"Well, it's been sitting in this pool for some time, and it had a chance to heat up."

"The sea's the same way," Allan answered. "I felt it earlier."

Perry rose to his feet, turned away, began running toward the water. Allan glanced at Annie, who laughed. Suddenly the two of them were running after.

Before long, they were splashing about in the ocean, laughing, dunking each other, waves boiling about their legs.

"You're right!" Perry called out. "It's never been this way! Why should it be like this?"

Allan shrugged.

"Perhaps it's warm because the sun's shining on it hard someplace we can't see. Then the waves are bringing it to us that way—"

"That doesn't sound right. Maybe it's a current—like a river in the sea—"

"It's warm because I wanted it to be," Annie interrupted. "That's why."

The boys looked at her and she laughed.

"You don't think this is a dream," she said, "because it's not your dream. It's mine. You remember getting up this morning and I don't. I think it's mine, and this is my place."

"But I'm real! I'm not a dream-thing!"

"So am I!"

"I invited you, that's why."

Both boys laughed suddenly and splashed her. She laughed, too.

"Well—maybe ..." she said, and then she splashed them back.

Their garments grew wet and were dried several times over, as they felt compelled to verify the sea and its moods on several occasions. Slowly, between baths, a new castle grew beneath their hands. This one, larger and more ambitious than that with which Allan had collided, sprouted towers like asparagus branches, its thick walls climbing and descending the rolling sandscape, rippling inward and outward, sprinkled and dampened from the pool where small crabs, bright fish, and hidden molluscs dwelled amid the glitter of stone, shell, and broken coral. Impulsively, Allan reached forth and took Annie's gritty hand within his own. "It's a wonderful castle you thought of," he said. Even as she began to blush Perry had hold of her other hand. "It is," he said, "and if it's a dream, you're the best dreamer yet."