Summer always arrived quietly in your town.

There were no fireworks or festivals announcing the end of school. Just the sound of lawn mowers replacing school bells, sprinklers clicking to life in the early morning, and kids racing down sidewalks on bikes until the streetlights flickered on.

You preferred it that way.

The first official Monday of summer found you sitting beneath the giant oak tree in your front yard, a paperback resting open in your lap. You weren’t reading anymore, though. Your eyes had drifted over the tops of the pages toward the neighborhood across the street.

Not that anyone noticed.