I drop my fork on the floor. Mom pours maple syrup on Birdie’s ployes and passes the jar to me. Dad watches the ployes cook with his spatula ready. I’m thinking this would be the time to say what I saw—to tell my family about the stone, to share the secret. Then Braggy holds up the paper again.

“A collector is offering a reward to anyone who finds a piece of it. They’re paying a thousand dollars. For a piece as big as that dinner plate.” Braggy points to the plate of ployes in the middle of the table. “I’m also guessing whoever finds it is gonna get their picture on the front page of the paper.”

“A thousand dollars? What would you do with a thousand dollars, Braggy?” Dad asks him.

“I’d buy myself a windmill so I could make my own electricity when the wind blows. They have ones so tall they’d catch the wind going down and up the hill. I’d rig a pulley from the woodshed to the house so all I’d have to do is press a button and my firewood would be delivered right to the stove.”

“Don’t go counting that money yet, Braggy. Northern Maine is a big place,” my father says. “Finding a piece of rock that size would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Pieces could have fallen deep in the woods.”

“Or in the river,” Mom adds.

“I know that, and I have a plan,” Braggy tells us. “I’m going to drive up and down the roads after dark and look for something that glows.”

“I’m not sure rocks from space glow in the dark, Braggy. They’re bright when they come through into the atmosphere because they get heated up,” I say, then add, because he looks so excited about his plan, “but if they did glow, that would be a great idea.”

“What would you do with the reward money?” I ask my mother.

“I don’t know, Henry. We could use some of it to take a trip down to Boston to see the big science museum there.”

“What would you do with the reward?” I ask my father.

“Guess I’d save it for a rainy day,” my father answers.

“That’s right,” Braggy says, laughing, “and if you forgot your umbrella, you could go out and buy one for every day of the year!”

“Speaking of winds and the weather,” my father says, “have you noticed what’s happening out in the hayfield?”

Uh-oh, I think.

My father stretches his head toward the kitchen window, where you can see a small part of the field. Only my room off the kitchen has a full view.

“What’s happening?” I hold my breath, waiting for his answer.

“Nearly all the snow is gone off the hayfield just about overnight. Never seen it this early.”