“It doesn’t surprise me that my nephew found one of those glow-in-the-dark rocks. He’s always got his eye out for things. But if you want to see a BIG rock”—Braggy tries to get Mr. Ronnie’s attention—“I’ve got a rock as big as a TRACTOR in my woods. Probably been there since cavemen lived here.”

“So where’s this big rock of yours, son?” Mr. Ronnie ignores Braggy and comes right up to me.

“I can tell you that.” Braggy is laughing before he even finishes his sentence. “Only a stone’s throw away. HAHAHA.”

James laughs loudly at Braggy’s joke, and Mr. Ronnie cracks a tiny smile. The snow comes down harder from a white sky. Behind us, the snow falls into the moving water and disappears.

“Henry.” James comes over to me. “Charge admission to see the rock. Just like in a museum. There’s a lot of people here. I could collect the money for you. Like you said, you found it on your land. Finders keepers.”

Instead of answering Mr. Ronnie or James, I do something I haven’t done since I was Birdie’s age. I close my eyes and hold my breath.

When I was little, I thought it would stop time.

I didn’t know then that my heart kept beating and that the world outside my closed eyes continued moving.

I held my breath on the morning of my third birthday.

I held my breath the first time I saw the ocean.

Now I know that as I scrunch my eyes shut and hold the air in my throat, my feet are touching an Earth that turns on its axis at more than eight hundred miles an hour. That’s faster than a 747 jet.

There’s no on/off switch on the world like there is on my father’s drilling rig.

If I close my eyes, the world doesn’t disappear.

It’s impossible to stop suns and planets that have been set in motion billions of years ago.

I can’t turn back time and unsay what I said.

I can’t pick up the secret I put down.

I’m getting dizzy. I can hold my breath much longer than when I was three.

I hear people talking.

“That child doesn’t look well.”

“He’s the boy they keep at home.”

“I heard he was a strange child.”

“He’s polite, but very quiet. Not like his uncle Braggy.”

AR-OMPHH

All of a sudden the air is knocked out of my lungs, and I’m lying on the ground. My eyes blink open. Birdie is sitting on my back. She must have launched herself out of Dad’s arms straight at me. She looks happy that for the first time no one pretended to fall over for her.

Birdie’s leap also knocks the doubt from my mind.

In its place is a new feeling. A deep pride in the meteorite.