The sky grew so dark it looked like someone took a paintbrush and stroked black and grey paint all around me and Dusty.

We walked down the road and a car drove by, the first one yet. It was small and yellow, a punch buggie. The sound of it driving by amazed me. How one car, it seemed, could disturb the silence of the whole world. I half-heartedly punched Dusty's arm. "No returns." There's some things in life that cannot be ignored, despite the circumstances, and this is one of them.

Dusty honked and shook his head. He could not believe he missed that one.

The fields were endless, the road was endless. I started babbling to Dusty about a dream I had last night. "Me and you were eating Corn Pops in my bathroom. You were on the floor and I was sitting on the side of the tub, except it was green..." I was interrupted as Dusty bent over, lifted me onto his shoulders, and continued marching onward. I was glad. My legs were hurting almost as bad as my head. My head was probably why I was in such a talkative mood. My chin atop of Dusty's frizzy afro, I went on, "It was green, and then it was actually Jell-o. So I took a piece off and ate it, and then it broke. I fell through the floor..." Dusty tightened his grip on my legs as if I really were about to fall-" and fell into a big orange box. That was Jell-O, too. And you were there, all of a sudden, eating it apart. I said,' Don't, the hippos are coming.' And you kept right on stuffing your face."

Dusty dragged his teeth back and forth across his bottom lip, seriously considering himself doing such a thing. Such a thing as eating an orange Jell-O box.

Now that I knew he was listening, I rattled on, "Suddenly we were at Wal-Mart, and you were buying a Jell-O pudding. And I was playing with a Jell-O hippo. But not eating it."

Honk.

"Yeah." I twisted my finger around in a lock of his noodle soup hair. A white car drove by, a second, this time facing us. The man driving didn't even look our way.

We went on in silence awhile. I tried not to think of how hopelessly lost and alone we were. There wasn't a soul that could that could help us. I felt painfully alive, still, because this is for sure the most exciting thing that's ever happened in my entire nine years of living.

Dusty must have felt the same way or close to it. He was skipping, and I was just bouncing along.

I felt a raindrop plop on my arm. I stared at it, then wiped it off as I dared to let go of Dusty. I told him," It's raining." Suddenly, as if I were being punished for mentioning this out loud, it began pouring. I kicked Dusty's side, maybe a little harder than planned, saying, "Can I get down?" and he sat me back on the wet gravel.

It was raining so hard. The kind of rain when you were soaked through and through in the span of measly seconds. My uncle was a mailman, though, and he says whether rain or shine, he gets out there and does his duty for humanity. Dusty and I may not be doing humanity any favours, but a little rain won't stop us. God sent Dusty, so a downpour shouldn't hurt him. Or me.

We had probably been gone three hours, give or take. And way in the distance-way, way in the distance-I could see lights. I smiled, pointed, my body shaking uncontrollably from the coldness."Look," I said.

Honk honk. Dusty appeared happy as could be, and I watched his hair, how it didn't frizz out more like I expected, but flattened out a little. It fell down so it looked more like girl's hair than his regular afro. I smiled more, and I guess I smiled so wide it made me sneeze.

Dusty stopped, bent down in front of me and stared hard at me awhile. I again had the unpleasant feeling of him seeing me sick like this. I looked down at the ground, at raindrops filling up small depressions in the road, forming puddles.

I sneezed again, breaking the thick air between us with a shatter.

Dusty, quick as ever, produced a dainty white handkerchief. He took my clammy hand and sat it in my palm, then closed my fingers around it as I sneezed. He did his...pantomime, I suppose you could call it, laugh, and stood back up and kept walking on. I opened my hand and took the handkerchief and blew my nose. As I was about to catch up to Dusty, give him it back, I noticed there was a purple N embroidered in the fabric. N for Norah.

"Dusty!"

Honk? He turned to me.

I held it up and waved it around. "For me?" I asked. The only reply I received was a nod and the continuous thud of the rain. "Thank you, it's nice."

Side-by-side once more, Dusty and I drew closer to whatever possessed the light in front of us. I said more to myself than anyone," I wonder if we could get some Jell-O there."

Dusty mouthed the word Jell-O three times, then raised his head, leaning so far backwards he almost fell. Rain streamed down his face, and I wondered if he was searching for some divine guidance above from the god of Jell-O, praying that he and I could eat some.