fern, opening up into a little clearing. A ring of charred stones was the centerpiece of the clearing, flanked by flat-cut logs on either side. Justin put a foot up on one of the logs and rested his hands on his leg, looking at Brandon and clearly expecting him to be impressed. Brandon did not disappoint. “Did you guys make this?” he said in wonder.

Justin nodded. “Yep. Well, I mean the logs were here already. But dad and I found all the stones for the fire pit. We sit here every night after supper.” To nine-year-old Brandon, who had never sat before a campfire in his life, it was truly spectacular. As he took it in, he couldn’t help but notice how Justin did not pull the criss-crossing straps on his Nikes down tight. There were instead fastened to the wrong spots and allowed to loop over the tops of his feet in small arches that bobbed slightly when he walked. It was almost like an act of rebellion. Even if Brandon had been afforded the luxury of havng Nike Air Raids, surely his parents would never allow him to wear the straps in a way other than they were intended to be worn.

Brandon looked at Justin. “I think we should get back. I don’t want to get in trouble.” He turned to head back in the direction of the camper, but Justin called out after him.

“Not that way. There’s a faster way through here.” Justin thumbed over his shoulder, indicating the darkening woods beyond the fire pit clearning. “Besides,” he said with a grin, “there’s one more thing I want you to see. Brandon shrugged, and turned to follow Justin as he pushed ahead.

“You sure you know where you’re going?” Brandon asked nervously. Justin was fully confident. Having procured a long branch from the ground as a walking stick, he plodded along through the forest undergrowth, brushing spiderwebs from their path. When they reached a small gurgling brook, Justin tested a rock in the center with his Nike before hopping on it to cross. He looked back at Brandon, who hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Just step where I step.” Brandon glanced behind him, wondering if he could retraced his steps back to the gravel raod, where a bridge would safely convey him over this obstacle.

“It’s just…I don’t want to get wet,” he confessed. He knew that if he stepped into a stream, he’d catch it from his parents once he returned to the pavilion, and they would not be discreet about it. What’s more, Brandon had flooded a shoe in a street gutter swollen by a downpour on his way to school once. The cold, squishy feeling of his saturated sock had been incredibly uncomfortable and had lasted the day. It was a long trip home and he doubted he would be allowed to remove a shoe in the car.

“You won’t get wet,” Justin insisted with impatience. “It’s just a tiny stream. Besides, if you go back now, you won’t get to see the water pad.” Brandon looked at Justin across the stream inquisitively.

“The water pad?”

Justin smiled, nodding. “It’s neat, but you have to cross here if you want to see it.” Brandon glaced once more at the rock where Justin had placed his foot, sighed, and stepped. “See?” he said triumphantly when Brandon was next to him. “Told you.” They trudged a bit further, the ground gradually ramping down into a very soft valley. The ferns were dense here. And where the ground was visible, it was tufted with springy green moss. Justin turned to look at Brandon.

“This is the water pad. The ground underneath here is all water.”

Brandon surveyed the terrain, not fully comprehending what that meant. He decided that Justin meant the ground was actually floating on a small pond of some sort. “Can we walk on it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Justin replied, clearly the expert on water pads. “Watch this.” Justin placed a Nike on the moss and shifted his weight forward. A soft gurgling sound came from beneath his shoe. When he lifted it, the impression in the ground slowly disappeared, as if a balloon beneath it had been inflated.

Brandon grinned. “Cool!” As Justin’s shoe remained dry and unharmed, the water pad seemed like safe passage. Brandon followed Justin as the two started across the expanse of lush green undergrowth. Brandon was entranced by the way the ground yeilded to their tread, as though they were crossing a huge dark green kitchen sponge. “How did you find this,” he asked as they were halfway across.

“Uncle Skeet did. He was out here looking for dry fire wood and discovered it. He put a lawn chair in it and it sunk in six inches!” Justin had turned back to Brandon to indiciate the depth with his hands when the soft ground grabbed hold of his right Nike. The moss burbled around the white leather shoe as though gleeful of its catch. “What in the world?” Justin giggled slightly has his white crew cut sock came out of this shoe. Brandon stared.

“What happened?”

Justin grinned and shrugged as he planted his foot in a patch of moss and bent to retrieve his lost high top. “Guess that water pad is really thin here.” The ground released the shoe with a squelch, brown smears left across the lower half. Brandon looked on in both worry and amazement as Justin thrust his foot back into the shoe.

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble?” he asked, eyeing the mud streaks.

Justin stood up and cocked his head. “In trouble for what?”

Brandon nodded at the shoe. “For getting your sneaker dirty.”

Justin looked as though he had never even considered the notion. “Who would I be in trouble with?” he was genuinely perplexed.

“Your mom and dad?” Brandon thought this was obvious.

Justin narrowed his eyes. “We’re camping in the woods. Camping is dirty. They don’t care.” Brandon cast a doubtful look at his cousin. Justin took this as some sort of challenge. He glanced at the soggy indentation in the ground left by his shoe, then again at Brandon before smilingly wickedly and stepping back into the hole. Again, it hissed and slurped as the Nike sank into the moss, the humps of the straps just poking above ground level.

Brandon was wide-eyed. “What are you doing?” he cried. Justin took a look at his face and continued to grin.

“Proving that my mom and dad won’t care,” he said simply. He raised his foot again with some difficulty, coming up with a glistening wet shoe. This time, he slammed it into the ground, flecks of mud and moss spattering over his socks and bare legs. Brandon gasped. He had never seen such willful distruction. Already the beautiful high top was ruined, dirty water seeping into to nylon straps and staining the white leather. But the scene was stirring him in other ways, too. Ways he did not understand. There was something deeply satisfying about Justin’s bravado and his willingess to toy with the unknown forces of the water pad just to make a point.

Justin looked at Brandon’s aghast expression and chuckled, rocking back and forth on the sneaker and forcing it further into the soggy ground. By now the soft moss had been pulverized and the peat-like surface was bubbling around the invading shoe. When all that was visible of the abused hightop was the tongue and Justin couldn’t raise his foot up again, he jammed his walking stick along side the sunken shoe and pried it out. His sock was saturated with muddy water. Brandon knew what the inside of Justin’s shoe had to feel like, yet Justin didn’t seem to care. He looked at Brandon with a smug expression before glancing down and breaking into a laugh.

“What’s with your weiner?” he hooted. Brandon flushed and pulled his t-shirt down over his tenting shorts.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “You think it’s funny, but just wait until your parents yell at you!” His eyes stung with embarrassed tears as he looked back at Justin’s caked right shoe. Justin shook his head in pity.

“Dude. I’m telling you. They won’t care. Come on. Let’s get back.”

And together they trudged back to the noisy pavilion.