"Hey, let's go play in the leaves!"

"Yeah!"

"All Right!"

The pack of kids left the monkey bars and ran across the damp grass to the huge pile of leaves which the park attendants had carefully heaped together. Behind them the merry-go-round spun to a halt. The three children who'd been pushing it ran to join them in the leaves.

"Belly flop," Jonathan shouted, diving into the pile and knocking his cap off. The leaves were still crisp, and scrunched beneath his weight.

"It's snowing," Jonathan's older sister Angie said. She stepped to the center of the pile and hurled an armful of leaves up into the air, then picked up his hat and stuffed leaves in it.

"No, no, I've got it- choo choo, train coming through," Shelly said. Shelly put her head down and pumped her arms, scuffing her feet to make the leaves fly into the air.

"Chugga-chugga-chugga, woo, woo! Train crossing, heading for Chicago and all parts west. Get your tickets ready," Shelly said. Shelly's parents watched a lot of old movies.

I've got tickets," Angie said. She threw another armful of leaves, but they were from further down in the pile, and a little damp. Instead of arching up into the air, the leaves smacked Shelly in the face.

"Hey," Shelly said, spitting out a leaf. "What's going on here?" She stopped chugging and looked up. The leaves were thigh high on her, but the pile reached to Angie's chest. She must be on her knees, Shelly thought. She thought I was going to throw something back. I'll show her. I'll act like she's not even there. With that Shelly went back to being a train. She spiraled around the pile again, then once more, keeping her head down and concentrating on staying on the tracks.

"What are you doing, Angie?" Jonathan asked.

"Just standin'. Why?" Angie said.

" 'Cause you look like you're scared to death."

"Nah," Angie said. "I'm just cold…"

Her voice faded, growing scratchy as the leaves. "She's co-old, Jonathan," Shelly said, "but I'm a train. Trains don't get cold." Shelly spiraled closer and closer to the center of the leaf pile as she said this, thinking that maybe she would throw some leaves in Angie's face after all, now that her guard was down.

"Where's Angie?" One of the other boys asked.

"Chug-chug…right there…" Shelly's voice trailed off. She had chugged her way to the center of the pile, but no Angie.

"She got away!" Shelly shrieked. "Find her."

"Yeah, get her," the boys shouted, but when they had scattered the pile of leaves down to where they could see the mud between the grass, there was still no sign of her.

Jonathan pulled his coat tight around his arms. "Where's my sister?"

"She must have gone home," said the boy who first noticed she was missing. "C'mon, let's go play somewhere else."

He ran off toward the pond. The rest of the pack trailed after. Shelly stood where she was, just off center in the pile of leaves, thinking wow, that's weird. Angie never goes anywhere without Jonathan. Then someone called for her to join them at the pond, and she shook her head and ran.

The main pond was pretty boring for kids, at least in the fall. The fountain was turned off, the water was too cold for wading, and all the frogs had buried themselves in the mud. But the water level in the smaller old pond always sank after summer. It left a small rocked off area that was all mud and puddles, complete with cattails that were perfect for making swords.

"Shhh. Hear that?" whispered Abram, one of the tag along boys.

"What? I don't hear nothing," Jonathan said.

"That growling. It's a swamp panther," Abram said.

Neat, Shelly thought, crouching down and growling.

"There it is again," he said. "There's only one escape-further into the great swamp, where we can beat it at its own game."

Abram pointed at the thickest patch of cattails, the only one thick enough for them to hide behind. Jonathan nodded solemnly, and they started slogging through the mud.

"This is a sissy game," one of the other boys said. "There's no jungle." He left. A bunch of the boys followed. Abram started to stand up in disappointment, but he smiled when he heard another growl from Shelly.

"It's just the two of us, so watch out for quicksand," he said. Jonathan nodded, following Abram from rock to rock. Behind them, they heard the growl of the dreaded swamp panther as it circled in for the kill.

Shelly had planned to sneak up on them, but Abram outsmarted her, doubling back to the front of the cattails. She couldn't see Jonathan- wait, there he was, crouching really low in the weeds. Shelly continued to circle, occasionally remembering to growl. I'll get Jonathan first, she thought, spiraling back to the place where she'd last seen him, but as she got closer Abram began to squeal with delicious anticipation.

"No, no, no," he yelled. Shelly obligingly pounced off to the side, so Abram could almost escape, then grabbed him. She landed with a squelching splash that drowned out the sound of a small voice crying out for help, then falling silent.

"Now for Jonathan," Shelly whispered, having left Abram pleasantly dead in the mud. But when she panther crawled her way through the last clump of cattails, Jonathan was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey," she said. "Where'd he go?" Shelly looked down at the place in the muck where the footsteps stopped, then up at Abram.

"Don't know, but wherever he went, he left his hat behind." Abram said.

"Where?"

"Right there, stupid," he said.

"Sure enough, when Shelly looked back down at the mud, there was Jonathan's bright pink cap. It was covered with a thin layer of something yellow, and a single blue leaf was stuck to it. But he wasn't wearing it, Shelly thought. Not since he jumped in the leaf pile. His sister had it.

"Come on, let's go play with someone else," Abram said, walking off.

"Okay," Shelly said. She looked back at the cap one more time, just in time to see the mud bending down around it, like a piece of plastic wrap with someone pulling down on the other side. The cap vanished with a little popping sound. The mud was flat again, except for a small yellow bubble that burst while Shelly watched. She smelled sour eggs.

Wow, Shelly thought, that's weird. When nothing else happened, she ran to join the others.

The wind started picking up, and the sun was going down. Shadows grew longer and colder. The kids broke up into ones and twos and headed home. Mothers appeared at the edges of the park. Everyone promised to come back the next day, and agreed that the gardeners would have raked the leaves back into a pile, which they were sure would be even larger. Shelly trudged home, knowing it was almost dinner time, but not really hungry.

Shelly had her key ready, just in case, but the door was unlocked. She slipped upstairs, to the half of the house that her family rented. It was, her mother always said, big enough for all their things, but small enough to be cozy.

"Hi mom, I'm home," Shelly called.

"Hey honey. How was the park?" her mother called from the living room.

"Fine. We played in the leaves," Shelly said, voice muffled as she pulled her coat off and bent to take off her shoes.

"That's nice. Don't forget to take your shoes off. They're probably muddy."

Shelly made a face. "Yes mom." She walked into the living room. Her mother was sitting in the center of the big rug, surrounded by stacks of paper. A cardboard box sat in front of her, and their cat Jeffery was sleeping on one of the taller stacks.

"Um, mom…" Shelly began.

"I know, dear, you wanted to use the living room. You'll have to find somewhere else to play. You know I have to," her mother spread one hand wide as the other absently tugged at her hair, "update all this paperwork from time to time. Besides, dinner's almost ready."

Shelly flounced onto the couch to sulk. Her mother carefully ignored her. The phone rang. When Shelly didn't move, even after her mother looked at her, her mother hoisted herself to her feet with a sigh.

"This is so boring," Shelly said. She stood and began to wander around the room, shuffling through the stacks of paper in her way. I'll be a train, no, I've been a train today. A car. No. A pirate, following a secret path to the treasure chest. That's it, she said, beginning to follow the rug's pattern around the room in a loose spiral. She stopped occasionally to listen for rival pirates who might be on her trail, but all she ever heard was Jeffery's soft tenor snoring.

"Shelly?"

"Hmm?" Shelly answered. She turned to look towards the kitchen, where her mom was still on the phone, and then froze. Right there in the middle of the rug, in her own house, was the strangest thing she'd ever seen. The box of her mother's files had sunk into the floor, no, below the floor, and the rug was puckered around it like the mud had back at the pond. It looked, she thought, like it does when you poke your finger into a balloon and the balloon pulls tighter all around it as it bends. Except that the box was just sitting there, and there wasn't any reason for it to press into the rug.

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