“Who knows?” Gloria sighed.
“Maybe I should go check on them,” Ms. Hempel said.
“They’re fine,” Julianne said, a bit sternly.
But they didn’t look fine. They were crouching over something. Maybe they had found a stash of hypodermic needles, washed up by the tide.
“I had better go see,” Ms. Hempel said.
“Ms. Hempel…,” the girls called, but she was already on her feet and walking away from them.
Upon closer inspection, she saw that the boys were absorbed in a fairly harmless activity. It involved one boy lying down on his back, the other boys heaping sand on top of him and patting it down, and then the boy heaving himself up and lumbering to his feet. The boys took great care to smooth out the sand so that when the body began to stir, the grave would crack and fissure in a dramatic fashion. She wasn’t sure where the pleasure lay: in burying a classmate, or in freeing oneself from the sand. They attacked both roles with equal gusto. She stood to one side and watched them.
When it was Jonathan Hamish’s turn, the boys began to add, at his behest, anatomy to his burial mound. As they shaped two sandy breasts, they glanced over at Ms. Hempel, to see what she would do. Their glance both defied and invited reproach, a look with which she was very familiar. She smiled at them permissively, then rolled her eyes to show how unflappable she was. An argument arose as to the size of the outcroppings: some boys, among them Elias and Theo, felt they should be round and realistic, while others, like Roderick, wanted to keep building the breasts until they sat high and pointy on Jonathan’s chest. “That’s not what they do,” Elias muttered, but sand was an imprecise medium to begin with. Jonathan grinned down at his protrusions.
The breasts turned out so well the boys decided to add a penis. They glanced over, again, in Ms. Hempel’s direction. They even cleared a little space for her so she could stump over to the penis and object. But didn’t they know? She was the young teacher. It was her job to indulge them, to be impervious to shock, to watch all the same television shows that they did. She laughed when they made off-color jokes. She allowed them to use curse words in their creative writing. She taught sex education with unheard-of candor. Of course, they were constantly testing her. When she asked her homeroom to anonymously submit any question, any question at all, regarding puberty or sex or contraception, she received some very graphic queries. She stood at the front of the class and read each question aloud. Competently, intrepidly, she described the consistency of semen, what purpose lubricant served, why a woman might enjoy receiving oral sex.
Jonathan Hamish, who didn’t even try to disguise his handwriting, had submitted a question of a more challenging sort. He grinned at her when he saw that she had pulled his crumpled paper from the pile. Whose the best lover you’ve ever had? Jonathan watched her closely, as if waiting for her to discard it, frown at him, send him downstairs to Mr. Peele’s office. But she found herself mysteriously touched, felt herself blushing in a pleasurable way. Another word, surely, would have been the more obvious choice: What’s the best sex you’ve ever had? Who’s the best fuck? But even in his efforts to provoke her, he had selected a word that was exceedingly charming. Full of solicitous, gentlemanly concern. And he grinned at her—not devilishly, not leeringly—but sweetly almost, sweetly and frankly. As if he really wanted to know. As if he were asking only because all aspects of her life were of interest to him. As if the thought of her embroiled in sweaty sex were unimaginable. In Jonathan Hamish’s view of the world, Ms. Hempel would make love.
When she read the question aloud, the homeroom swiveled in their seats and glared at Jonathan. They knew that only he would ask such a question.
“Well,” Ms. Hempel said, displaying her ring finger. “Shouldn’t the answer be obvious?”
THE PENIS, HAVING A MORE slender base, proved more difficult than the breasts. It kept on toppling over. After a few frustrated attempts, the boys settled on a suggestive hillock (a pup tent, Ms. Hempel realized). They stepped back and admired their handiwork.
“Keep going,” Jonathan commanded, waggling his hands and feet. “I’m not completely covered.”
They heaped more sand upon him, making it necessary that he remain absolutely still, for even the smallest twitch of his fingers could disrupt their progress. Jonathan, as Ms. Hempel well knew, was a child unable to stop moving. And perhaps it was a relief to him, this stillness, this weight pressing down on him.
But he still was not satisfied with the effect. “Try putting more sand on my neck, and up around my ears,” he instructed.
The other boys squatted down beside his head and carefully shaped the sand. “More,” Jonathan said. “It doesn’t feel right.”
He could no longer move his head, but his eyes darted back and forth, monitoring their efforts. “You can put more on my forehead, and my chin,” he said. “Get as much on my face as you can.”
His voice kept getting quieter and quieter. Ms. Hempel peered down at him anxiously. “Are you all right in there?” she asked. “Jonathan, do you want them to stop?”
Finally, in a very small voice, he said, “Enough.”
The boys were proud of what they had done. “Picture!” Roderick yelled. “We have to take a picture!” None of the boys had brought a camera. Only the girls had thought to do that. So off they went, thundering down the beach. “Don’t move!” they shouted back at Jonathan.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Ms. Hempel knelt down beside him. “Jonathan,” she said. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m okay,” he whispered. His mouth had turned a funny dark color, as if he had just finished eating a grape popsicle.
“Promise me.”
“I’m just resting,” he said,
