Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

mother’s scrapbooks. “Look, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you want to be my partner for the doubles tournament?”
    “Sure,” Anita said, as if it was nothing at all.
    “We’ll have to practice a lot,” Daisy said severely. She felt suddenly quite cross with Anita for being so cool about the offer. “I mean, like every day.”
    “We’re already playing every day. But sure, why not? Can I come over to your house?” Anita asked.
    “I guess,” Daisy said, caught off guard. She wasn’t sure she wanted her hanging out at her house. She wondered what her mother would say. “We should get back. Break’s over.”
    “I’ll catch up with you,” Anita said, still staring at her mother.
    As Daisy walked back across the lawn, her mother waved from the court.
    “Hello, Daisy.”
    “Hello, Mummy,” Daisy said. She could feel her own racquet like a sleeping weapon in her hand and wondered again about her mother’s perfect game.
    As the week wore on, Daisy avoided having to invite Anita over by staying back at the end of the session. She was leaning against the chain-link fence that separated court 7 from the grassy paths and marshes that led up to the ice pond when her cousin rattled the metal behind her head.
    “How’s your backhand coming along?” Ed said, mimicking the clipped tones of Mrs. Coolridge.
    “Hell’s bells, Ed, what on earth are you doing here?” Daisy said, spinning around and lacing her fingers through the fence. Ed towered above her and she had to peer up into the sun to meet his eyes. “If Mrs. Coolblood catches you, you’re dead meat.”
    “You’re supposed to walk me home now,” Ed said. He was wearing his tennis clothes, still pristine except for his shoes, which were muddy and scuffed. His blond hair was the color of bleached wheat.
    “You’re such a baby,” Daisy said. “Why don’t you just tell your mom you don’t want to play?”
    “Because I’d hate having to spend the morning with her,” Ed said, without any real passion. “Come on, let’s go for a walk. I found a good path to the pond, one that no one knows about.”
    “I’m hungry,” Daisy said. “Let’s go back home. Mummy’s making deviled eggs.”
    “I stole two cigarettes,” Ed said. “From Tyler Pierce, actually.”
    Daisy imagined smoking a cigarette with Tyler Pierce behind the old ice cellar in the backyard, his hand in her short blond hair.
    “All right, but let’s make it quick. I might starve to death.”
    “Only the Chinese are starving to death,” Ed said.
    “Hell’s bells,” Daisy said.
    “You should stop saying that,” Ed said. “It doesn’t sound grown-up.”
    “As if you’d know anything about that,” Daisy said, opening a side door in the fence and joining Ed. “Come on, hurry.”
    When they were safely behind the tall marsh grass and cluster of old oaks that made up the lush backlands of Sheriff’s Meadow, Daisy slowed her pace. Now Ed was leading her, and Daisy noticed that whatever it was he was doing during his mornings off had tanned the back of his neck.
    “We have to go left behind the old shed,” Ed said, taking Daisy’s hand and pulling her deeper into undergrowth.
    “There’s nothing behind the old shed,” she said, feeling cranky and hungry for lunch. “I don’t want to get my shoes all muddy tromping around in the marsh. Besides, there’s hundreds of mosquitoes back here.”
    “No, there’s a path I found,” Ed said. “It leads to an old shelter. We can smoke the cigarettes there.”
    “I thought you said cigarettes were disgusting,” Daisy said. “And anyway, how did you steal them from Tyler?”
    “From his tennis bag. And the cigarettes are for you.”
    “You have to promise to smoke one with me, or I’m going home right now.” Daisy stopped, her tennis dress caught on a raspberry bramble.
    “It’s this way,” Ed said, carefully removing the cotton from a thorn.
    They had reached the dilapidated shed that belonged to a defunct camp