Adam was thirteen years old on a bright afternoon in 2005. It was then when he decided his best friend, Eve, was crazy. He watched her cut across the the fields of South Dakota, carrying two things.

"Watcha doing with the pitchfork?" he asked her on that day.

"I gotta keep the roots inside the Earth, so the trees don't fall out, and stuff."

"And the bathroom scale?"

"So I can weigh it, to make sure nothing changed."

Adam slouched a bit, with both hands in the pockets of his jeans. He followed after Eve, mesmerized by the way her eleven-year-old hips swayed as she labored under her strange load.

"Can I help?" he asked after a while.

Eve's body language told Adam that she was happy he'd offered to help. Her gait quickened. She put some bounce in her step. It made the parts of her Adam was staring at more pleasant to observe.

"Sure!" she said over her shoulder without turning to look. "But you need to get a pitchfork."

"Uh. Okay. Why?"

"I'm gonna use rotten pumpkins to bash down anything that tries escaping."

It was well into the fall now, and most of the pumpkins on Eve's farm had been harvested. Those left in the fields would rot over the winter, to be tilled under next spring. So smashing them with a pitchfork sounded like a mess of fun.

"Okay!" Adam cheered, racing towards his farm. "I'll be back!"

Besides Eve, Adam's nearest neighbor was almost a mile away. Eve's house, however, was within shouting distance of his, a fact that couldn't have made him happier. Eve was crazy, sure, but she was also great fun. She came up with tons of stuff to do when, by looking around the place, it might seem as if there was nothing to do at all. Miles upon miles of farmland, now planted with wheat and barley. These crops would maintain the soil for the winter, until more profitable crops like corn and sorghum were planted in the spring.

Eve's mom also maintained two huge fields of pumpkins on her property, making Halloween the best holiday ever. Today, Adam and Eve spent the afternoon stabbing unwanted pumpkins with their pitchforks, smashing them overhand into the ground.

Eve placed the next pumpkin she was going to smash on her bathroom scale. "Watcha gonna be for Halloween this year?" she asked Adam while checking its weight.

Adam grunted while smashing a pumpkin. "I dunno. I'm kinda too old for Trick or Treating."

Eve stopped pitchforking her pumpkin and struck a pose of indignation. "You're not leaving me to go all by myself!"

"I'm too old, Eve. I'm a teen. I'm a big kid now."

Eve puffed up her chest and scowled, leaning hard on her pitchfork-in-a-pumpkin. "You're not leaving me!"

Adam's eyes kept telling him to scan the length and breadth of Eve's powerful body, but he refused to listen. He huffed loudly instead, due in equal parts to both exertion and resignation.

"Okay. I'll go with you, but I can't go Trick or Treating. You have to do that on your own."

That seemed to satisfy Eve, as she returned to preparing her pumpkin for smashing. "I'm gonna be a witch," she said.

"You're always a witch."

"That's because I am a witch."

Eve swung her pitchfork double-handed over her head. Her feet left the ground as she smashed the pumpkin to bits.

Examining the carnage, she asked, "You gonna be a superhero?"

Adam used his foot to help skewer his next victim. "Yup. I'm always a superhero."

"That's because you are a superhero."

For a while, Adam let his eyes do whatever they wanted to Eve's body after she'd called him that.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Midnight neared, and Adam and Eve each sat on a pumpkin.

"It's gonna be my birthday soon," Eve said into the darkness.

Adam nodded, saying, "The first day of fall."

After a silent moment, Eve added, "I'll be seventeen."

Adam turned his head enough to watch Eve put both fists under her chin, leaning with her elbows on her knees. She was short enough to sit like that, but Adam knew that if he tried doing the same, his pumpkin would slip out from under him, causing his skinny butt to hit the ground. So he stared at Eve as she sat, silhouetted against a million stars.

"You're still nineteen," she said, allowing him to stare.

"Yup."

Eve's silhouette turned enough for Adam to know she was now staring back. Stars reflected in her green eyes, and Adam watched as they grew wide.

"You're not leaving me?" she asked. "Are you?"

"Nah. Not yet anyway." Adam pried his eyes off Eve and stared at the field. "Ya wanna smash some pumpkins?"

"Nah. Mom's gonna have the hands go through again, to get the ones they missed. So it's still too early to smash those left behind."

They let the wind whisper for a while.

"You ever wonder if one of them is your dad?" Adam asked.

Eve snorted. "The hands? Ha! No. One of them is not my dad."

"But you always say he's around."

"He is. But it's not like you can see him."

After a particularly long whisper of wind, Adam asked, "Can you see him?"

This time when Eve turned to stare at Adam, he knew she was glaring. "No, Scarecrow, I cannot. Stop talking like I'm crazy. He's here, but you can't see him. No one can."

Adam cracked his neck, to distract himself from Eve's attractive nature. "But you are crazy, Pumpkinhead. You know you are."

Eve harrumphed and stood up from her perch. Silently, she positioned herself between Adam's long legs and lounged into him, with her head resting against his pumpkin.

"I'm not crazy," she said. "I'm just really different." After a pause, she added, "And I'm not a pumpkin head."

Adam leaned back, to better stare down at the mass of curls between his legs. "Your hair looks like a pumpkin."

"It does not. My hair is blonde. Pumpkins are orange."

"Some pumpkins look like your hair, though."

"But I'm not a pumpkin head."

"I know. And I'm not a scarecrow."

"I know."

The wind whispered unrelentingly, and the two watched stars twirl in the sky.

"You're not leaving me. Are you?"

"You already asked me that."

"I know. I just like the answer."

"I'm not leaving, Eve."

She wrapped a hand around each of Adam's ankles, drawing his feet to her hips. "I know. I'm not leaving you, either."

"Happy Birthday," Adam said as midnight passed. He leaned as far forward as he dared go, to get Eve to look up at him. "Pumpkinhead," he added, his big teeth showing through a cheesy grin.

With all the cuteness she could muster, Eve screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue at Adam.