Mom and Dad thought him being out in the Elephant Hill woods was “healthy.” They were all about Peter doing healthy things instead of sitting in the living room watching after-school cartoons on the TV. Never mind that the woods were full of animal poo. That’s all dirt was, years and years of animal poo. He’d read that in the school library during the eternal lunch hours.
At least the trail was hard-packed poo, which made it better than all the poo that was everywhere else.
He’d tried to tell Mom about all the poo, but she’d told him to stop being silly and get out there. So he’d grabbed a library book and lit out.
Slivers of sunlight slipped between the fresh May leaves, casting spears of warmth that helped burn away the boggy chill. Everyone said the ground here was too swampy to farm
