The girls spread their towels and lay down, Julie on her hip and Harry on her stomach, her back arched and her backside prominent. "The sun is intoxicating," she sighed.
John shuddered over how good they looked; but after just a few minutes, the girls began to talk silly, then dived into the water and swam to the platform. If they had offered
themselves to Slade and John, the boys had sure missed their chance.
"Where did y'all get the platform, Harry?" Slade asked.
"It's not ours. We don't know who brought it here, but no one uses it except me."
"What holds it up?"
"Drums," Julie said, gazing between the slats.
"There's a platform at the camp where Mel's old girlfriend worked," John told them. "It was tilting because a hole was in the drum, and it was full of water."
"This should tilt, too, like the house."
"We already told you, Julie, the house isn't askew; it's only the name for it."
"If you lay a marble on the floor, I bet it would roll to one end."
"So? I bet your place in Vermont leans more than ours."
"The rough-looking caretaker came chasing us," John said, "hollering at us. You never saw people leave so fast; but Ginger said he was just an old mountain guy who wouldn't hurt a flea."
"Norman Rockwell painted a picture of boys skinny-dipping where they weren't supposed to be," Harry said, "and had to flee before they could put their clothes back on."
She smiled at John, then turned away dejectedly. John would lose his mind if she did not stop doing that.
