The youth group at Beverly\u2019s church is camped out at Staircase in the Olympic National Park. Most of them have spent the whole time competing at skimming rocks across the water. Beverly\u2019s boyfriend, Kirby, is clearly the champion skimmer. He routinely gets his rocks to skip four, five and six times. When he hits seven, the biggest of all, everybody gushes oohs and aahs and wows, and Beverly wraps her arms around him with an exuberant hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you do it?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere. I\u2019ll show you.\u201d He takes obvious pleasure in coaching her.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst, you have to find just the right rock. Like this one.\u201d He bends to pick up flat rock.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally it should be shaped like a frisbee. This one\u2019s close. Not perfect, but damn close. And then you have to hold it like this,\u201d demonstrating with two fingers and his thumb on the edge, \u201cAnd then you lean a little to your right and let fly with a low, sidearm trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rock hits the water and skips, one, two, three, four, five across the surface, little splashes and circles of wave flashing in the sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you try it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Beverly searches through the rocks on the beach and picks up a kind of purplish flat rock with the slightest convex curve to it. \u201cHow about this one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerfect. That\u2019s even better than the one I had.\u201d<\/p>\n
She takes a few practice swings of her arm. \u201cLike this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Great. Now let her go.\u201d<\/p>\n
And her rock skips over the water like a flying saucer coming in for a landing. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s Kirby\u2019s turn to hug Beverly, and he does, and he picks her up and swings her round and round. It is early on the second morning and the others are still asleep in their tents. There is nobody else by the water to ooh and aah and wow. \u201cLet\u2019s not tell the others,\u201d Beverly says. \u201cYou can still be the champ.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way,\u201d Kirby says, and he starts shouting for everybody to get up and get out and hear the good news.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The youth group at Beverly\u2019s church is camped out at Staircase in the Olympic National Park. Most of them have spent the whole time competing at skimming rocks across the water. Beverly\u2019s boyfriend, Kirby, is clearly the champion skimmer. He routinely gets his rocks to skip four, five and six times. When he hits seven, … <\/p>\n