“Oops.”

“You just killed the mirror.”

“I said oops.”

Sarah scrunched her face into a perfect Miles impression. “It’s the classic triad,” she lectured, pretending to push a pair of glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Piss off,” Miles said.

Sarah and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“It would’ve been cool,” Miles mumbled. His face was turning bright red. “Come on-if there was a tunnel or something behind the mirror? That would have been awesome. What the hell do you know anyway… think you’re some kind of genius, just ’cause you played with dolls in the other room…”

He stomped off to the far corner of the room and plopped in a chair, sulking.

We nearly doubled over, laughing.

Finally, I wiped my eyes and walked the room.

On the bookshelf, I found a model ship, the kind you’d see inside a glass bottle, but larger.

“Hey Miles,” I said. “Mind if I look at this, or did you want to smash it first?”

“Screw you.”

I took the ship off its base and turned it over.

“Weird.”

On both sides, several planks were missing, like the smile of a very bad boxer.

I grinned.

I took the boat to the table under the broken mirror. I grabbed a plank of wood from the glass bowl and held it up to the boat. It was a perfect fit.

Sarah clapped.

Every plank snapped into place, not one to spare. The boat looked whole again, except that the old ship was made of pale balsa wood; the new pieces were cherry brown. But the problem was cosmetic-the boat felt perfect, balanced and new.

“Cool.”

“I want to put it in the water,” Sarah said.

“Well obviously,” Miles mumbled from his corner. He still wasn’t making eye contact.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

“You would,” Miles muttered.

“Could you grow up, please?” Sarah said. “If you know something, say it.”

“It’s the Ship of Theseus, clearly,” Miles said.

“The ship of what?”

“Theseus. It’s a paradox. An ancient puzzle.”

“Oh for God’s sake. Enlighten us.”

“The Ship of Theseus was getting worn out, right? But they kept it going by replacing planks. Take an old plank out, put a new one in. So the question is, when does it stop being the Ship of Theseus?”

“I don’t get it.”

“If you replace one plank, is it still the Ship of Theseus?”

“Of course.”

“What if you replace half the planks? Is it still the Ship of Theseus?”

“Yes.”

“What if you replace all the planks?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, now say someone picks up all the discarded planks and builds a second boat. Which one is the Ship of Theseus?”

Sarah and I answered at the same time.

“The old one,” I said.

“The new one,” she said.

“Exactly.” Miles rubbed his hands together. “It’s not just about some boat. It’s about what it means to be something.” He pointed at the smashed wood on the floor. “Is that still a chair? Is that still a mirror? Are you the same person you were a year ago? Is this boat the same one you found on that shelf?”

I threw my hands up.

“Great. Typical philosophy. We could debate all night, and we’d still have no idea what to do.”

“I have an idea,” Miles said. “Take those damn planks out and drop it in the water.”

“Are you crazy?” Sarah snapped.

“It makes perfect sense,” Miles answered. “Think about the V and D. What they’re doing. They don’t want the ship to change. They want the same old ship to keep sailing, forever and ever. They don’t want to turn the voyage over to a new crew, a new ship, new planks. You put those pieces in, the philosophy’s all wrong.”

“But the physics is right. My boat won’t sink. Yours will.”

“Trust me.”

“This from the guy who smashed the mirror.”

“I’m telling you.”

“We get one chance,” I said. “It’s twenty feet down.”

“You’re right,” Miles said. He sighed. “Let me just see one thing.”

He took the boat from my hands. He pulled out the brown slats of wood.

“Hmm…” he said, thinking hard, or rather pretending to. Before I could say anything, he took a massive step and dropped the boat right into the split.

“YOU BASTARD!”

We ran to the edge. The boat went down with a splash then sank underwater.

“You fucking arrogant prick,” Sarah shouted. “How dare you? People’s lives are at stake. Maybe you don’t care about them, but don’t you care about yourself?”

“I have self-esteem issues,” Miles said.

“Shut up and look!” I shouted.

The boat had hit the water and submerged from the force, but now it popped back up and rocked its way in the slow current toward the far end.

“I’ll be damned,” Miles said.

I started to get excited, but then I saw the bubbles escaping the boat. I could imagine the water flooding into the hull.

“Oh shit.”

The boat started to sink.

“NO.”

It was still moving, slower than we needed. Halfway down the stream, it was halfway submerged.

“Shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit. Come on.”

“Go… go… go…” Sarah called.

“Oh no,” Miles said.

He was looking at the far end of the stream.

“What?” I slid toward the end with him. “What is that?”

There was a tunnel at the end of the stream, tall enough for the boat to pass through, sails and all. But what Miles saw was spanning the length of that entrance: a wire, pulled tight across the passage, near the top of the opening.

A wonderful phrase from my childhood adventure books suddenly came to mind:

Booby trap.

“Miles,” I said, “what do you think happens if our sail hits that string?”

He shrugged. All the smugness was gone. He met my eyes and made a motion with his hands that said: ka-boom.

Sarah was a couple of feet away, her eyes locked on the boat, chanting: “Float… float… float…”

“Sarah.”

I showed her the wire.

Her eyes went wide.

She looked back at our boat and chanted: “Sink… sink… sink…”

I joined her.

What else could we do-run out the way we came in?

Miles was already there. He tried the knob and cursed.

The boat was inches from the end. It was almost three-quarters underwater, still drifting in the current, the sails still high enough to hook the filament. The bubbles were pouring out the sides.

“Sink… sink… sink… SINK…”

The ship hit the end, sputtering air, drowning, and by a fraction of an inch the sail cleared the wire.

The boat disappeared into the shadows of the passage.

This triggered a rumbling that began far below and worked its way up to us. It seemed to be inside the wall. There was a clicking sound, and the bar slid across the massive door, back into its socket. Moments later, a panel clicked open in the bookshelf, and the boat was deposited back in its spot.

Miles marched to the door and gave it a heavy push. It swung open.

He shot us a victory smirk and strode through.

I looked at Sarah and shook my head.

“You know, he’s right half the time. The problem is, we don’t know which half.”

She took my hand and smiled wearily.

“Let’s just get through this, okay? Then we can go somewhere, get a nice little house, have kids, grow old. What do you say?”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. How about Jamaica?”

“What do you think of Texas?”

“Texas?” She gave a why not? shrug. “I’ve never been to Texas.”

She kept holding my hand, and we walked under the arch.