Dad says news travels fast in a small town. The gathering outside is even bigger than yesterday. Big wet flakes of snow are coming down and sticking to people’s coats and hats.

“This is my nephew, Henry,” Braggy’s booming voice says, announcing us, “and the blond boy behind him is James LaPlante. I taught both those boys how to throw the fastest fastball you ever saw.”

The Channel 6 Northern Maine news crew has a camera set up on the dry part of the road uphill from the flood.

“Let’s get started now that all the Bowers are here.” A young woman directs me to where she’s lined up my father, holding Birdie, and my mother in front of the camera. The woman guides me so I’m standing next to my father.

James goes and stands next to Mom. She’s the only mother he remembers.

“I’m almost a Bower,” James tells the newswoman. “My father says I’m here more than I’m home. Birdie probably thinks I’m her brother, too. Right, Birdie?”

Birdie has a doughnut in each hand. Sprinkles in one hand, chocolate frosted in the other.

“Find ant,” Birdie says, pointing to James with the hand holding the sprinkle doughnut.

“That’s right, Birdie. I found the antler,” James says.

Mom puts an arm around James’s shoulders, bringing him closer to her, and the newswoman doesn’t make him move.

I can hear the rushing of the water behind me, and all I want to do is go down there with James and look at the swirling colors.

“It’s February seventh,” the woman says into a microphone, “and we are here with the Bower family. They live on the land where there is an unexplained flood happening here in Lowington. In fact, a road is now a stream. Let me ask you, Mr. and Mrs. Bower, how shocked are you by this flooding on your land?”

“Shocked,” Birdie says, starting in on her sprinkle doughnut.

“Can I say something?” I ask, and reach for the newswoman’s microphone.

“All right.” The woman looks surprised, but she gives me the microphone. “Sure, let’s hear what young Henry Bower has to say about all of this.”

I’ve never spoken to so many people at once or talked into a microphone before. When I start to speak, my voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it, echoing around my head. It almost seems like my voice is coming out of the microphone instead of my mouth, the microphone saying the words I hope will explain the secret.