A car honks outside, and one, two, then three cars pull into our driveway. It’s more cars than ever stopped at the same time on our road.

“Wow! Table rush! Three cars at once,” I call out to Mom, who’s planting tomato seeds in cardboard egg cartons. “I’ll go see what they want.”

The things we have on the yard sale table now are a striped scarf, a clay flowerpot, a metal rake, an old map, and two heart-shaped rocks.

Once in a while people have a twenty-dollar bill and want change, like the table is the town store. One time a man wanted to know how much for EVERYTHING on the table, and the TABLE, too. Mom says you can learn a lot about people by the way they react to the Honor Box.

The cars all start honking. One after the other.

HONK HONK HONNNNKKK

I rush to pull my wet jeans over my pajama pants, step barefoot into my boots, and run out the door.

There are five cars now—parked every which way in the driveway and along the road. Some people left their engines running and doors open, as if they were in too big a hurry to turn off their cars and close their doors. Most of the people are running down the road.

“What’s going on?” I call out. “Is there a moose blocking the way?”

“The road’s flooded.”

“Road’s impassable.”

“Looks like a river down there.”

“Your daddy drill for water in the middle of the road, did he?” Mr. Stockford asks me. He walks slowly, a cane in one hand. Mrs. Stockford holds his other arm.

“No, sir, he did not,” I answer.

“I hear Harlan is going to repaint the sign on his drilling rig to say Bower Brothers and Son,” Mr. Stockford says.

My breath catches in my throat. Could it be true? Dad is so sure I’m a dowser that he’s repainting the sign?

“He said he was going to do that?”

Mr. Stockford pats the top of my head lightly and laughs.

“I’m just kidding you, but you sure look just like your grandfather when he was young. Are you going to be a dowser, too?”

No matter how many times I’m asked that question, I’m not sure what the right answer is. Did Braggy get asked that, too, when he was my age?

“I don’t know. I’d like to be a dowser,” I find myself saying.

This is the first time I’ve said this to anyone. I’m surprised it makes me feel good instead of bad to say it.

“People are always going to need water,” Mr. Stockford says, as if my answer was just what he wanted to hear.

“Speaking of water, do you folks have a boat?” Mrs. Stockford asks me.

“No, we don’t,” I say. “A boat? Why would we need a boat?”