Free Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech Page A

camera again. “I’ve seen her. I’ve got proof.”

CHAPTER 19

A CCUSED
    I had searched a long time for the box I’d thrown at Jake and finally discovered it tangled in a raspberry bush. It was a small silk-covered black box, with a rounded top and a tiny gold hinge at the back. I held the box out in front of me and opened it a wee bit, ready to snap it shut in case something ghastly was lurking inside. First I saw a glimpse of white silk. Nothing moving yet. I opened it wider.
    Nestled in a slim groove in the center of the white silk was a ring. A round red gem sat between two sparkling clear ones on a thin gold band. It fit me.
    Quickly, I slipped the ring back in the box. No one had ever given me anything like that before. In fact, no one had ever given me any jewelry whatsoever, except for the plastic ring from Tommy Salami. What was Jake Boone up to? I think this was the first time I thought I might have had Jake all wrong. Was it possible that Jake was not like Tommy Salami and all those others? I really wanted to believe that this ring was meant for me, and Jake had given it to me because he liked me. I really, really wanted to believe that. But if he did like me, why did he like me? Why didn’t he prefer May?
    And then my mind got all mixed up. What was I supposed to do? And how did I feel about Jake? I hated being confused. I liked to know what was what.
    I went on down the trail until I came to the place where I’d found the leather pouch buried under a stone. I slid the stone aside and dropped the ring in its box into the hole. When I was scooping dirt over it, I had that awful, chilling feeling again. There was something about this place. What was it?
    I needed time to think, but what I started thinking about was Aunt Jessie.
    The day after Aunt Jessie was buried, I remembered the leather pouch with the TNWM medallion, and went searching for it in the barn, but I couldn’t find it. Had she scooped it back up again, or had someone else picked it up?
    At dinner the day after the funeral, I had asked if anyone had seen an old pouch with a “sort of medal-thingy” inside. I tried to make light of it, so that whoever had it might be more willing to confess. No one admitted finding it, though. Dad said, “Ask Nate, maybe he’s seen it.”
    â€œWhere is he anyway?” Ben had asked.
    â€œOff on one of his treks,” Dad said. He and my mother exchanged a glance—troubled and annoyed.
    â€œHe’s too old to be up there,” my mother said.
    Dad grunted. “You try and stop him.”
    I had a feeling they knew something that I didn’t.
    While Uncle Nate was off on his trek, I snuck into his and Aunt Jessie’s house, figuring I’d just have a quick look.
    It was awful being there without Aunt Jessie. Some of her things were gone: Her coat no longer hung on the back of the door; her slippers weren’t curled beside the sofa; and her knitting basket wasn’t by her chair. That big dresser drawer was back in its place, though, and I wanted desperately to open it, having the sudden feeling that maybe she was hiding in it, but I couldn’t do it.
    I checked the bathroom last. This was Aunt Jessie’s pride and joy, her new bathroom, finished a few months earlier. She’d always wanted a pink bathroom, and finally she got one, and it certainly was pink: pink tub, pink sink, pink carpet, pink towels, pink toilet paper. Uncle Nate started slipping into our house to use the bathroom. “Pink makes me kind of queasy,” he said.
    Beneath the sink were three drawers, and one of them, by Aunt Jessie’s request, had a lock on it. I couldn’t imagine what she’d want to keep locked up in the bathroom, but she had made Uncle Nate go to a lot of trouble to fit a locked drawer in that cabinet. I tried the drawer. Definitely locked. I thought about searching for a key, but was instantly ashamed, and instead I wiped off the