Read Online Found Things by Marilyn Hilton - Free Book Online

wanted. “Maybe they don’t talk about him. But they haven’t forgotten him. I’m sure of that,” she say.
    Like me, I thought. I would never forget him.
    As we tiptoed out to the hall, she turned around and say, “I have to tell you something very important. I walk in my sleep. If you see me do that, you can’t wake me up.”
    â€œWhat happens if I wake you up?” I asked.
    â€œThere’s no telling. So if I sleepwalk, just put me back in bed.”
    I nodded. “And don’t wake you up.”
    â€œSo, can I still stay here?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause it’s a strange thing to do.”
    It wasn’t strange—it was another interesting thing about Meadow Lark, along with her eye and her leg and that she come from Arizona and was in the hospital four times.
    As Meadow Lark went downstairs, I smoothed out the comforter where she had sat. Then I took one more look at the room to make sure nothing was out of place, that nothing was moved and nothing was different. Because I knew that changing Theron’s room would change Theron. And that would change us.

Chapter 8
    Daniel Bunch was not in art class on Monday, and he wasn’t in the quad at lunch on Tuesday to pester me. By Wednesday, the worry that had settled in me as I watched our wish slide down the river sat up and looked around.
    â€œWhere’s Daniel?” Sonya asked to the middle of the art table.
    When class began, Ms. Zucchero had put a pile of things on the table—a CrimsonCrisp apple with a brown bite in it, a tube of Colgate rolled up halfway, a Slinky with kinks in it, a picture of a brown-haired girl who looked a lot like Ms. Zucchero, a paperback book with the cover half torn off, and one of Ms. Zucchero’s crocheted squares with a hook stuck through it.
    â€œI liked your collages so much that I brought my own collection,” she say. “These are just some of the things I found in my car yesterday.”
    Then she told us to draw what we saw without looking at our sketch pads—just let our pencils move across the shapes in our minds. So everyone was not looking at their sketch pads and not looking at one another, but talking to the pile in the middle of the table.
    On the other side of the pile was where Daniel Bunch would be sitting if he were in school, and the gap he left was like when a tooth falls out. I kept wiggling that space with my eyes, to make sure he truly wasn’t in it. Because even if Daniel Bunch was absent, in my mind he sat there just like always, watching me and waiting to pounce.
    â€œDaisy Crumb said he’s sick,” Kevin Kale say to the pile. “He has a hundred and four fever.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?” Sonya asked.
    All the water left my mouth, and my hand holding the pencil shook so to hear about Daniel Bunch being sick. I looked down at my sketch pad, and I had just drawn something that looked like a clump of hair in the bathtub drain. And the worry in my heart nodded at me and say, Isn’t that what you asked for?
    Even before Kevin answered, I knew it was bad. Theron once had a 103 fever, and Mama put him in the tub with ice water until he cooled down. Even when he called to me, I wouldn’t go into the bathroom to see him. I thought if I didn’t see him, I wouldn’t miss him as much after he died from that fever.
    Kevin answered Sonya in the same voice he announced what page we were on. “Your brain can melt when you have a fever that high.”
    â€œWhich can only happen to people who have a brain,” Martin say. “So Bunch is safe.”
    I wondered what Daniel would think if he knew how they talked about him when he wasn’t there.
    â€œOh no,” Sonya say.
    All during those three days he’d been absent, no one seemed to notice or care what had happened to Daniel Bunch. And now, no one seemed scared except me. I was the only person in the room who had wished