Free Found Things by Marilyn Hilton Page A

how. And with Mama around, we will need a miracle.”
    Meadow Lark got up and crumpled the lunch bag and tossed it in the wastebasket. But I noticed she saved the napkin and slipped it into her bureau drawer.
    â€œMr. Tricks must hate being in that cage after being out in the wild all his life,” she say, opening the cage. Mr. Tricks looked at the open door and strutted right out like he owned the place.
    â€œOkay,” I say, “but don’t forget to put him back in and shut the door tight.”

    Even though Meadow Lark warned me about her sleepwalking, she caught me off guard that night. Mr. Tricks cooed and woke me up, and when I got up to see what was wrong with him, I noticed that Meadow Lark wasn’t in her bed.
    â€œMeadow Lark?” I whispered, but she didn’t answer.
    Our door was open, so I stepped out. Meadow Lark was walking down the hall toward Theron’s room. She stopped at the door and put her hand on the knob.
    â€œMeadow Lark,” I say again, careful not to wake her up.
    She must have heard me that time, because she turned around and, without looking at me, walked back to the room and got into her bed.
    That was it, but I lay awake for a long time after that to make sure she didn’t get up again.

    Without realizing it, Mama helped me see Daniel the next day.
    â€œDoes your head still hurt, dear?” she asked as I lay in bed with the comforter up to my nose. Her hand on my forehead felt as cool as that facecloth did.
    â€œNow it’s my stomach,” I groaned.
    Meadow Lark, all ready for school with her backpack over her shoulder and her lunch bag in her hand, stood a few feet behind Mama. For a second I wondered if she had another red heart on her napkin in that lunch bag.
    Mama sat back. “I have to work extra hours today, which means I’ll be gone until near suppertime. I could call in sick so I can stay home with you,” she say, but I knew she wanted those extra hours.
    â€œYou can’t miss work, Mama,” I say, trying to make my voice crackle. “Besides, I’m old enough to stay home by myself now.” After all, according to Mr. Clapton, I was almost in high school.
    â€œI’ll tell school you’re sick today,” Meadow Lark say, and widened her good eye as if she were telling me, This is your miracle! Meadow Lark seemed to have recovered from her episode the night before.
    â€œYes, you are,” Mama say, and smoothed out my comforter. “I sure hope you feel better by tonight. Daddy’s coming home, and I’m making a roast.”

Chapter 10
    I hadn’t ridden my bike since last fall. It hung in the garage next to Theron’s Giant. Theron had mowed lawns, shoveled snow, helped Sonya’s daddy paint houses, and tutored for an entire year for the money to buy his bike, and it was his treasure. How I wanted to ride it to the hospital, grip the same handlebars my brother gripped and slice through the wind just like he did. But Theron had a rule that only he could touch that bike he worked so hard to buy. And now, just like my bike from the Goodwill, his treasure was shrouded in dust and cobwebs.
    After carefully unhooking my bike and wiping it down, I set off for the hospital, riding low so that no one would see me and ask why I wasn’t in school. Or worse, tell Mama.
    â€œBunch, Daniel,” say the nurse, a man with big pores and hair that stuck out like a brush, to his computer screen. “Room three-fourteen.”
    It was only when I asked, “Which way is three-fourteen?” that he looked up at me.
    His eye narrowed. “How old are you?”
    â€œTwelve.” I added a year, because in some places that year made a difference between being allowed or forbidden to visit.
    â€œYou can’t visit without an adult,” he say. “Where is your adult?”
    â€œMy mama’s parking the car,” I say, which was a lie in every universe. “She told me