Found Things

by Marilyn Hilton

  “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.”

  Chapter 20

  “River.” Mama was calling me again.

  I opened my eyes and knew I was in my bedroom. Saturday morning, no school, and I stretched under the covers. Then I woke up a little bit more and remembered last night and early in the morning, and Mama catching us down by the beach.

  “River,” she called again.

  “Coming,” I say, and tossed back my covers.

  I found Mama sitting up in bed, her knees making a mountain under her chenille bedspread. “River, honey, come sit with me. But close the door—I don’t want anyone to hear.”

  I did as she told me and then slipped under the covers on Daddy’s side. When I turned to Mama, I saw she had Theron’s trophy on her night table.

  So that’s where it went, I thought. Maybe Meadow Lark had nothing to do with Theron’s trophy.

  “Is this about last night?” I asked.

  “No,” Mama say. “No more about that. I just want to talk to you, River.”

  She took a sharp breath and then asked, “What do you know a
bout Meadow Lark?”

  “Well . . . I know she likes Cheetos and she has scars on her stomach that she doesn’t want anyone to see. And she moved here from Arizona.”

  “But where did she come from? Where was she born, what’s her family like?”

  “I know she lived in lots of other places. And she likes birds.”

  Mama ran her hand back and forth across a patch of her chenille bedspread. “Yes, that Mr. Tricks,” she say. “He’s been quiet lately.”

  “Well, that’s because he’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “You didn’t know that?” I say.

  “I don’t know much that goes on in this house,” Mama say, and drop her hand flat on the bedspread. “Obviously.”

  By that I know she meant she didn’t know about us going out last night.

  “But you don’t like birds . . . ,” I say, but I couldn’t finish and looked down. “Never mind,” I mumbled.

  “I don’t like birds, and what, River?” Mama asked. She gently cupped my chin in her hand and urged it upward until my eyes met hers.

  “Well, you don’t like birds, and Meadow Lark thought that you . . .”

  Surprise bloomed in Mama’s eyes. “She thought I did something to that bird?”

  “No—she just wondered.”

  “Of course I didn’t do anything to him. Do you think I did?”

  I just knew by the shock on her face that she didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Tricks. “No, not anymore.”

  I was right all along. Of course Mama wouldn’t harm Mr. Tricks, and guilt seared my chest knowing I’d let Meadow Lark make me doubt Mama.

  “That girl is a puzzle,” she say, getting back to Meadow Lark. “Have you ever met her father?”

  I shook my head. “No, but he’s been sending her those letters since he went into the field. And she say she was going to give you his phone number.”

  “Well, I didn’t get his phone number, and what letters?”

  “The ones he’s been sending . . . she say she was going to show you.”

  “I haven’t seen any letters,” Mama say, scrunching up her eyebrows. “What about her mother—where is she?”

  I shrugged. “Meadow Lark say she doesn’t have one.”