[updated] | Lil Humpers

Cassie looked at him — really looked — and for a second, she was nine again, afraid of everything. Then she smiled. “Then I get back up and hump again.”

The kids cheered. They dragged scrap wood from behind the bait shop, stole two cinder blocks from a construction site, and borrowed a sheet of warped plywood from the Dumpster behind the hardware store. By the time the sun bled orange and purple over the pines, the ramp stood three feet high, angled steeply toward the creek’s widest point.

“Okay,” she said. “This is the last one.” lil humpers

The Lil Humpers gasped. Leo started crying.

No one knew who put it up. Not Mrs. Dalrymple, who ran the post office and knew everyone’s business. Not even Deputy Finch, who claimed he’d driven past that pole three times that day and seen nothing. Cassie looked at him — really looked —

She climbed onto her battered BMX, the one with the bent left pedal and the rainbow streamers frayed to threads. The other Lil Humpers formed a tunnel of flashlights. Someone started a drumroll on a bucket.

But by 7:45 PM, a dozen kids had gathered by the old iron bridge. They ranged from nine to fourteen, all of them barefoot, all of them holding flashlights or jars full of lightning bugs. They called themselves the Lil Humpers — not because of anything crude, but because their favorite after-school game was to build tiny dirt ramps for their bikes and “hump” over them, backs arched like cats, wheels barely skimming the ground. They dragged scrap wood from behind the bait

For one perfect second, she flew — over the creek, over the mossy rocks, over the summer itself. The crickets went silent. The lightning bugs held their breath.