Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton Page A

second favorite view,” I said, pedaling harder so I could get a bit of breeze on my now flaming face, “is from the biggest dune on the island. It’s way south, past the boardwalk. But you can’t go there at this time of year. The panic grass is just sprouting, so it’s too delicate to even
look
at.”
    “Maybe
I’m
dumb because I didn’t understand a word you just said,” Will said. “You call that dune grass ‘panic grass’? Why?”
    “That’s just what it’s called,” I said. “I don’t even know why, actually. All I know is, as soon as you learn to walk on this island, all you hear from your parents is, ‘Watch out for the sea oats! Mind the panic grass!’ Maybe that’s why. They sound so
panicky
about it. I mean, if you thought the turtle nest sitters were scary, wait until you meet a dune grass guard. They’re very, very passionate about erosion.”
    “Well, after Toni Morrison books, erosion is my favorite subject,” Will cracked, with that half smile that was already starting to feel sweetly familiar. “I mean, I could go on and on and on.”
    I threw back my head and laughed.
    And then we did talk on and on and on. Not about erosion, of course. Mostly Will asked me questions about Dune Island. Like why the gas station at the south end of the island is called Psycho Sisters. (It’s a long story involving the Robinson twins, a sweet sixteen party, and a way-too-red red velvet cake.)
    “Okay, and why, when I went to the library,” Will asked, “was there an entire shelf with nothing but copies of
Love Story
on it? There were fifteen! I had to count them. I mean, that many
Love Story
s in a one-room library is pretty weird.”
    “Oh, yeah, the
Love Story
s.” I sighed. “There’s an island-wide book club, and someone had the fabulous idea of having
that
be the selection a couple of summers ago. Everywhere you went, women were reading this cheesy book and just
crying
.”
    Will had started laughing halfway through my explanation and I had to laugh too. It was kind of fun recounting these random little Dune Island details that I’d always just known and never thought twice about.
    Before I knew it, we were at the southern tip of the island, which was as different from the North Peninsula as could be. The north juts out into the Atlantic with absolutely nothing to shelter it. It’s craggy and lunar and feels as deserted as, well, a desert if you turn your back to the beachmart and the pier.
    But the southern end of the island hugs the coast of Georgia like a baby curling against its mother. There’s a sandy path there that leads into a giant tangle that my friends and I have always called the jungle. It’s lush with out-of-control ivy, dinosaur-size shrubs, and big, gnarled magnolias, palms, and live oaks. The sun shoots through breaks in the greenery like spotlights, and the sounds of bugs and frogs and lizards spin a constant drone. In the middle of the jungle is a clearing, and in the middle of that are some half-decayed tree trunks arranged into a sort of lounge.
    Without even discussing it, Will and I got off our bikes and walked down the path toward it.
    For the first time in a while, Will didn’t ask me any questions. I was quiet too. This cranny of the island suddenly felt special. Not just someplace to go with my friends to break the monotonyof our beach/Swamp/Angelo’s loop, but like something out of a fairy tale—my very own Secret Garden.
    I hadn’t done anything to make all this teeming life happen, of course. Still, showing the jungle to Will, like the rest of the island, made it somehow feel like mine. So instead of rustling quickly over the path, just trying to jet to the clearing, I found myself lingering over things. I stroked feathery ferns with my finger, enjoyed the dry, green scent of an elephant ear plant brushing my cheek, and pulled a dangling swatch of palm bark free from the trunk that was still clinging to it.
    It was all very romantic, until Will started