Found Things (11 page)

Chapter 18

Our house smelled like butter
and vanilla and warm sugar when I got home from the river. I followed the scent to the kitchen, where I found two layers of yellow cake cooling on the table and Meadow Lark wearing Daddy's Minnesota apron.

“What are you doing?” I asked, hearing my voice flutter.

Meadow Lark picked up a big bowl of lemon frosting. “Your mama and I made a cake,” she say, and stirred the frosting with Mama's big spoon.

“But Mama and I always make that cake,” I say, and turned to Mama. “Don't we?” But she was busy pulling out the frosting spreader from the knife drawer.

“I'm sorry, honey,” she say. “Meadow Lark wanted to make a cake. . . .”

“And we didn't know when you'd be home,” Meadow Lark say, staring at me and stirring.

“You couldn't wait for me?” I whined.

“Meadow Lark didn't know where you were. And I didn't know where you were,” Mama say.

“It's just a cake,” Meadow Lark say.

I felt my eyes narrow and my pulse drumbeat my neck. Mama and Meadow Lark were becoming best friends, and that hurt. “It's not just a cake. It's the cake Mama and I make every summer.”

“Grab a knife, River,” Mama say cheerily. “You can help us frost it. . . . Where were you, anyway?”

The collage under my shirt felt tight around my chest as I looked at the two of them. I didn't want to help them frost the cake. And I didn't want to give Mama the collage. She didn't need it, she probably wouldn't even want it . . . and why was Meadow Lark staring at me?

“Never mind,” I say, and ran up the stairs, shutting the door loud enough for anyone to hear. Then I pulled the collage out and slid it in the back of my closet.

First, I thought as I fell on the bed, Meadow Lark took over my place at the river. Next, she took over my bedroom. All her stuff—her duffel bag, her backpack, her Arizona bag, that Tupperware that started Mama humming again, her shoes on the floor and clothes hanging from the bedposts—had started creeping over to my side. But now, worse than either of those, now she was taking over Mama.

I gazed at the ceiling. Meadow Lark had slipped perfectly into my life, and no one seemed to notice the difference. What would she take over next?

Footsteps thudded in the hall of that house in my mind. I stood in front of the tall bureau, my hand on the ballerina box. I had to see what was under the tray, because I knew it was important, but the footsteps got closer, louder. I would have to move fast.

Quickly I lifted the tray and peeked inside the box. There, all by itself, was a folded-up yellow tissue. The footsteps were almost at the door.

I grabbed the box and slipped under the bed. The bedspread hung low enough to hide me, and I slid all the way over to the wall.

The footsteps stopped. I held my breath and peeked through the fringe of the bedspread. At the doorway stood two feet wearing fluffy blue bedroom shoes.

My heart pounded, and a gasp worked its way up my throat. I pressed the tissue to my mouth to muffle anything that come out of my mouth.

She walked over to the bureau, and then I heard that crunchy sound of hair brushing.
Please don't notice that the ballerina box is gone
, I thought. Then she put the hairbrush down, and opened and shut a drawer. “Naptime's over,” she say, as if to herself, and walked out of the room and down the hall.

My heart was racing, but I sat very still until the house quieted down again. The folded-up tissue had gotten soggy from my breath, and flakes of it stuck to my hand. Something hard and round was inside. Carefully I unfolded the tissue.

There, all by itself, lay a little gold ring with an emerald on it. It was just like the one in my ballerina box, just like the one I found at the river.

Something so very strange happened then. That pretty little ring meant for a baby, which shouldn't have fit on my pinkie, now slid easily onto my ring finger.

I blinked and realized I'd been staring at the ceiling all that time. The house and the blue bedroom shoes and the little emerald ring stayed fresh in my mind.

That ring had slipped on my ring finger so easily. I got up to try it again, and opened my ballerina box. My ring wasn't on top. I rummaged through the box, but my little emerald ring wasn't in it.

It had to be there, so I dumped the box onto my bed, and spread out all the coins and broken bracelets and bobby pins and rocks. I reached over and turned on the lamp to get a better look. There was no ring on my bed and no ring in my box.

I went to the bathroom and pulled out drawers and shelves. No ring.

The last time I saw the ring was when I showed it to Meadow Lark, the same day she showed me her letter from her daddy.

Just then, she come in and flopped down on her bed. “We're done. Your mama said the cake is for dessert. Hey, what are you doing? Are you okay?” she say all at once.

I was sitting on my bed, surrounded by everything I'd dumped out of my drawers and my ballerina box.

“Did you see my ring?” I asked. “My little emerald ring that I showed you. I can't find it.”

“No,” she say and shook her head. “I haven't seen it. You lost that pretty ring? Did you look in your drawers? In the bathroom? Under your bed?”

“I looked everywhere,” I say, trying so hard to keep the tears where they belonged, but two of them popped out before I could look away from Meadow Lark.

“River?”

I brushed at the tears. “It has to be here somewhere.”

“I'll help you look,” she say, getting off the bed.

“No, I can do it. You don't need to help.” When I say that, I realized there was more to my tears than losing the ring.

“River, you're not mad at me, are you—for making the cake with your mama?”

“Why did you do that?” I asked, wiping my cheeks.

“Well,” she say, sitting back on the bed, “I was trying to think of a way to distract her, so she wouldn't wonder where you were.”

I picked up my pillow and hugged it. That sounded like she just made it up, but I say, “Thanks. I didn't think of that.”

“Well, if anything bothers you, you have to tell me, okay? We're best friends.”

I nodded.

“Good,” she say, and pulled a half bag of pretzel sticks from under her bed. “So, how is Daniel?”

“He looked like a skeleton. And being sick didn't make him any nicer.”

“Why—did he hurt you?” she asked, holding a pretzel stick in the air like it was a sword.

I couldn't help but smile. “No,” I say. “Daniel couldn't even get himself off the sofa. I felt sorry for him a little. I even show him my collage . . .”

But I couldn't finish, couldn't tell her that Daniel say it still stunk. That was not funny, and I hugged my pillow tighter.

“Then I went down to the river . . . and the log. And Meadow Lark, there were so many wishes on that log.”

“Really?” she asked, inspecting the ends of her hair.

“Did you put them there?”

“Me? N-no,” she say, still not looking at me.

“Then where did they come from? Did . . . other people put the wishes in the river?”

She just kept looking at her hair.

“Meadow Lark, did you tell anyone about that?”

“M-maybe I did,” she say.

“But . . . we were supposed to keep that a secret.”

Meadow Lark tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “I couldn't help it. How can you keep something like that a secret?”

“Who did you tell?”

She looked down and started counting on her fingers. “About six people, not including Sonya. She was the first.”

I blinked. “Well, once Sonya knew, you didn't have to tell anyone else. Kids, grown-ups—now everybody knows.”

“But something like that is so fantastic that everyone
should
know about it. I want to see all the wishes on it.”

I stuffed my pillow behind me and sat back. “And another thing about the log—it's sticking way out and pointing downriver. I think it got loose because of all the rain.”

“Or maybe it's getting ready to float away . . . with all those wishes.”

I hopped off my bed and opened my ballerina box, hoping to see my emerald ring in there. Until the day my ring come back to me, I would always open that box and hope to see it.

“You'll find your ring,” Meadow Lark say quietly. “I just know it. Let's go one more time before the log floats away and wish for your ring.”

I began putting away the stuff that was on my bed. Meadow Lark come over and help me. “You're so sure wishes come true,” I say, and she nodded.

There was something strange, different, magical about that log. “Okay,” I say. “Let's go one more time.”

Chapter 19

When I was sure Mama
and Daddy were asleep, I nodded to Meadow Lark. Then I got the flashlight from my room, and Meadow Lark took her backpack, and we slipped out of the house and made our way to the log. Even though the sky was clear and the moon was out full to guide us, it took us a long time because Meadow Lark had to walk slow.

“See?” I say, shining the flashlight on the log. The wishes were still there, like a cluster of butterflies.

“Look at them all!” she say. “I want to read them.”

“Me too,” I say, “But do you think we should? They're private.”

“We won't tell anyone, and we'll put them right back. Aren't you curious?”

I nodded. “Of course. So, go get them.”

“I can't—that bank is too steep for me. I'd fall in and drown. You'll have to do it, River.”

I studied the bank. It was about two feet down, and then the water was another two feet deep.

“Hold on to the log as you go,” she say. “I'll shine the flashlight.”

I studied the water in the flashlight's beam. It was rushing and churning against the log, and I could hardly take a breath. “I can't go in that water.”

“You have to,” Meadow Lark say.

I had an idea. “Shine the light along the log,” I told Meadow Lark, and when I saw again how wide and how long it was, I say, “I'll crawl out to the wishes. Just keep pointing the light in front of me, okay?”

“Be careful,” she say, and the light jiggled.

I crouched on the riverbank where it met the log, and steadied my breath against the fear creeping up my chest. The bark scratched my palms and snagged my jeans, but I inched along. All I had to do was crawl out a few yards, grab the wishes, and crawl backward.

The water churned against the log and curled under it, and every once in a while sloshed water on my hands and legs.

“It's getting slippery,” I called behind me, my voice quivering.

“Then turn back. It's not that important.”

I felt paralyzed, but I had to move forward. The wishes fluttered a yard in front of me now. “No, I want to do it.”

“Be careful, then, River. You can do it,” Meadow Lark say, aiming the light just ahead of me. The wishes seemed to glow.

Finally, I was close enough and grabbed some of the wishes with my free hand. Then I began crawling backward.

Careful,
I told myself, imagining how it would be to fall into the water. I could grab on to the log, but I would lose the wishes.

Another few inches and my right foot felt the mud of the riverbank, and a sob come out of my mouth along with the fear of being that close to the water.

“Take them,” I say to Meadow Lark, holding out the wishes to her. Then I slid completely off the log and onto solid ground.

We found a dry spot under some pine trees, and Meadow Lark laid down a towel from her backpack. While I waited for my heart to slow down and my hands to stop shaking, she tucked the flashlight under her chin and opened up the wishes, one by one—carefully, so they wouldn't tear. Quietly we read each wish as Meadow Lark laid them on the ground.

I wish I had a tutor.

I wish we had more money.

I wish Jacob Sievers would notice me.

I wish my dad had more patients because he's a good dentist.

I wish I could pass history.

I wish Daniel liked me.

I wish for a million dollars.

I wish Ariel Zucchero could love me.

I wish my snaggletooth was straight.

I wish for a miracle.

Secrets are holy things. That was one thing I never heard Mama say, but it's what I figured out as I read those wishes. It's how tiny I felt in the presence of the hearts that had written them.

“Here's the last one,” she say, and when she laid it down, I gasped.

I wish Theron would come home.

It was what I wished every day. But even more than that—

“Did you write it?” Meadow Lark asked.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. But I knew who did, because I recognized that ratty scrawl. It belonged to Daniel Bunch.

I wish Theron would come home
, Daniel had written. It felt like he had seen right into my heart, and it felt strange to know we shared the same wish.

“We need to put them back now,” she say, and folded them all up. “Can you do that again?”

Putting them back wasn't as hard as getting them. When I crawled back to the bank, Meadow Lark say, “Let's stay here for a while and see if anyone comes.”

“Just for a little while. But if Mama finds out we're gone, we might as well be dead.”

We settled in a nest of pine needles at the edge of the forest where we could watch the beach and not be seen. Then Meadow Lark pulled the Cheetos family-size bag out of her backpack and held it out to me.

The night was hot and humid, coming on summer, and mosquitoes were everywhere. I slapped my arm. “We can't stay long,” I reminded her.

“Let's wait a little bit. Something might happen,” she say.

I looked out to the beach and watched the river rush by. An owl hooted off in the distance, and I shivered. “It's different here at night. It's a little scary. There are bears around here.”

“A bear wouldn't come this close to town.”

What did Meadow Lark know about bears? I wondered, she being from Arizona.

I chewed and swallowed a few Cheetos, and then asked, “Do you really think Mama let Mr. Tricks out of his cage?”

“I don't think that anymore,” she say. “I think his cage wasn't latched and he got himself out. He liked to walk around the room. And then he just flew out on his own.”

“That was his other trick.”

“And I need to stop naming my birds Mr. Tricks.”

“Maybe he just wanted to go home.”

“Maybe you're right,” she say, and took another handful of Cheetos. Then she asked, “So, have you been to that house lately?”

“Today. While you and Mama were frosting the cake.”

“Oh. Well, what happened there?” she asked, skipping over the cake part.

“This time I stayed, like you told me to, and I saw someone.”

“Someone was in the house? What did they look like?”

“Well, I could only see feet, and the feet were wearing fluffy blue bedroom shoes—”

“What's that?”

“Slippers. So I was pretty sure it was a woman.”

“Maybe next time you'll see who it is. Maybe she's a”—Meadow Lark turned on the flashlight and held it under her chin, and stared at me with those two uneven eyes of hers—“ghost.”

That brought a shiver up my back. “Put that down. It's creepy.”

But she kept it there, under her chin. “What were you doing under the bed?”

“I was . . . I was holding a ring. And it looked just like my ring.”

“The same one you were looking for today?”

I remembered how the ring fit perfectly on my finger under the bed. And I remembered how small my finger looked.

“It was just like that ring. And it fit me . . . Meadow Lark!” I shouted, knocking over the bag of Cheetos. “It was like I was a baby putting on that ring.”

“Aha!” she say, and snapped off the flashlight. All around us, darkness filled in where the light used to be.

“Then what happened? What happened to the lady with the bedroom shoes?” she asked, and I could hear the crunch of pine needles as she lay down.

“She left and went downstairs.”

“River, maybe she really is a ghost.”

I rolled down the top of the Cheetos bag so they wouldn't get soggy. “She wasn't a ghost—she was only in my mind, just like that house is only in my mind.”

“Mmmm,” she mumbled.

“Meadow Lark, are you falling asleep? We have to watch, or we have to go home.”

“I'm awake,” she say.

The moon went in and out behind the clouds. An owl hooted again, and crickets chirped over the sound of the river flowing by. Like one smooth pane of glass that night, going to the place it needed to go. I picked up a rock, hurled it, and listened for the plop. Instead I heard a sharp snapping sound in the woods behind us.

“What was that?” I whispered, and twisted around toward the sound, but it was too dark to see much of anything.

“Maybe it was Mr. Tricks,” she whispered back.

I grabbed the flashlight and shone it into the woods, but I didn't see anything back there, either. “It must have been a branch falling down.”

“A bear,” she murmured.

I turned off the flashlight. “No one's coming tonight,” I say after a few quiet minutes. “Let's go home.” But she didn't answer.

“Meadow Lark?” I say again, but she had fallen asleep.

By now my eyes had adjusted to the dark, and with the moonlight it was easy to pick up small details like gum wrappers on the shore, or pebbles near the water.

My eyes felt gritty and my body felt heavy. I lay down on my side to face the beach. A few more minutes passed. Meadow Lark's breathing sounded steady and even.

Something moved, a dark figure walking along the shore. Meadow Lark and I were far enough into the woods to stay hidden, and I raised my head to get a better look. But all I could see was the thin silhouette of a person. He stopped at the edge of the shore and then walked into the water, the dim reflection off the river blurring his outline.

I nudged Meadow Lark.

“Hmmm?” she mumbled.

“I see someone,” I whispered. “It's like a ghost.”

“Mmmm,” she say, and put her head back down.

I kept watching the person on the beach. He stood in the water for a few seconds, then pulled back his arm and threw something into the river. He stayed there a few seconds more and then come back to shore at an angle from us, disappearing into the woods downriver.

Who was it, and what did he throw into the water? Was it a wish, and would it end up on the log with all the others?

I was so tired and it felt so good to lie down on those pine needles and think through what I'd just seen. In a few minutes I'd nudge Meadow Lark and wake her up and then tell her all about it on our way home.

“River! Meadow Lark!” called a voice in my ear. It was the lady with the blue bedroom shoes. I was shaking, and the bed felt so hard.

“River!” she called again, and then I knew it was Mama. “Girls, get up! What are you doing here?”

I thought I was in my bed, but why was my back all damp? Then I woke up all the way and remembered I was still in the woods.

Now Mama was shaking Meadow Lark awake. “Get up,” she say, fear and worry woven into her voice.

Big, sloppy raindrops fell all around us, and my face and hair were soaked. The sky and the river were colored purple gray.

We followed Mama all the way home. Every once in a while, she turned around and say, “You girls are forbidden—do you hear me?
Forbidden
—to go there again.” And then she walked even faster, so that Meadow Lark and I had to jog to keep up with her.

“At least you can go home soon,” I whispered to Meadow Lark, and we giggled.

“I'm responsible for the both of you. And with Daddy gone to Baltimore this morning . . .” I knew what she was saying—that she didn't want to worry about us and we had to act dependably and make her life easier. Part of me was happy she was mad, because that meant she was as mad at Meadow Lark as she was at me.

She made us take baths and then go to bed. Just before I fell asleep, Meadow Lark say, “River, I've been thinking about those dreams of yours and the lady with the blue slippers.”

“Mmmm,” I say. My bed felt so clean and soft, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

“Listen to her. I think she's trying to tell you something.”