By the time the van heads back for Eagle Crest, I figure they're taking this as just another accident. I lean back in the seat next to Dan, and look out at the trees and the cabins along the river.

       I start to feel funny. Not car sick, just funny. Then I figure it out. The hum is back. When I was little, when everything was fine, or when I was playing or walking through the fields, whenever things were real good with me, it was as if I could hear a little hum in me, somewhere in my chest or stomach . Not a song, no words, just a hum of feeling good.

       I realize it was back there on the river, all of us digging paddles into the water at the same time, bumping over the rocks, looking at the foamy white water, looking at the trees from a fish-eye's angle, that the good feeling, the hum came back.