My father made it out first from the corn maze. I guess they decided to split apart.

"Already out, Sugar?", he said

"We didn't go in, dad. We aren't little kids anxious to try a new attraction before it is ready"

"Right, it wasn't fully ready, I think. We split up to help you guys find the exit"

"Dad, you left us alone, you mean, to explore?"

"That wasn't nice of us, right?", he says, cringing

"No, it wasn't. I might have enjoyed going in, but not alone."

"At least you were with Lucy and Clark, right?"

"Dad, I was nude, age 12, outside the resort, without an adult supervising. No offense to Lucy and Clark, but they aren't adults. They are responsible, in fact,responsible enough not to get into an unsupervised maze, but still more than the three of you were"

"You are right. Do we need to tell mom about this?", he looks at me, with fear in his eyes.

He is actually scared? My dad is scared of my mother's reaction. Oh, right, it's his wife. He isn't scared of what my mother will say, but he is of what his wife will.

"We are good, but can you help find Mindy?"

"I will. And I will be right back"

As soon as he is gone, Lucy talks to me.

"Damn, that was cold".

"Seriously, am I the only one who saw that?", I say

"Well, just to be honest, we stayed behind to kiss, but we are glad we did because that conversion we had was important", says Lucy

"Hey, I stayed behind because you stayed behind. I didn't stay behind to kiss you", says Clark.

"You didn't?"

"No, I stayed behind hoping I would get to kiss you, but I didn't have a preconceived notion that I would"

"Right...", Lucy says, skeptical

"And I didn't, so it's a good thing I only had hope"

"You know you can kiss even if I am there, right?", I said

Lucy laughs. "When you will be our age, you will understand."

But when I was her age, I don't think I was, but now, I do.

Most people, at least, most women, have a problem with public displays of affection. I am not even talking about heavy stuff! Just kissing your partner on the mouth is something most of us struggle with.

Most people also struggle with nudity, even with their partners. I am told many non-naturist married women don't even want to get close to their husband with the lights on.

This is tragic to me. Well, to the "now" me. I didn't think about those things when I was 12.

While naturists usually get rid of the latter problem, many still struggle from the former.

Perhaps it's because while nudity is now expected and often mandatory in naturist activities, any sort of display of affection is typically banned. Even Clara's hug in the morning for her husband.

Yes, that hug was important to me. I still think about it. It's like a pillar of my sexuality.

Huh, maybe that is a sign that perhaps, it should indeed be banned?

Still, James soon came back with Billy on one side of him, with a look of shame on his face, and Mindy on the other, with a triumphant look. My father was right behind them.

Mindy joined me, all happy, while Billy stayed behind to speak with his dad, out of earshot.

"I think I am in love, Julie. Billy is the love of my life!", she says, all excited.

"What, did you kiss or something?"

"What? No. We just talked. And I think he loves me too"

But my father joined us and cut the conversation short. Lucy eased the tension.

"So, how is the maze going along?", she asked.

"Well, it's my first time, but Peter seems to think they did better than last year. A little more branching path, easier ways to get lost, but not much"

"That's good. It was a dry summer, are the stalks in good health? Three years ago, they were all dry, and you could see through the walls", Lucy asks, with my father slowly getting closer to her.

"Yeah, I think they were healthy. I think I know which summer you mean. I was very dry and warm. This year, it was somewhat nicer, so the stalks had fewer chances to be dried up.

"Good", she says. "Did they make the alleys wider? Last year, you could feel some of the stalks on your skin"

"That's because of the storm", says Clark

"The storm?"

"We went the morning after a storm and some of the stalks or leaves were encroaching on the alleys because the wind knocked them down. They cleaned it up afterward", he says

"How do you know?"

"My parents went in the afternoon."

A light turned on in my mind.

"Can we go at night?", I ask.

"What?", says Lucy

"At night, wouldn't it be spookier?"

"Julie, we try not to get out of the naturist resort at night. There are no lamppost or houses nearby so it gets really dark"

"Well, we would bring flashlights, obviously", I say. "But if this is for Halloween, we should visit it at night, don't you think?"

Lucy and Clark look at each other. I look at Mindy, but she is studying the conversation between Billy and his father, to see if he is displeased with him.

But then, for some weird reason, all three of us looked at my father, the only adult with us. One of the three guys who ran inside, leaving teenagers behind, nude, in the countryside, and who never went to the actual maze when completed.

"Perhaps if we have a few adults to supervise, we might make a special event. Let's ask Peter.", he looks around. "Where is Peter?"

But then, he comes back from around the maze

"They put two entries this time around!", he says, excited, oblivious to the idea that he co-abandoned five teenagers.

"Don't you mean an entry and an exit?", says my dad.

"Oh, right. Makes more sense. It's the first year they do that. That's why we can't find the center park. There isn't one"

"Wait", says Lucy. "There isn't a center park?"

That, grabs Mindy's attention

"But the candies?"

Her father replies. "I heard last year that they were tired of not being able to supervise the candies and that it was difficult to refill since it was in the middle of the maze. I suspect they will put them at the exit, but only when supervised"

"That is bullshit", says Mindy, all mad.

"Yeah, such a break in tradition", says Clark.

I didn't get it, but when Mindy says. "And it's the first year I was looking forward to it. It's not fair", I began thinking.

And now, I think I have an idea why teenagers liked the center park. It's a secluded and isolated place with no adult supervision.

I didn't get the appeal, but at least, I knew why.

We decided to keep going a little on the hike, but it wasn't long before we realized that each minute walking away from the resort meant a minute walking back to it.

The fathers didn't mind, Clark didn't mind. But Lucy, Mindy and I did. Billy didn't seem to care. He would follow Mindy anywhere.

Water bottles were broken out when we decided to turn back, but that only let to discussions about costumes. When Peter said he would be a pirate, Clark admitted it could be cool, which only made Peter start to sing

"What will we do with a drunken sailor, What will you do with a drunken sailor, What will you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning!"

My father and Clark joined in, with Billy and his father soon joining in, but it was clear that only Peter knew some of the lyrics.

Eventually, he stopped, but he tried another sea shanty, but had forgotten most of the words, so he would la la his way through it.

It was a downer, so we switched to what could be seen as a mostly procedural one.

The song is "Roll the old chariot along".

In short, the verses all start with "Oh" and then "we'd be alright if", something, repeated three time, followed by "And we'll all hang on behind..."

The chorus is simply:

"And we'll ro-o-oll the old chariot along!

We'll ro-o-oll the old chariot along!

We'll ro-o-oll the old chariot along!

And we'll all hang on behind!"

Each time, Peter changes the "something".

At first, it's "the wind was in our sails", then it's "we make it round the Horn", and then "if captain doesn't get drunk", but now that I search for the lyrics on the internet, it's not at all the version he was singing.

It starts the same, but then diverges. I wonder if he only remembered the first half and improvised the rest, if he had a different version or if perhaps, the person who taught it to him, was improvising.

His final one, however, he knew by heart and could sign it perfectly. Some of us, even me at the end, sang along with him when repeating.

I can't be sure that the lyrics match, but in my memory, they do.

A few years later, with Mindy, we found in her house the CD "Shanties & Songs of the Sea" from John Collins in her father's collection, which might explain why he knew it.

And yet, listening again to Leave Her by Johnny Collins will never match the beauty of Peter, singing the lyrics with my father, Lucy, Clark and Mindy singing along, and eventually all of us, nude, walking back to the resort.

You'll wonder, is that another character forming moment for me? You bet. It showed me what spontaneous complicity can bring.

During those 4 or 5 minutes (Peter sang much slower than the versions you can find on the Internet), we weren't three fathers with their kids and two older teenagers. There were eight people singing together. We were five people who mostly went through puberty, two going in the process, and a single straggler forced to take pills to catch up. But I didn't feel excluded.

We were a gang. And I felt... part of the gang. Accepted.

I don't think I was the only one to feel it, for both Peter and my father were thrilled to find their wives and kissed them with a passion I didn't see often before, or since.

It was like catching lightning in a bottle, in a way I couldn't put my finger on.

All I know is that none of the married fathers told their wives of their slip up, and both my mother and Clara were none the wiser.

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