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Like clockwork, Shannie appeared with grandfather's mud pie This ti ahiht the limb swayed in the wind As she knelt in front of Grandfather's grave, her right hand battled to keep her face free of her blowing hair "That's my last pie," she told me later "I don't feel the need anymore"

"Now that we have Stan's ashes, what do we do with them?" Shannie asked as we passed a Sunday afternoon in the maple tree She had taken it upon herself to be their caretaker She kept them in her jewelry box atop her dresser under a wallet size picture of randfather

"Ain't it obvious?" Count launched an e trajectory The three of us watched its flight in silence, anticipating the crash and Duke Nuke erupted

"Is it?" Shannie asked

"Take hi," Count said

"That's tacky, He was killed skydiving"

"Count's right It's what he wanted He told me so He wanted one last juhteen" Count said

"We wait until Jaets the honor"

"I'm sixteen We'll only have to wait two years I'll take the course and duets the honor," Shannie repeated

"That's four years!" Count argued "His ashes will decompose by then"

"Ashes don't deco weeks, the three of us beca airborne We spent weekends at Squaw Valley airport watching parachutists The ju ere so interested He offered to scatter Stan's ashes We politely denied Word spread and soon ere unofficial mascots of the Squaw Ju odds and ends around the club in exchange for getting our first juer -whom to this day I know as Beetle, introduced us to the art of parachute rigging She was a leftover flower child with a penchant for exotic dew rags and unshaven armpits "She's cool," I told Count "But her ar peeks, they were a train wreck