by Betty Culley
I watch Dr. Morgan, wondering if he’ll answer Braggy’s questions, ask him a question of his own, or tell a story. Birdie watches, too, from her lookout on top of the rock, the red tie hanging down over her coat.
“Every day at the museum, packages arrive in the post, with rocks people think might be meteorites. My team has to determine which are meteorites and which are meteorwrongs. That’s our little joke! Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, they are nothing more than an unusual river cobble, or a piece of hematite stone, which also attracts a magnet. One time someone even showed up at the museum with a rusted cannonball.”
Miles Morgan clasps his hands together in front of him like he did at the house.
“Yes, Mr. Braggy, this stone is without a doubt the real thing, the rare find I dared not hope to see in my lifetime. It is one of the more sizable meteorites to fall in North America. What becomes of this large stone is another story entirely, not mine to tell.”
Dr. Miles Morgan turns to me.
“This is your story, Henry Bower, yours and the young lady in red who possesses no fear of heights.”
Birdie is not only standing on top of the rock now, she is jumping on one foot and then the other, humming the “Moon River” tune.
“She gets that from me,” Braggy tells Dr. Morgan, beating his chest. “No fear here, either.”
Miles Morgan blows warm air onto his fingers. He pulls up his sleeve and looks at his watch. “It’s later than I thought. I must depart shortly. My flight leaves this evening.”
I pry the little stone off the big rock. It doesn’t come off as easily as it flew on. I help Birdie down off the meteorite and she skips along next to us. The curator is silent as we head to the house.
Dr. Morgan keeps looking back at the meteorite, as if he wants to fix it in his mind the way I did. Once, he stops, gets out his silver camera, and takes a photograph of the rock in the distance, with the water coursing down below it. I’m quiet, too, and I imagine how the rock called to the underground water. I wonder if it rose to the ground as quickly as Dr. Morgan’s small stone was drawn to the meteorite.
I have one more question for the curator.
“When you were ten years old and the rock came through the window, was that when you knew you were going to move to New York City one day?”
“No, I didn’t. Like your big rock up there, I had no idea where I would end up.”
“Do you miss your home in Nottingham?”
“Yes, I do sometimes,” the curator says.
“You can visit the meteorite anytime you want, Dr. Morgan.” Then I add, “If Nana knows you’re coming, she’ll make fresh biscuits.”
“Thank you, Henry, and I hope you and your family and your mate James will come for a tour of the meteoritic exhibition at the museum someday.”
The curator stops at Nana’s house and comes out with his briefcase. He hands me a small card.
Miles M. Morgan, PhD, Curator
Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites
American Museum of Natural History
212-769-5100
Underneath the phone number, there’s also an email address for the curator.
“If you call, tell the operator your name and ask to be put through to me,” he says.
Birdie and I watch the blue car drive over the other side of the hill. In each pocket of my coat there’s a gift from the curator. In one pocket the small stone and in the other the card. By the time I think of a present I can give Dr. Morgan, the car is out of sight. If we visit the museum one day, I’ll bring Dr. Morgan the M volume of the encyclopedia, with the photograph of the Ahnighito.
“Coming back?” Birdie asks me.
“I don’t know. I hope one day he’ll come back.”
“Red tie.”
“Yes, he gave you his red tie.”
Birdie rubs the silky tie between her fingers, and we both stare at the empty road.
The water people drink today is the same water dinosaurs drank millions of years ago. Earth’s water is about 3 billion years old.
—Rebecca Olien, The Water Cycle at Work
WHEN BIRDIE AND I go back in the house, Dad has news about the water.
“The emergency-management agency says the water stopped rising but hasn’t receded,” he announces. “They’ve officially declared this section of Bower Hill Road impassable. They sank lines into the water crossing the road and measured it at twenty feet deep. Bog Road is going to be the only road to town now.”
“Forever?” I ask Dad.
“Yes, it looks like the water undermined the foundations of the road, washed away the gravel and the dirt, and carved a deep stream into the earth.”
“Guess the school bus is going to have to find a new route if it can’t come down past here. And has the water come back to the town well?” Nana asks.
“No, not a drop. How’s the water pressure here at the house?” Dad asks Nana.
Nana turns on the kitchen faucet and lets it run. As it hits the bottom of the white porcelain sink, I see flashes of green and yellow, and for a second, a quick gleam of red.
“It seems fine, same as always,” Nana says.
“Can’t you drill a new town well?” I ask Dad.
“It’s not that easy, Henry. The aquifer is very low. Lincoln tried drilling this morning and all he got was dust. That’s why we’ve been hauling water to town. In fact, a woman across town needs water for her animals, and I’m loaded with barrels. Come along and we’ll drop them off.”
Dad drives the same way Dr. Morgan did when he left, up over the hill, the only way off Bower Hill Road now. We pass Braggy in the gravel pit, dumping rocks into the rock crusher with his front-end loader. When I was little, I thought the gravel pit was like the moon—piles of rock, craters of sand, nothing growing, not even grass, in all directions. Unlike the surface of the moon, the landscape in Braggy’s gravel pit is constantly changing. Braggy waves to us as we go by.
“Does Braggy like working in the gravel pit?” I ask Dad. What I really want to know is if Braggy minds not being a dowser.
“I never hear him complain about it. It keeps him pretty busy, that’s for sure.”
An answer that’s not exactly an answer.
As we head down Main Street past the library, I see a sign tacked to a telephone pole. Written in big black capital letters on white paper are the words:
NO WATER
NO BUSINESS
NO TOWN
Dad has his eyes on the road and doesn’t seem to notice the sign. Farther down the road there’s another one. It says:
ASK
WHO TOOK
YOUR WATER
“Look, Dad, look at the sign.”
Dad glances quickly where I point.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means some people will try to lay blame wherever they can when things get rough.”
Dad slows down and I wonder if he’s going to stop and take down the sign. If he does, I’ll tell him about the other one, but he picks up speed and turns down a dirt road. We drive up in front of a small house and a big, sagging barn.
In a fenced pasture next to the barn there’s a black pony with a white half-moon on its forehead. A woman in black barn boots hurries over to greet us. She has a long braid like Mom’s but hers is dark brown.
“Thank you, Harlan.” The woman looks into the bed of the truck at all the water barrels. “Dreamer will thank you, too.
“I’m Velma,” the woman says to me, “and Dreamer is my horse. She drinks eight gallons of water a day, which is a lot when you’re melting snow in pots on the stove. Horses need water to keep warm in the winter.”
“I didn’t know that,” I answer. It makes me wonder what percent of water is in a horse’s body.
“I heard about your house. I know how that is.” Velma tu
rns her head toward the little house next to the barn. “My parents’ house got hit by lightning and burned to the ground thirty years ago. They built that house the next spring.”
“I’m sorry about your old house,” I say.
“That’s a nice boy you have,” Velma says to Dad. “I haven’t seen him since he was little, the time I drove down your road and stopped at the yard sale table. Is he going to be a dowser like you and join the family well-drilling business?”
I look into the space between Velma and my father, at the big barn that leans to the left, and hold my breath, waiting for the answer.
Dad hesitates a second before he speaks.
He rolls a water barrel down a wide wooden plank onto the ground. “He’s still young,” he tells Velma.
I let out my breath. Another answer that’s not exactly an answer. He doesn’t say when young becomes old enough.
“I’ll be eleven this summer,” I remind him.
“That’s not so young,” Velma comments. “I was driving my father’s team of horses when I was ten.”
Velma climbs onto the tailgate and helps Dad maneuver another water barrel down the plank.
“What did you get,” I ask her, “at our yard sale table?”
“I believe it was a bag of fiddleheads.”
After all the barrels are unloaded and we’re ready to go, Velma leans into the truck and thanks us again.
“You know, horses are picky with water, but I hear that none of the other horses around have turned up their noses at it. That’s good water you have in that stream, and I’m grateful you brought it, so don’t mind what people are saying.”
On the drive home I think about the signs on Main Street, Miles Morgan’s visit, if we will ever go to New York City, Dr. Morgan’s seventeenth-floor balcony, the way the little stone moved in my pocket, the color red I’m pretty sure I saw in Nana’s kitchen sink, that James is coming over tonight, if the town water will come back, the way Dad hesitated before he answered my question, how many times Braggy tried to dowse before he gave up, how long Velma’s barn can stand tilted the way it is, what makes a horse be picky about water—so many things I can’t give percents to how much I’m thinking about each one.
I’m so busy thinking, I don’t notice at first when Dad pulls up to the gas tanks in front of the town store. Then I hear his truck door slam.
“Can I go in while you’re getting gas?” I ask.
“Sure,” Dad says.
I like Mr. and Mrs. Gaucher’s store. I like looking at the pickled eggs in a jar, even though I wouldn’t want to eat one. There are also strange things like dried pigs’ ears for dogs to chew on and beef jerky for people that looks a little like the pigs’ ears.
I love the chocolate and vanilla whoopie pies for sale in the front counter and how the whole store smells like the pizza they make. And it’s fun to read what people tack up on the community bulletin board. Right in the middle of the bulletin board there’s a poster I didn’t see the last time I was there. I’ve never been so surprised by something on the bulletin board.
POTLUCK BENEFIT SUPPER FOR
BOWER FAMILY
WHO LOST THEIR HOUSE
IN A FLOOD FEBRUARY 8
At the bottom of the poster it tells when the supper is and where it’s being held.
“Is this a whoopie pie day for you, Henry?” Mrs. Gaucher asks me from behind the counter.
“No, I didn’t bring my money. Dad’s just getting gas.”
Then I see a can on the counter. It’s a big coffee can with a plastic top, and in the top someone cut a slit. There’s a piece of paper taped around it that says,
Donations for Bower Family
Alice, Harlan, Henry, and Birdie
Lost their home in a flood
“There’s a can for us?” It comes out as a question even though it’s very clear what the can says. I’ve seen donation cans before but they’ve never had my name on them.
Mrs. Gaucher nods.
“Just the town pulling together,” she says.
I tell Dad when I get back in the truck.
“There’s a poster for a supper and a donation can for us in the store.”
“Is there?” Dad says. He sounds only about twenty percent surprised. “I guess you know you’re in trouble when there’s a can with your name on it at the store.” But he doesn’t seem all that bothered by the news.
On the way home, I have one more thing to think about—the can with our name on it at the store. There was part of a dollar sticking out on top, like someone had pushed their money in but couldn’t get it down the rest of the way. How much money is in there and who are all the people who put it in?
A sandhill crane has a voice like no other bird. Its call sounds like a bugle.
—Lynn M. Stone, Sandhill Cranes
THE MINUTE JAMES walks in the door I give him the three postcards Miles Morgan brought and tell him the whole story of the visit, from the curator’s phone call to the card he gave me before the blue rental car drove out of sight.
James examines the three postcards. One is of the thirty-four-ton Ahnighito, one is of a whale swimming underwater, and one is a photo of the Museum of Natural History building.
“Maybe one day there will be a postcard of your meteorite,” James says.
When he says that, I feel a pain in the left side of my chest. It’s the same place I feel my heart beating when I run fast. The last time I had that feeling was a long time ago. It was a day Mom and I went down to the Honor Box in the morning and the table was empty. All the things from the table were scattered everywhere on the road, under the table, and in the ditch. I asked Mom if the wind had blown them off. She sat right down in the dirt then and explained that someone had stopped and knocked our things off on purpose.
She started picking them up off the ground, putting the ones that had not broken back on the table. She didn’t ask me to help. Watching Mom on her hands and knees under the table, I felt that pain for the first time. I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I knew it hurt.
If there was a postcard of the meteorite, it would mean the big rock got dug up and brought to live indoors in the museum in New York City, with no view of the sky it came from.
But James is watching me with his bright blue eyes so full of excitement that I answer, “Maybe there will be.”
“Birdie, I’m glad you didn’t want the postcards. Is that the tie Dr. Morgan gave you?” James leans across the dining room table where Birdie is sitting.
“MY tie.” Birdie covers the tie with both hands so James can’t touch it.
“I wasn’t going to take it. I just wanted to see what it felt like. It looks very shiny.”
Birdie smiles at James but keeps her hands over the tie and doesn’t answer him.
“I have something to show you, too,” Mom says, and holds up a metal sign with a color picture of a bird. It says endangered on the top. The bird looks like a cross between a wild turkey and a great blue heron. It’s gray, with a long neck, very long legs, and a small head with a bright spot of red on the top.
“BIG BIRDS,” Birdie shouts, running over to the sign.
“I think Birdie saw one of those birds when she was on top of the big rock,” I tell Mom.
“They’re sandhill cranes. The game warden thought he saw a flock of them the other day and came back today to check. He saw them again next to the water. Sandhill cranes are very rare and they like flooded fields. It’s the perfect wetland habitat for them out there.”
“What does that mean?” I ask Mom.
“ ‘Endangered’ means people have to leave their habitat alone. They can’t try to drain the field or reroute the water.”
“Or shoot them,” adds James, whose father hunts wild turkeys.
“Can I see?” I look at the picture on the sign. The bird’s long legs and neck remind me of a
dinosaur.
“So the water is good for the cranes? And people have to leave the field alone?” I ask.
“Yes,” Mom answers.
“Now you have a rare rock AND a rare bird,” James says.
I press the spot on my chest that still aches and think about what Mom said.
The stone brought the water, and the water attracted the sandhill cranes. Now the field is a wetland and no one can disturb it. The stone found a way to protect itself without my help, the way beavers make a moat around their lodges so foxes and coyotes can’t get to them.
“I wonder if the sandhill cranes will also bring something new?”
“Yeah! Maybe a rare bug that likes to live on cranes. A crane bug!” James suggests.
James’s father is working the evening shift at the mill, so James stays for supper. By the time we finish our roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and Nana’s three-bean salad, it’s dark outside.
Nana heads to bed early, the way she always does.
“I’m like a chicken,” she tells us. “I go to bed before it’s dark under the table.”
Mom is on the couch again, and Dad brings her a cup of coffee. They sit there in the dark, without turning any lights on. It’s just me and James and Birdie left at the table. James reads Miles Morgan’s business card.
“Why don’t you memorize the phone number, Henry? What if you lost the card and needed to call him? Try to memorize it and I’ll test you.”
I study the numbers on the business card.
2-1-2-7-6-9-5-1-0-0
Birdie takes the puzzle pieces out of the dinosaur puzzle box, one by one, and sets them on the table. She looks at each piece as she takes it out of the box and puts the colored side down.
“Birdie,” James explains, “the puzzle pieces go faceup so you can see the picture, so you can see the colors. See the dinosaur on the cover.”
Just as James reaches for the puzzle box cover to show Birdie the stegosaurus, the big picture window behind us bursts with a loud bang and splinters of glass shoot out everywhere. I jump out of my chair and watch James fall to the floor with a stunned look on his face, blood in his blond hair and on his shirt, and blood all around him.
