n-black eyes were wide open, and he had just a tiny smile, as though he was very satisfied. I was stuck in the damp noisy crush of grown-ups and children trying to get close to the cookie table, but I was occupying myself with my squirrel, when I sensed someone watching, breath against my skin. A little brown-haired boy was standing right there, nearly on the toes of my sneakers. He was staring at my squirrel, and he did not appear satisfied at all. He looked as if he was about to cry. His eyes were as big as the squirrel's, but darker, much darker, just impossibly dark. I gasped and grabbed automatically at my chest, but my hand hit the squirrel instead. And then it was as if I had no choice. I had to give it to him. It was going to kill me to give it to him, but I had to give it to him. I pulled it off fast, as I would with a Band-Aid so it wouldn't hurt as much or for as long, and pushed it into his hands. He looked startled, even terrified, but his hands were holding onto it tightly and he didn't say anything, and then my mother was suddenly there and I was led away. She did not seem to have seen the boy, and she never asked about the squirrel, so I wondered later if I had imagined the whole episode. I'm still not sure. But maybe that wasn't even you鈥擨 really didn't see him long enough to know.

I'm positive about the other time, though, the tropical vacation. It was Easter, and I was with my parents in Canc煤n, Mexico, before people knew about it; we were always going places that were going to be big someday but only we knew about them. The island was just a strip then, hotels and discos on one side, wild land and water reservoir on the other where my parents could go look at birds through binoculars. I was twelve and found that hobby boring, pathetic, embarrassing, and pitiable. Nature had become slightly disgusting, unnatural. Our room at the El Presidente filled with appalling bugs each night, some the size of small animals. I did not think it unreasonab

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