Dizzy and panting, Elis prepares for death. Itchy grass grabs onto his shorts, his sneakers, his sweat-drenched T-shirt. The sun presses down on every inch of his body. The blue blobs that have been swirling around his eyes spin faster. Elis drops a clammy hand over his eyes and braces himself for the end.

"Are you dying?" a voice asks. It sounds like it's coming from above him. Elis struggles to remember what God's flying helpers are called. He doesn't remember, but in case it's one of them, he puts on his Best Behavior Voice.

"It's ok," he sighs. "I wanna see the good place."

"What good place?" the voice wants to know. It sounds closer to him now. Elis lowers his arm and cracks his eyes open.

The kid staring down at him has an acorn-shaped face: short, fluffy hair and a softly pointed chin. Her eyes are acorny brown, too. The red and gold racket in her hands it at an odd angle, at least from Elis's position on the ground. It looks like she's holding it level. He sits up, rubbing bits of grass off his elbows.

"You're playing tennis?" he asks, looking from racket to face and back again. Acorn girl raises her eyebrows. The racket stays level.

"Yeah," she says, after a pause. Elis bites the inside of his cheek.

"Why're you—what's that?" He can make out something on the racket face, carefully balanced across two closely woven strings. Six legs curl into a limp heap over a narrow, black, segmented body. Half of one wing is missing. The head, flat and pointy, lies still.

"What's that," he says again, both wary and curious.

"What's it look like," Acorn girl says. "A funeral barge."

Elis considers each word. Funerals are when everyone wears heavy black clothes and puts on their Sad Faces. Dad and Tanya had to stay behind because Tanya was sick. It was important for mom to go, Elis remembers. Dad had wanted him to go too. Even when someone isn’t here anymore, Dad told him, we love them. So Elis put on the stiff clothes he didn’t like and held mom’s hand and tried not to look directly at anyone, because once he did, they’d bend down to crush him in a hug or grip his shoulder too hard. He also tried not to look at anyone because he wasn’t sure if his Sad Face was sad enough. He’d practiced it in the plane window and in the mirror in Aunt Andy’s bathroom, but he still wasn’t sure about it.

Barges are boats—really big ones, like the pink dragon candy boat in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The Vikings had them too. It takes a lot of people to paddle them and one person to stand at the front in a fancy coat and shout things. Elis would like to stand at the front of a barge and shout things. He’d been torn between asking for an oar and a soccer ball last Christmas. He’d decided on the soccer ball since he could play with that in bed. An oar without water isn’t really good for much. He could’ve poked Missy with it, but mom would’ve gotten mad. Missy is old and gets scared when you do that, she would’ve said. That’s what she said about popping bottle caps and hiding the water gun inside Missy’s hamburger bed. Missy doesn’t look scared. She looks tired. It’s nice when she’s tired in Elis’ lap, but the rest of the time she’s kind of boring.

Putting two and two together, a funeral barge must be a huge boat full of sad people. Elis gives Acorn girl a look.

“But you aren’t wearing any black. And you don’t have a big boat.”

“It’s a metaphor,” she says, looking off towards the chain-link fence at the end of the field. “I haven’t decided where we’re going yet.”

“You should take him down the slide,” Elis offers eagerly, before remembering funerals are supposed to be sad. “You could go down really slow. Put your feet flat against the sides, like this.” Elis touches his knees together and spreads his feet apart.

Acorn girl’s eyes have tiny versions of the clouds in them. “No,” she says, and her voice sounds sleepy, or like she’s talking to him through water. “No, it’s not time for him to have fun. It’s time for him to go home.”

“Elis, honey!” Mom waves her baseball cap above her head as she walks over. She’s wearing dad’s sandals, he notices. Her feet look tiny under the thick straps. She crouches down beside him, smiling, one arm behind her back. “Are you missing anything?”

“Missing?” He thinks about it. He’s pretty sure he checked everything after he stumbled. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, like the song. But then the sun was hot, and his mouth was dry, and blue spots started making circles around him. And then Acorn girl came over with her racket barge. Her racket ...

“Soccer ball!” Elis explodes. Before he can get up, mom brings her hidden arm into view. There it is, his black and red patched friend. Elis squeals with delight and hugs the dew-covered ball. As he rejoices, his mom turns to Acorn girl.

“You must be Tammy. Your mom and I were talking about how kindergarten is starting up again next week. New town, new class—are you excited?” Tammy shrugs. She thrusts her racket towards Elis’s mom.

“What have you got there, kiddo?”

“A bug,” Tammy says. The breeze rolls the wasp a little as Elis’s mom leans over to look.

“Oh—oh wow. What a beautiful specimen. Do you know what kind of bug he is?

“Wasp!” Elis yells, wobbling vigorously. His mom scowls playfully and pokes him, tipping him off of the ball and onto the grass again. Rolling over quickly, he grabs the ball before it can lumber away.

“I didn’t ask you, did I?” she chides. Elis giggles. His mom turns back to Tammy. “Elis is right, he is a wasp, but he’s a special kind of wasp.”

“The kind that doesn’t sting,” the girl says solemnly. She’s looking around the field again, still wearing that dreamy look.

“You’re right—for the male wasps of this species. These guys are called eastern cicada killers. The females can be twice or three times as big as the males. They’re the ones who sting and carry the food back to their nest.”

“Where’s home?” Tammy asks, turning suddenly. “He should be home.” Elis’s mom looks over her shoulder at Tammy’s mom. A sad smile passes between them.

“All of outside is his home, dear” Tammy’s mom says, reaching over to hand Elis an unopened bottle of water. His mother beams at her. “If I were you,” Tammy’s mom continues, “I would put him in the tall grass near the back of the bleachers. He won’t be disturbed there.”

The four of them make the short journey to the bleachers. Tammy leads the way, holding the racket with the cicada killer’s body out in front. Elis trails close behind her. He guides the soccer between his sneaker tips and fiddles with the bottle’s cap. The moms linger a few feet behind, tying their pastel cardigans tighter around their waists and discussing professors of years past. As the silver seats grow nearer, Elis starts to see it: the distant shore, the glittering sway of the waves, and the serious, silent captain at the prow. Tammy doesn’t say a word, but there is a quiet pride in her steps. This is important, Elis thinks. It’s important that he is here, on this barge, bringing this wasp’s tiny, black-clad body home.

When they reach the tall grass, Tammy stops abruptly and stares down into it. Elis picks up his ball and walks up beside her.

“It’s dark down there,” she says. Her grip on her racket hasn’t changed.

Elis knows about the deep, dark place. It’s the bad place. But the real bad place is under the grass, not inside it.

“It’s shady,” he tells her. “The grass is just big, and there’s a lot of it, so it looks dark.” He puts his hand into the darkness of the grass, testing it. “It feels cooler in there than out here. I wish I could go in there.”

He doesn’t, not really. Elis likes to get cool in pools, or in the ocean, or in air-conditioned sandwich shops like Dad's. He’s never seen a wasp swim, though, and Dad shoos out anything that flies into the shop. Wasps have to get cool outside, like Tammy’s mom said.

Tammy looks into the darkness of the grass for a while. She looks into it for so long that Elis drops his ball and starts bumping it back and forth between his sneaker tips, careful to keep it from shooting off into the depths of the bleachers. Finally, Tammy looks at him. He stops kicking the ball and looks back at her.

“Ok,” she says. She lifts the racket high above her head, still level, and then gently lowers it into the grass. Angling the head of the racket down, she flicks her wrist. The wasp leaps off the racket and disappears. Both children gasp, bending towards the darkness.

“Tammy!” “Elis!” Their moms rush over and pry them away.

“The wasp came alive! I saw it! I saw it fly in,” Elis insists, hugging his ball against his chest. His mom launches into an explanation of potential and kinetic energy, more words Elis has heard but doesn’t understand yet. Tammy remains quiet—glowingly quiet. When they reach Tammy’s street, her mom takes her hand. They wave goodbye to Elis and his mom, who wave back.

“What an interesting family. Tammy and her mother lived in California before moving here, did she tell you that? Her mother studies neuroscience.”

“Mom?” She turns to him. Elis frowns. “Where’s Missy gonna go when she dies?”

“Well, that depends. There are several options. But we won’t need to worry about that for a while, honey.”

“Will she get to go home too?” Elis’s mom gives him a confused smile.

“I...don’t think we can put her exactly where you and Tammy put that wasp, but—"

“—No, I mean...” Elis thinks about the darkness of the grass, about coolness, about the pool and the ocean and Dad’s sandwich shop. “Will she go to the home cats go to?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Elis. Can you explain?”

“Somewhere cool and dark, but nice. Nice for her.” His mother swings their linked hands as little as they walk.

“In that case, I promise you she will.”

"Ok," Elis says. He can’t see them, but he thinks his eyes are glowing. They glow the rest of the way home.