Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann Page A

house off the ice pond. As they moved off the well-worn path, they passed a stone marker whose face had been eaten by lichen. Daisy would have stopped and picked at it if Ed hadn’t kept his grip tight on her wrist. He pushed through a cluster ofbushes, pulling her in his wake. Normally, she would have told him to stop yanking her around, but she wanted to know what he got up to on his secret mornings. Also, she liked him like this, when he was purposeful and had things to show her, instead of just mooning around staring at people and making them feel weird.
    They emerged onto a small winding path, bordered on both sides by a wild, high hedge. The air was still and quiet, and only the sound of crickets purring in the heat broke the hush-hush of their feet in the damp grass.
    “Hell’s bells,” Daisy said before she could check herself. “Ed, how on earth did you find it?”
    “Just walking,” Ed said, but with a slight inflection in his voice. He sounded pleased. “I knew you’d like it. I knew you’d understand it,” he added, looking at her intently.
    “Is there a clearing anywhere?” she asked.
    “A ways up.”
    “Well, let’s smoke the cigarettes here,” Daisy said, putting her hand on his arm, feeling the ropy muscle underneath.
    “Let’s go a bit further,” Ed said. “The shelter’s just around the bend.”
    At the next turn stood an old rotting oak, its roots resurfacing like a winded swimmer. Daisy put her back against the tree’s crumbling bark and slid down to rest on one of them.
    “I’m tired. Let’s do it here. I hope you brought matches,” she said.
    Ed handed her a cigarette and pulled out a pack of matches embossed with the words TH E HI DEAWAY . She put the cigarette to her mouth and felt the dry tobacco stick to her lips. Ed carefully lit the match and moved it slowly toward the end of the cigarette. It wouldn’t light.
    “You have to breathe in at the same time I put the match up,” he said.
    Daisy did as she was told, watching the end hiss, and then glow brightly.
    “It hurts,” she said. She tried to inhale, like she’d seen girls do in Harvard Square, quick hiccups of breath, followed by gray-blue streams flowing evenly between their red lips. But she couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. Anyway, it was bitter and made her feel slightly sick, like when she drank too much coffee. “I don’t think I can finish it.”
    Ed was staring down the path.
    Daisy tamped the cigarette out against the root, and sat, feeling strange, and a little sad about Tyler. Maybe she could pretend to like it if he asked her. She started kicking at the meadow grass growing up around the tree until she realized it was staining her shoe. Beyond the grass was what looked like a small clearing.
    “So where’s this shelter?”
    “Over there,” Ed said. “Do you want to see it?”
    “Yeah, but then I want to go home and eat deviled eggs.”
    Ed led the way past the oak tree, beyond a thicket of honeysuckle, toward the clearing. Off to the side was a wooden shack, buckling under the weight of the humid air and its own decaying wood. It looked like a bus shelter, with a slanting roof and open front, partially obscured from their view.
    “Creepy,” Daisy said. “Is this where you hang out all morning?”
    “Sometimes.” Ed’s tone was noncommittal.
    Daisy walked around the shelter to get a look at it head-on. It was fairly deep, with brambles and some old trash—beer bottles and candy wrappers—peeking out of the recesses.
    Along the back, Daisy spotted what looked like a plaid travel rug.
    “There’s a picnic blanket, or something, over there,” she said, kicking some dirt in its direction.
    Ed came up alongside her and squinted into the shelter.
    “Somebody’s been having a picnic in your secret place.”
    Ed was silent.
    Daisy moved toward the shack until she stood under the roof, peering at the blanket. It was lumpy and stained with something that looked like chocolate sauce. Then