“Okay,” I tell James.

“We should all get what sleep we can,” Dad says.

“Are you going to drink your water?” I ask him.

“What?”

“The glass of water you drink every night, and the one you take to bed?”

“Sure, Henry.”

Dad doesn’t move to the sink, so I pour water into the canning jars Nana uses for glasses. I give him one jar, and he drinks it down. I drink mine, too. And I fill both our jars again.

“Good night, Dad,” I say.

“Good night, Henry,” he answers, but doesn’t move away from the window.

Nana sleeps downstairs in a room off the living room, where she doesn’t have so many stairs to climb, but the farmhouse has a second floor with two bedrooms. The room my father and Braggy shared has a window that faces down the hill in the direction of the water. It also has a wooden desk and two dressers.

“They’re setting up more lights.” James has his forehead on the window glass. “Don’t you wish we could get a ride in the helicopter and see what it looks like from way up high?”

“Yeah, I’d like to see what the big rock looks like from the sky,” I agree, watching out the window with James until it’s too dark for us to see anything except the glow of the lights and people-shaped shadows passing back and forth in front of them.

I hope the water doesn’t get too high in the basement, since Mom keeps her canning jars on shelves down there, but I’m even more worried that the water will flood the ground around the meteorite and I won’t be able to see it or find it anymore.

The M encyclopedia has stories about meteorites that burned the trees around them as they landed, and meteorites that crashed into people’s cars, but nothing about a rock that caused a flood.

There are billions of galaxies. Did the stone come from a watery galaxy, full of colors, and is it bringing the water to make itself feel at home, the way I brought my pillow with me to Nana’s house? If that’s true, how much water will it take for the rock to feel at home here on Bower Hill Road?

Chapter 11

The largest meteorite “in captivity,” Ahnighito, is so heavy that it is supported by six pillars that go down to bedrock.

—Ashton Applewhite, American Museum of Natural History: The Ultimate Guide