“No, no tusks or antlers.”

I lead the way up the hill as fast as I can. The icy crust is gone and the snow is soft. James is good at keeping secrets. He didn’t tell anyone about the groundhog hole we found near Braggy’s shed last summer. We both liked the long tunnels the groundhog dug with no tools but its body, even if it chewed Mom’s sunflower seedlings down to their roots.

“Hey, my sneakers are all wet.” James lifts his foot to show me.

“Sorry about that,” I say. “Do you want to wear my boots?”

“That’s okay. The snow’s not mushy like this around our trailer.”

The R encyclopedia didn’t have anything about a rock that melts snow or turns grass green in the winter.

“You can dry your sneakers by the stove when we get back,” I say.

“What is that giant THING?” James shouts when the big rock comes into sight. “It’s HUGE! Where did it come from? Did it roll down from the top of the hill? Did you find it by dowsing?”

“It came from the sky,” I say.

“How do you know that?” James turns to me.

“I saw it fall.”

The crater is filled with water now. The heavy meteorite looks like it’s floating in a swamp of its own creation. The winds gusting around the rock are blowing warm air instead of cold.

James walks around the meteorite the way I did the first time.

“Wow! I never saw a rock like this. Not even in Braggy’s gravel pit. You found the best thing ever!”

“I saw a picture of a really big meteorite called the Ahnighito in the M encyclopedia,” I tell James. “It fell in Greenland and it has a shape sort of like this one. The people who lived there called it the Tent.”

“It does look kind of like a tent. Maybe you could go see that one sometime.”

“It’s not in Greenland anymore,” I explain. “In the M encyclopedia it says when Admiral Peary found out about it, he moved it across the ice and into a boat, sailed it across the ocean, and sold it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for forty thousand dollars.”

“Forty thousand dollars! For a rock. No wonder you want to keep it a secret,” James says.

That’s not why I want to keep it secret.

I don’t want it taken from the place where it fell.

I don’t want it chipped or cut.

I didn’t read anything about a meteorite being made into a replica, but I wouldn’t want that to happen, either.

But I know I can’t keep it secret for long.

Even if Birdie doesn’t tell, in the spring Mom goes into the woods to put out taps and buckets for maple sugaring. Her path to the woods goes right by the rock.