A boy likes a girl and she comes over to his house. They get along and she has to stay for dinner for some reason. Let's say her name is Jess. The boy shows her his skull collection but it's actually just seeds.
The boy awaits the girl. He fidgets. He's planned everything just right. He wants the afternoon to be perfect. He combed his hair and chose his favorite T-shirt, the striped one. He recalls his mother saying it brings out his eyes. Whatever that means. But Mum's a girl, so he reckons she knows something about what girls like. He has been thinking for a week about what girls like.
The girl shows up with a small blue bow on the left side of her hair. The boy thinks she's splendid, though he'd never say so. They play jacks; they play cards. Mum makes them lemonade, then says, "Jess has to stay for dinner; her parents are running late. You two go play in the garden for a while. It's shady, and the boy is glad. She's staying for dinner. He hopes Mum will ask him to set the table. He'll place her sitting next to his.
The boy and the girl sit on the rusty garden swing. Time passes. He glances over at her to see how she feels, but he can't tell. She is smiling, so that is something. "You want to see my collection? It's secret," he says.
In his room, he pulls the shoebox from under the bed. When he stands, he senses how the girl steps closer. His skin prickles. He places the shoebox on the floor and sits cross-legged in front of it. He looks up at the girl and sees a series of conspiratorial afternoons like this together. His heart pounds when she sits opposite him, the musty box between them.
He unwraps the contents, pulling old newspaper and tissue off as carefully as he can. In the bottom sit four small skulls. Dreadful eyes, large and oblong, drooping down. Noses flat and misshapen. Wide moaning mouths. The girl gasps and leans in for a closer inspection. "Careful," he says. "They're haunted."
He showed this to his younger sister once, and she ran away screaming.
The girl reaches out a light finger to touch the top of one of the skulls. "Can I hold it?"
"Maybe next time."
At dinner, their secrets fill the space between them. He worries over his small deception. He wonders when he'll tell her that his skulls are only ripe seed pods.