Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

repeats Andy. “Slides off the licker.”
    After the flounder and the catfish are getting to know each other in our pot of simmering water, Andy and I park on a patch under the canopy of a pawpaw, me in my two dry shirts. It’s showtime.
    Peety starts pulling off his trousers right beside us, sending our eyebrows soaring. He wears red long underwear. Andy’s face explodes with hilarity though she slaps a hand over her mouth before any sound escapes. With a flick of his wrist, the vaquero shakes out his fancy jacket and hangs it on a branch. The rear flap on the seat of his long underwear sags a bit.
    â€œHe could carry parcels in there,” Andy says out of the side of her mouth, and now I have to cover my face as well.
    Then Peety peels off the long underwear and folds them into a neat pile, sweeping away the last vestiges of my composure.
    â€œUnshucked,” I choke out, planting my face in my lap. I can’t hide like this. Boys don’t hide in the presence of naked male bodies, but I can’t help myself.
    Something almost knocks my topper off. West and Cay just threw their trousers at us, and now stand naked as two zucchinis wearing hats.
    â€œWell, that’s one mystery solved,” says Andy, who manages to face them straight on while an invisible harness pulls my face back into my knees. “But now I wanna know, if they don’t wear unders, how they stop the chafing?”
    â€œStop whispering,” says Cay. “This is some serious singing we’re about to do.”
    Andy elbows me. “C’mon, pull it together. They’s just bodies.”
    I force myself to look up. The three fine specimens of the male anatomy line up. The cousins, a shade under six feet each, bookend the huskier vaquero, like two bolts of cotton twill with a shorter bolt of broadcloth between them. The bolt on the left might gain another inch if it stopped slouching.
    The boys belt out the lyrics to “Yankee Doodle.”
    â€œLooks like we have three full moons tonight,” I observe.
    â€œAnd one of them coffee-colored.”
    When Andy says this, I know I’m going to have to fight down another laughing attack. I cough, spit, and hold my breath in. It never works. The floodgates burst, and all my fifteen-year-old giggles come snorting out while Andy whacks me. By the word
macaroni,
I’m teary-eyed, and her handprint is stamped on my back.
    As I swear to myself I will never again wager without knowing what the terms mean, to my horror, the doodlers lumber toward us, their faces twisted with evil intent.
    â€œNo one laughs at this mountain of muscle and lives to tell,” says Cay.
    West flicks a mosquito off his arm. “The babies need their bath.”
    â€œWater’s warm,
chicos.
”
    Truth be told, the sight was not so horrible, but never mind. Andy and I jump to our feet. Since we’re boys, we cannot scream or faint, those being the things that a female does when naked men pursue her. So we do the next best thing.
    We scoop up their clothes and race to the water. You might think being unclothed would put you at a disadvantage, but those boys run like cheetahs after a pair of bunnies. They catch up as we reach the shoreline.
    Too late for them, though.
    â€œIt’s a cold night to be unshucked,” I tell the closest, Cay, as we dangle our bundles over the water.
    The wind goes out of their sails.
    â€œHand them over and we’ll leave you nippers alone,” grumbles West.
    Andy pretends to drop her bundle, and the boys all gasp. “Swear it on a stack of Bibles.”
    The boys shield their privates with one hand and hold up the other.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    After Andy says a proper grace this time, we feast like kings, though we have to eat out of the pot with two spoons. Using the vegetables from Cay’s sack, Andy turns out fish stew with chokecherry relish, no onions. At her request, I put the onions into one of the