David sighed as he leaned back against the tree, watching the crowded park in front of him. The sun was starting to sink beneath the low hills to the west, tinging the clouds blood-red. It was still hot, but at least the air didn’t feel like a blowtorch anymore.

Anytime you want to lay off, California summer, David thought, running his hand through his blond hair, already damp with sweat.

“Hottest Fourth of July I remember,” he muttered to himself. Hot enough that most of the people were just sitting around the picnic tables, waiting for the sun to go down and the fireworks to start.

And the last year I’ll be here. Sure, David had another year of school to go before graduation, but he already knew where he was going to go to college, and it wasn’t going to be this sleepy town’s community college. He’d already gotten his ducks in a row for UCLA or UCI. Next year, he’d be far away from Allendale.

Not that he hated his hometown, but honestly, David wanted to live in an actual city, not a mid-sized town in the middle of California.

Still, he was going to miss the Fourth of July—

“Hey!”

David started, then looked over to where a short girl was advancing on him. “Yeah, Mari?”

“Oh, don’t yeah me, you were getting that look,” Mari said. “Bemoaning not being here next year.” She crossed her arms and looked up at David. Mari was short, but it was sometimes hard to see that, what with the way she was always just bouncing with energy. “I’m going to be here next year, and let me tell you, if I could trade places with you, I’d do it in a second.”

“Really?” David asked. “I thought you were waiting for your senior year?” he reached out and put his hand on Mari’s head. “Just think, this coming year, you’ll be a junior, and then next year, little Mari will be a senior!”

Mari snorted and glared up at him, her long black hair gleaming in the sunlight. “It beats being a sophomore. Why are you always ahead of me?”

“Because I’m a year older than you are?” David asked.

“As if that’s a good reason. I belong in the big city! I was born in Tokyo!”

“And you moved here when you were six months old,” David pointed out. “I’m not certain if that counts as being a big-city girl.”

“Eugh!” Mari said. “I can feel it in my bones! I belong in the big city, with all the lights! All the theaters! You’ll be leaving me here, alone, with none to listen to my pleas!” She flung her arms out theatrically, spun around once, and fell back into David’s arms.

David laughed and kept her from falling on her ass. “Wow, are you going to take drama this year? That was worth an Oscar!”

“Nah, AP biology is going to be taking so much time,” Mari said as she turned around to face David, hands on her hips. “At least this year’s history is with Mr. Green.”

“I didn’t think you liked history that much.”

“Eh, it’ll be easy. Mr. Green teaches the same course and gives the same tests, so I sort of… picked up Janice’s homework and tests.”

“Really?” David asked. “What would your mother say?”

“I dunno, but I know what I’d say.” Mari coughed and then, in an imitation of her mother’s voice, spoke. “Work smarter, not harder, Mari! It doesn’t matter how much you study if you don’t study in the right way!” She crossed her arms over her pink overalls and looked up. "Remember, good grades are important!"

“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

“Well, since she’ll never know, it probably won’t matter,” Mari replied. She glanced up at David. “Unless you’re going to rat me out?” Mari made a finger gun and jabbed him in the chest. “Don’t even think of it!”

David shook his friend. “Fine, I won’t.” He sighed. “It’s going to be strange, though not being here next year. Not being… well.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss you as well,” Mari said. She looked over the park, the families slowly gathering as the sun fell behind the distant mountain range. “I mean, even after I graduate, you’ll be a sophomore in college, I’ll be a freshman, and we might not even be going to the same college.”

“I thought you had your eyes on UCI?” David asked.

Mari shrugged. “Mom thinks I should go to a junior college for my first two years, then transfer in. You know, Allendale Junior College. Here, in Allendale. Not in a big city.” She folded her arms and fell back against the tree, huffing in annoyance. “Because she wants me to stay here!”

“Well, that’s…” David didn’t say anything else. Mari’s mom could be a bit clingy. “Your mom gets worried, like…” He winced at the memory.

“What?”

“Remember when you were in seventh grade and tagged along with me to the movies and forgot to call your mom?”

Mari didn’t say anything, but a dark blush spread over her face. “You heard? I thought she waited until you were in your mom’s car—”

“I think everyone heard. And then you were grounded for a week.”

“Yeah. I mean, I was just two hours late…” Mari shook her head. “I bet she’s going to be calling me every day when I’m in college…”

“Could be worse,” David said.

“How?”

“She could move into the dorm to keep—”

David fell silent as Mari put her finger to his lips.

“You. Will. Never. Suggest. That.”

David tried to keep from laughing, but the look on Mari's face, between determination and utter horror... He burst into laughter. “Fine, fine!” he raised his hands. “I’ll never suggest something that could make me rich when I make your story into a new web series.”

“Wait, if it did, would you shar—Oh, they’re starting the fireworks! C’mon!” Mari grabbed David’s hand and started pulling him to where everyone was rolling out the blankets as the first bright flowers of light flared against the dark sky.

Mari sat down next to David, glancing over to where her mother was watching her.

No, Mom, I’m not going to go running off with David, sheesh! Mom was old fashioned. Hell, some of her friends had gotten away with overnight sleepovers without even telling their parents.

If Mari did that with Mom… Don’t worry about college. Don’t need that if you’re dead.

And it wasn’t like David was her boyfriend. Not entirely. He was just, well…

Friend. Mari nodded. Good friend. He’d been her friend since she'd been the girl in preschool who barely spoke English. Just like his mom had been Mom's friend from when she'd first come to town with Dad, holding that Japanese-English dictionary. Now it was just one year until he’d be heading off to college, leaving her here. She had other friends, but none of them were…

BOOM! Mari twitched at the sound of the big fireworks. Allendale loved it’s fireworks exhibitions, mainly because they figured it’d keep more idiots from setting their homes on fire with illegal fireworks. Given how bone dry the county was right now, Mari could see the point.

“Like it?” David asked.

Mari nodded as yet another series of bright flowers exploded into the sky. “Yeah. I bet they don’t have stuff like this in Irvine!”

“Well, you never know. Maybe you’ll be there to see,” David told her.

“Maybe…”

But Wendy had been in college for two years, and she never failed to moan about how she just hadn’t kept in touch with any of her high school friends. How they’d all gone off to different parts of the country and would never be able to get together again…

Hell with it. Let’s just enjoy the show. With that, Mari leaned into David and looked up at the display in the sky.

As the sky grew darker, she could see the younger kids playing out on the playground, waving their chemical lights around like magical swords. She caught a glimpse of her brother, Kado playing basketball with some of his friends.

Too much work. Mari didn’t mind having fun, but even in the evening, the heat was still oppressive.

“Here’s the finale,” David said, and Mari looked up as the entire sky just seemed to catch fire with burst after burst.

It was a perfect end to the day. She reclined against David, watching as the last few bursts challenged the darkness before fading out, leaving the stars untroubled. But it couldn't last. Mari heard someone walking up to them. She glanced over and saw her mom heading for her and David. C'mon, just give us a few more moments...

No such luck.

“Mari!” Mom’s voice sounded a little annoyed, but not at Mari.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Can you go get Kado? Your father and I need to get home.”

“I can stay with David for a while, right?” Mari asked.

“I…” Her mother opened her mouth, frowned, then nodded. “By 10:00, sharp.”

“I, but it’s…” Mari looked at Mom, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll get Kado.” She got up and held her hand out to David. “Want to help me find the squirt?”

“Sure, but isn’t he as tall as you are?”

“Details!” Mari said. She pulled out her phone and called Kado.

Moments later, she got Kado’s voicemail. “Kado, you’d better get over here, or Mom and Dad will lock you in a cage!”

No answer. Mari frowned. Kado wasn’t on the basketball field anymore, but…

“I’ll find him.”

“How?” David asked. He was looking around the park as if he'd be able to pick Kado out in the growing gloom.

“Because I know Mom and Dad’s password for the phone, and that means I can…” Mari touched her smartphone and grinned at the subdued beep that sounded from it. “Track him using his phone’s GPS!”

“Does he know you can do that?”

“No, and neither do Mom and Dad, so shhhhhh…”

David rolled his eyes. “Very well, secret agent Mari.”

“Hmmm…” Mari said. “That’s odd…”

“What?” David asked.

“It’s… It’s lost contact with his phone?” She held up the screen and let David see. “The tracking app shows his location by time so…” She ran it back. The dot indicating the position of Kado’s phone was centered by the basketball courts.

“What’s the blue circle?”

“It’s the area where the phone might be. The GPS isn’t completely accurate,” Mari muttered. “But…” the blue circle started to move, and headed away from the basketball courts to the…

“Woods?” David asked. “Why them?”

“Dunno,” Mari said. “I—” she blinked. The blue circle pulsed several times, then vanished.

NO SIGNAL. The screen read. Mary used her finger to move the timeline, but every time Kado’s phone got to the woods, it just fizzled out.

“That’s not good,” Mari muttered. “Mom and Dad are going to murder Kado. Then they’ll resurrect him so they can ground him.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Unless we find him soon…” her friend glanced back at her. “We can say that he had the phone off and was playing, and that buys us… about 20 minutes?”

“Fifteen good minutes, and then five minutes of increasing annoyance,” Mari said. “But yeah. Let’s go find the squirt’s friends and see if they know why he went off into the woods.”

David followed Mari over to the basketball court. There was a band of Kano’s friends, all clustered together.

“Where’s Kado?” Mari asked. “It’s time to go, and he turned his phone off.”

“Um…” Frantic looks.

Oh, boy… David looked at the kids. They were all looking at each other, waiting for someone else to start talking. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Well?” Mari repeated.

“Um… Kado and Cecelia went into the—”

“Kado did what?” Mari screeched. “He went into the woods with his… Oh, Mom is going to kill him.”

“And that’s why he turned off the phone.” David put his hand to his head. There was no way, no way that Mari’s parents were going to let her stick around if they found out about this. The entire family would be off for a meeting.

“It wasn’t like that! It was a dare!” one of Kado’s friends burst out.

“For what?” Mari asked. She was shorter than some of the kids, but they were backing off from her as she advanced on them.

It probably has something to do with the way she’s grinding her teeth, David thought.

“The barn and the Man With the Bags! They have to go there and come back…”

“And do you think Mom and Dad, or Cecelia’s parents, are going to believe that!” Mari threw her hands up. “Oh, when I get my hands on him—”

“Fifteen minutes,” David said.

“Right,” Mari stared at the kids. “If any of you want to ever play on Kado’s game machine again, stay here. If he comes out before us, tell him to get his ass over to Mom and Dad. Also, keep your mouths shut about what he’s doing.” She swept the assembled middle-schoolers with a glare.

“Um… Okay!”

David grinned. Evidently, the threat about losing access to Kado’s game setup worked.

“Let’s go,” Mari said as she headed towards the opening to the path that led to the woods. “That stupid, moronic…”

“Just as long as it’s moronic and not horny,” David said as he caught up with her.

“Ew—ick!” Mari gestured with her hands. “Don’t even go there! Mom and Dad are already going to freak—”

“So, what do we do?” David asked.

“We go, get them, and then tell Kado and Cecelia to keep their mouths shut, so that he doesn’t get grounded for eternity and I don’t get tasked to watch him,” Mari said. “Because Mom and Dad work, and I’ll be the one on Kado-grounding duty.”

“Works for me,” David said. “But we’d better hurry.” He turned on his phone’s flashlight, illuminating the ground in front of them as they left the noise and lights of the occupied section of the park behind them.

“Yeah,” Mari said. “Let’s go.” With that, the two teens headed into the dark woods.