real. And then I saw it. There at my knee. The enchanting little line of bareness running out of sight into the green. Breathlessly I slid down to my stomach, my cheek pressed to the green. I peered along the shadowy, secret hidden way. Now if only-if only-! And one did come! An ant, carrying something, hurrying along, so tiny! So tiny! On tapes they look so big and quick and armored. I watched until the ant was out of sight-all unknowing of me. Then with a deep, shaking sigh, I sat up and looked around me. More trees-more green slanting down out of sight towards the smell of water, and a liquid sound. Then something moved across the green invisibly, bending it toward me. I felt a flowing around me. Wind! Wind blowing because it was a wind, not because a thermostat told it to! 'Here,' I thought, 'here is a place that wouldn't be the same! If we could only get locale amends for here!' I scrambled to my feet, suddenly clutched by wonder. 'There's no one,' I whispered to myself in disbelief. 'Here I am and there's no one else. Not anywhere. No one to see. No one to hear. No one to sense-!' My arms lifted as though they knew wings and my feet barely touched the green as I surged my whole self up. Then in one swift, collapsing motion, I folded me down and stripped my feet bare. I ran fast, fast, and lightly-oh, lightly! across the green, the bottoms of my feet giggly at the spiky soft of the green and my hair flowing back from my face as my running made a little wind for me all alone. When had I last run? Oh, years! Oh, never before like this-never with boundlessness around me and such freeness! Suddenly I was plunging down a steep slope unable to stop. Below me was a wide blue glint-water! As big as the ocean! I could drown in it! And I couldn't stop myself. My frightened, clutching hands caught leaves and tore them off the plants as I plunged past. Then I caught a branch and felt my shoulder yank back and pull me to a stumbling stop right in the edge of the glinting. I stood panting and shaken, watching the boiling brown water slosh my ankles. Then the water slowly cleared and I could see the distortion of my feet in the flowing wetness. I took a cautious step. I felt graininess dissolve under the soles of my feet. Sand melting away just as dad had said, only this water wasn't numbing cold. It was brightly cool. I took another step and felt a squishy welling up between my toes! Mud between my toes! Squish, squish! Like an echo I heard swish, swish above me. My chin tilt– ed as I searched for the sound. There! Faintly far away, like a cobweb against the sky, the J-line. How fragile and lovely it looked from here. And here below it, I had found three dreams-Mother's in the little bare path, Chis' in the million, million leaves to run on, and Dad's in the dissolving sand. And the three, held together by all the other wonders, was really what mine had been all the time without my knowing it! With a sigh, I turned back to the water, but the spell was broken. I was suddenly very small at the bottom of a bigness that had forgotten that Man made it. It whispered its arrogant roar down to me-to remind– I stepped out of the water onto the green, rinsing first one foot and then the other. Clutching my skirts and looking warily back over my shoulders, I scrambled up the steep slope, loosing one hand to help me. Fear and panic began to build up. Where were the people? Where was movement and humming? The constant eternal humming of wheels starting or stopping, accelerating or decelerating-moving, moving, moving. The only thing I could see that looked anything like life or units was a huddle of small buildings far away low and little and lonely with sky showing between them. Suddenly terrified that I might be the only person in the world, I staggered back to the J-line tower, my shadow, thinly tall, slipping up the massed greenery. There was the slab of Crete. And there, quietly and quieting, was a small white flower growing up out of the crack as though no one had ever bothered to mark the line of where things could grow and where they mustn't. Without even looking around, I picked it! My chin was high and defiant. A sudden sound lowered my chin and sent me back into the hanging, swinging green on the tower. I muttered, 'Vine,'-in belated recognition, just as a jerkie rounded the tower and jerked to a stop right in front of me. I pushed the white flower down tight into my pocket. The jerkie door slid. A man stepped out. His brows lifted when he saw me, but he smiled-and went on looking! And spoke! And we had never met! 'Want this jerkie?' he asked informally. I could get no words, so I nodded. He pushed the hold button and stepped out. I stumbled at the door and his hand caught my elbow and steadied me. 'Your pardon,' he said formally, releasing me. 'I trespassed.' 'It was permissible,' I gasped my part of the expected exchange. 'What J-station?' he asked, showing no awareness that he was asking a personal question. 'Area G,' I gulped as though I told my area to any casual questioner. 'Where is this?' 'Area G,' he repeated and reached in to set the controls. Before I could even repeat my question, the door slid. Through the view-plate I saw his mouth make a word. I thought it looked like Nowhere. How could it be Nowhere? I was jerked abruptly that way. Then this. Then the last jerk onto the J-line. I dropped back against the seat and stared down at my bare, dust streaked feet. I giggled helplessly. Cinderella doubled! Then wonder possessed me and I was back among the green, trying to gather as many rememberings as I could to take home to my family-my waiting, eager family– I was off-stepping the glide at our complex before the wonder lightened enough for me to start choosing words. Then I was in our unit and babbling the whole thing to my gape-mouthed family, babbling so fast that I didn't make sense even to myself. Dad finally put his hand firmly over my mouth and held me tightly comforting with his other arm until Mother brought me a hush-me and a plastiglass of water. I swallowed obediently. I leaned against Dad while I calmed. Finally he said, 'Guidance has set an appointment for you tomorrow at ten –another Garath.' 'It was worth it.' I sighed shudderingly and relaxed onto the floor from Dad's arms. I hugged my knees to my chest. 'It was worth it.' 'But Squelch in the viewer?' Chis was admiringly scandalized. 'And no one knowing where you were!' Mother's hand was tight and hot on my shoulder. 'School called to ask, and no one knew where you were!' 'Not anyone!' I marveled, realizing all the illegal things I had done without even thinking or caring. 'No one knew where I was!' 'Out in school hours and you nowhere near twenty-one!' shrilled Chis, brighted to more nearly a boy after being solid lump of quenchedness for so long. 'Nowhere,' I said softly. 'That's where I was. Mother, I saw one of those lovely, secret paths through the grass. And I saw an ant running along it, not knowing I was there. It was carrying something. And the green all bent toward me and the wind flowed around me like-like light going somewhere to shine-' 'Where were you?' Mother's eyes were wide and dare 'I was-I was-' I stopped, stricken. 'I don't know,' said, a heavy realization tightening inside me. 'I have no idea. Not a single idea. Only-only the man said Nowhere. At least it looked like Nowhere through the viewplate.' Dad's mouth twisted. 'I imagine that's just exactly where you were,' he said. 'Nowhere.' His eyes told me untruth as plainly as if he had said so. 'No matter what we call it,' I cried, 'I was there and I saw it-the little bare path-' Mother's hand left my shoulder and her eyes flashed. 'You're unkind to use my own words to cover your truancy. 'But-!' I protested. 'I'm not covering. I really did. saw it. I felt it-a million, million leaves under my feet. And mud between my toes and-' I turned to Dad. 'Sand, dissolving under my feet in a flowing stream-' 'Enough,' said Dad quietly, his face hardening and his eyes not seeing me any more. 'I suggest truthing to the Councilor.' 'Honestly! Honestly! I'm truthing!' I cried. 'It was just what we are all aching for! Our dreams-' 'We haven't asked you to account for your time,' said Father-no longer an informal Dad. 'We trust that whatever you did was ethically correct.' 'Ethically correct!' Anger surged in me, stung to life by my disappointment. 'Most correct! I pushed a lady to get into a jerkie. I rode the J-line all by myself to Nowhere. I ran barefoot across all the green I could. I squished mud between my toes. I looked at a stranger. And talked to him. And I picked-' I scrabbled in my pocket. A moist, greenish-black thread caught under my probing nails. I pulled my hand out and looked. The flower was crushed and dead. Only the tip of one petal curled coolly white from the ruin. 'It was most secret and most lovely,' I whispered
