My sister and I went everywhere on foot. She’d had a bike once but it was stolen. And I had roller skates but one of the wheels was bad and I kept falling and bloodying myself and my mother put them in the closet. Once, I’d stood on a chair and gotten them down but she’d caught me in the act. She told me to go outside and find a stick so she could beat me with it but we both knew she wasn’t going to do that. I found the stick and handed it to her and she threw it; the dog brought it back. Then she hit me on the bottom one time, not hard, and threw it again. 

The woman folded up her map. You can have it if you want, she said, smiling. I couldn’t decide whether she was ugly or beautiful. We don’t want it, my sister said. I wanted it but I agreed with my sister. My sister asked for things a lot, things I would never ask for, and she usually got them. But she didn’t want this map.

The woman opened her pack and looked inside. I have others, too, she said. I’m crazy about maps. You want to see the world? You can’t have it, though. I got it out of a National Geographic when I was ten and I’ve carried it with me ever since. I even marked the places I’ve been with gold stars.

Do you have any candy? my sister asked. I have some gum, the woman said. It’s not very exciting gum. It’s wintergreen. Wintergreen, I said. I had never heard of wintergreen. She handed us two pieces each and put her map in her pack. I was sad to see it go. I imagined it on the wall in our bedroom, spread out on the floor. We live on an island, I would tell the others, pointing to the blue all around. I would show them where we lived, where my aunt lived, my cousins. They wouldn’t believe me so we would walk south or east or west until we came to that blue, and then we would swim to the next island to tell the others.