I lean on the top end of the pry bar as hard as I can, hanging my whole weight on it, half on either side. From where I hang, I see the meteorite upside down—the beautiful black shiny crust and the glints of metal. It seems like the rock is waiting to see what I’ll do next. I feel how patient it is.

Will I push it down the hill?

Will I pull the pry bar out and bang it on the meteorite like Mr. Ronnie did with his chisel and hammer?

It might have waited more than a million human lifetimes before it slowed down enough to land.

It was struck before, by whatever made the thumbprint-shaped marks on its surface.

Still hanging there, I think about the night I watched it arc across the field, and how it lay there in the snow the next morning. My anger leaves me, and as it does, I feel the bar loosen. I get off and pull it out of the ground. I don’t know what I was thinking. It would probably take a lever as tall as a pine tree to move the rock.

I need a better plan.

“Sorry,” I say, touching the side of the meteorite, “I know you’re not evil. I know you didn’t mean to flood our house.”

I notice an empty Styrofoam cup Mr. Ronnie must have dropped lying near the rock, and I fill it with water right where it comes out of the ground. Holding the cup of water in one hand and the pry bar in the other, I make my way back up the hill to Braggy’s shed and then toward Nana’s.

James and Birdie are still throwing pebbles into the water where our house was. I hear James’s excited cheers from across the field. I don’t think James gets it from Wendell, his dad, but I wonder if James’s mother was also a one hundred percent kind of person.

Nana is napping in the recliner in the living room, snoring with each in-and-out breath.

I pour the water from the Styrofoam cup into a canning jar and set it on the counter. I want to see what happens if I shine a bright light into the jar of water. Will I be able to see any other colors besides yellow and green? I go looking for a flashlight in the garage, which is attached to the house by a covered walkway.

While I’m searching, the house phone rings once, twice, three times. I wait to see if Nana gets it, but it keeps ringing four, five, six times, so I run back into the house. Nana is slowly pushing herself up out of the recliner.

“Would you get that, dear? My hip bone is sore this morning.”

I run to the phone that hangs from the wall next to the front door.

“Hello?”