Free Cassie Binegar by Patricia MacLachlan

watching a flock of birds on the water. His orange hat looked fluorescent, and Cassie watched him for a while before climbing up to sit next to him.
    â€œWhat do you see?” she asked, shading her eyes, looking at the small dots bobbing on the water.
    Uncle Hat didn’t answer.
    Cassie looked sideways and smiled. All right, she’d play his game.
    â€œFour and three/What do you see?” she asked.
    â€œCormorants,” said Hat promptly. “Out there. See, there’s one on the rock, standing with his wings out.” He moved so Cassie could look through the scope.
    â€œI’ve never seen those before!” exclaimed Cassie indignantly. She watched a long-necked dark bird stand, beak up, to air out its wings.
    â€œMaybe you never looked before,” said Hat.
    Cassie looked quickly at him, but he was peering into the scope again, moving it slowly, scanning the sea.
    â€œHat?”
    â€œYo.”
    â€œWhat do you know about catching snow?”
    â€œNot too much,” said Hat, staring into the scope. “Mostly I know about counting birds. They’re there. Then they’re not there.”
    â€œBut that’s like catching snow!” cried Cassie, grinning at him.
    â€œâ€™S’at so,” commented Hat, not looking at her.
    There was a long silence.
    â€œHat? How come you never showed me those birds before?”
    â€œNever asked,” said Hat. He turned his head to look at Cassie. “People who don’t ask questions usually think they got things all figured out. They think they know all the answers.”
    Cassie, stung a bit, moved down from the hill and stood up.
    â€œYou’re not talking in rhymes,” she accused him.
    â€œNope,” said Hat, smiling at Cassie. “Sometimes I don’t have to.”
    Cassie turned to leave, then heard his thin voice call after her.
    â€œEveryone has his own way of hiding, Cassie. Twelve and two/The same with you.”
    Margaret Mary had covered herself, all except her head, in sand.
    â€œTerribly glad you’re here, Cass,” she said, looking up at Cassie. “I’m about to depart this world, but before I do I wish to say good-bye to a good friend, Cassandra Binegar, and will her my favorite rosemary plant, named Hair Ball.”
    Cassie laughed. Margaret Mary named everything. She had once named a bandage she’d worn on her toe for a week. She probably even named her socks.
    â€œAny last words before I cover my face with sand?”
    Cassie sat down next to Margaret Mary’s sand body.
    â€œMargaret Mary, have you ever caught snow?”
    Margaret Mary squinted her eyes, looking thoughtful. “Never seen much snow, actually.” She moved her arms back and forth through the sand, making angels. “But in England we have lots of fog. Does fog count, Cass?” Margaret Mary stood up, the sand falling away from her like water, and they began walking up the dunes to Margaret Mary’s house.
    Cassie thought about fog. It came from somewhere, going nowhere. Like snow. Cassie stopped and turned around abruptly with a new thought. Like the sea!
    â€œI don’t know,” she said, gazing out over the dunes and the water. “But I am willing to bet, Margaret Mary, that fog counts.”
    Looking through the eyeglasses of others, thought Cassie. She thought of her father, running from a taxi through the crowds to buy violets. She thought of Uncle Hat, sometimes rhyming, sometimes not. Coralinda wearing feathers, but changing before her eyes, becoming beautiful.
    They reached Margaret Mary’s yard, Cassie trailing her fingers along the leaves of the privet hedge. She noticed that Margaret Mary’s mother had not yet won her battle with the wild honeysuckle, the shoots beginning to tangle around the bottom of the hedge. At the front door, Margaret Mary bent down to pull at some weeds around bright flowers.
    â€œMargaret Mary!” Cassie knelt, touching