The Fish and the Not Fish by Peter Markus

went on, and one has to be one of us girls. When Him and You asked why this was so You Know Who just said that this was the way the game was made to be played. Says who? said Jane. Says me is who, You Know Who said back. I’m the one who knows how to play it. Jane stared with her hard as stone eyes in through the eyes that were You Know Who’s eyes and You Know Who stared hard right and straight back as if her eyes were made out of wood. Who gets to go first? is what Jane said next since You Know Who did not look like a girl who was a girl on the way to back down. So You Know Who said that Jane could go first if to go first was how Jane would like it to be. Jane said yes, thank you, that she would like to go first, and so she dropped, just like You Know Who said that she should, down on her hands and knees down to get down in the dirt. Him and You looked down at Jane who looked up at them both like a dog who looks up when it wants to be fed and they both said, Which of us boys gets to be a dog first? You, You Know Who said, to Him. And you, she said, to You, you get to be a dog next with me. When Him saw that You did not seem to mind which of them got to be a dog first, he dropped down on his hands and knees down in the dirt next to Jane’s place in the dirt. Now, You Know Who told them, and she faced them off so that their faces faced off face to face in the dirt. Now it’s time, she said, to make like you’re two dogs who live out in the woods. So they did like You Know Who said they should do. They barked. They howled. They growled. They bared their fanged teeth. They pawed at the dirt with their hands. Good, You Know Who told them and she set her hand on the top of Him’s head. Now you, You Know Who said to Him, get back to the back of Jane’s back and stay there like a dog who’s told to stay. Him did like he was told. He crawled on his hands and knees to get to the back of Jane’s back. Him sat. Him stuck out his tongue and breathed. Jane turned her head back to see. What she could not see was when You Know Who shoved Him so hard that he came up and fell back down with his head on the back of Jane’s back. Him held on tight with his arms to the part of Jane that his hands could reach out and take hold of. Jane fell down face down in the dirt. As if to break her fall, Him’s face was there in the dirt by Jane’s ear. Jane could feel and hear Him’s warm breath come like a June wind in her ear. Him held Jane like this till Jane raised back up with her back. This was how the game was played. When it was You Know Who’s turn to fall face first down in the dirt with You pressed down on top of her back, You Know Who turned her face up quick so that her back hit the dirt first and she gazed up face to face with You’s face. If two dogs had lips and not just tongues to kiss with, this is what it, a dog’s kiss, would look like.
    All this took its turn in June. Him and You, Jane and the girl known as You Know Who, they played these boy girl make like dog games when no one else was near to see them. They each took their turns, Him with Jane, Jane with You, You with You Know Who, You Know Who with Him, till June stretched thin and then turned to months that weren’t June. A year of not Junes yawned by. Then it was a month of June once more. The sky once more was the kind of a blue of a month of June kind of a sky. But then that June took You Know Who with it. Who knew where You Know Who had gone to. Not Him or You or Jane knew where the girl known as You Know Who had gone. She was just gone is all. Like a cloud that was there in the blue of the sky and then one day it was not. So then it was just the three of them now, just Jane with Him and You, which is how Jane liked it to be in the first place. That was how it was, with Him and You on their blue bikes, with Jane on the back of one blue bike, till the day they saw a girl who looked too much like You Know Who for