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Show -311 arms, my feet all the while resting on the blue and insubstantial air. I have a fear of falling. I watched and cut myself another piece of Alice's cake. Jacob at last gave it up and rolled to a sitting position between Alice and Morgan. He straightened his tie, tugged down his pantlegs. Morgan kissed him on the cheek and he blushed. Alone now, Carlo began to do somersaults and slow graceful cartwheels. My little brother wasn't even breathing hard; he performed his backward flips, his tumblings and somersaults as if they were the most natural thing in the world. "Very good!" Alice said. But her face had become anxious; her hands were in her lap, the fingers intertwined tightly. A shift in the wind brought us the odors of the sea: salt, the resinous smell of the trees, iodine; underlying them all was another sharper hotter flavor I couldn't place, almost electrical in nature. Bitter. The quality of the light deepened suddenly. A gull screamed. Carlo did a one-hand stand, threw himself high and landed on his feet, did a comic pratfall, a perfect series of cartwheels; he grinned at the women and gave me a slow meaningful wink. The wind ceased. He was so graceful I wanted to jump up and hug him. He made a long loping run toward the fence, dived |