“That too?” Dave Henson asked cheerfully, pointing to the licorice bag I’d picked up, and helping me make my decision.

“Sure,” I said, paying for my items and shoving them into my bag. “Thanks.”

“Get home safe, now,” Dave said, looking outside. “I think we’re about to get some weather.”

I waved good-bye to Dave and headed out as a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. I groaned and flipped the hood of my sweatshirt up just as the first drops of rain splattered on the road. Main Street wasn’t crowded—it seemed like the weather had kept people in, but those that were on the street either ducked under awnings or hustled to their cars. I knew the signs, and I hurried to my bike and dropped my bag in the basket. I was trying to decide if it made more sense to call home for a ride and duck under an awning, or just see how far I could get before the storm really hit. I had a feeling that if I called home for a ride because it was raining, I might never hear the end of it. But on the other hand…

The thunder sounded again, closer this time, and that decided it for me. So I’d get a little wet. I would certainly survive. And it would be better than Warren—not to mention my dad—mocking me for the rest of the summer. I climbed on my bike and headed down Main Street, noticing that puddles were already starting to form on the pavement. As I pedaled through them, water splashed against my feet and bare legs, and I realized that this really had not been the day to wear shorts.

I biked on, getting soaked as I rode. The thunder was getting ever closer, so loud that I found myself jumping slightly whenever it sounded, my hands tightening on the handlebars. As I stopped for a moment to brush some of the rain off my face and fix the bag in the basket, I saw a flash of lightning in the distance.

“Crap,” I muttered, pulling my hood up higher and looking down at my bike for a second, taking in the fact that it was pretty much made of metal. I was fairly sure the rubber of the tires would keep me from getting electrocuted, but it wasn’t something that I was dying to field-test. I was soaked through to the skin, and I could see the droplets rolling off my bare legs. The rain was coming down in sheets now, so hard that I could barely see the road in front of me. But it somehow seemed that I was getting wetter standing still than I had when I was in motion. Wiping my wet hands on my even wetter sweatshirt, I swung my leg back over the bike when someone skidded up next to me.

“Taylor?” I turned and saw Henry on his own bike, looking almost as drenched as I was, though not quite—he was wearing a baseball cap that seemed to be keeping some of the rain off his face.

“Hey,” I said, momentarily grateful that I had my hood up, since I could only imagine how bad my hair looked. But a second later, the reality hit. I had my hood up. I probably looked like a half-drowned elf.

“This is intense,” he said. He was practically yelling to be heard above the sound of the rain and wind.

“I know,” I called back. I felt myself smile, realizing how ridiculous we probably looked—two people, standing still in a rainstorm, having a conversation on the side of the road.

“Ready?” he asked, and I nodded, standing up on my pedals and starting to bike against the wind. The rain was starting to come down sideways, and the wind was blowing so hard that I was having trouble keeping my bike upright. It kept wobbling, and I kept having to put a foot down to steady myself. Because of this, Henry had ridden on ahead of me, though he would always stop and wait for me to catch up. I thought this was what was happening when I reached him and he was stopped, a foot resting on the ground. I biked on ahead, figuring that he would be right beside me, but after a few seconds, I turned and saw that he was still stopped.

“You okay?” I yelled over the rain, thinking that this was really not the day to have mechanical problems.

“Yeah,” he called back. “But this is insane. I think we should just wait out the storm. It’s not going to continue like this.”

“No, but…” I shivered. I didn’t even need a fire any longer; all I wanted was a shower so hot that it would steam up the bathroom mirror in seconds, and I planned to stand under it until our tiny hot-water heater ran out. I looked back to the direction of Main Street, which was the only place any shelter could really be found. But the thought of biking all the way back there, and then having to go home, was not exactly appealing.

“Come on,” Henry called. He looked both ways, then biked across the street. Confused, I watched as he got off his bike and started wheeling it up a driveway.

“Henry!” I called across the street, “what are you doing?” I couldn’t tell if he heard me, but at any rate, he just kept wheeling his bike. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it appeared like he, at least, had some sort of plan, so I checked for oncoming traffic before riding across as well.

As soon as I made it onto the driveway, the tree cover cut down on a little bit of the rain. I looked around for Henry and saw that he was rolling his bike toward a house, I now realized, that was very familiar. I squinted through the rain to see the sign, and sure enough, we were at Maryanne’s Happy Hours—also known as Henry’s old house. The driveway was empty and the house was dark, so at least it seemed like Maryanne wouldn’t be chasing us off her property. I walked my bike past the house, following Henry around to the back. By the time I reached it, Henry had stopped where the woods began, and leaned his bike against a tree. I did as well, noticing that when I stepped into the woods, the denseness of the trees really did begin to provide some shelter from the rain. I just wasn’t sure that it had been worth stopping for. I was about to say this to Henry when I saw that he was walking into the woods. And that’s when I saw what he was heading toward—the treehouse.

“You okay?” he asked, as I concentrated on getting a grip on the wooden planks, nailed into the tree trunk, that served as the ladder.

“Fine,” I said, reaching up for the next rung. Henry was already in the treehouse, looking down at me—he’d climbed up with no problem whatsoever. It wasn’t the kind of treehouse that you sometimes saw in catalogs, the ones that came with a kit and instructions and were meant to look like log cabins, or pirate ships, all right angles and smooth wood. It had been built by Henry’s dad, without any fancy blueprints, just to fit in the space between three supporting trees, which made it triangle-shaped. There was a roof, two walls and a floor, but nothing so fancy as a door. Instead, the front was just open, slightly overhanging the trunk that served as the ladder. It seemed fitting that we were there now, as the only times I could really remember being in the treehouse was when it had been raining. I wasn’t sure I’d actually ever seen it from the inside when it was sunny out.