James opens his eyes for a second and looks up at Birdie.

“You did it, Birdie. You said a whole sentence. And you said both of our names.”

I pull the piece of paper, smeared with James’s blood, off the brick, read the words on it, and stuff it down into my pants pocket.

My whole body is shaking now. James closes his eyes and doesn’t move. His head lies in a circle of his own blood. I can’t tell if he’s breathing.

I’m frozen in place and everything happens around me.

I see Mom run full speed to the kitchen, then rush over to James. She presses a dish towel to the back of his head. Her face is next to his and she’s whispering to him. Dad is on the phone giving directions. Then he lifts Birdie off the glass-covered floor and takes her down to Nana’s room. He runs back and I hear him call James’s father at the mill.

For the second time this week, a helicopter lands on Bower Hill Road, but this helicopter is here to take James to the hospital.

“Is he alive?” I ask the man and woman who kneel down to tend to James.

“Yes, he is.” The woman wraps James’s head with bandages. “But he took a big blow to the head. So it might be a while before he wakes up.”

“You’re sitting on glass,” the man says to me, “and you’re in our way. We need to move James to the stretcher.”

“I don’t know if I can get up. I can’t feel my legs. Did you know blood is ninety-two percent water, but how can that be? This blood is so red,” I hear myself saying.

“Ma’am,” the man says to Mom, “this boy is in shock. He’s not making sense. Can you help me lift him up and get him a blanket? He’s shivering all over.”

Mom and the helicopter man move me to Nana’s recliner and cover me with a blanket. They roll James out the door on a bed with wheels. He’ll fly in a helicopter and not even know it.

Dad brings me a cup of coffee and holds it to my lips.

“James is in good hands, Henry. There’s not much more we can do right now. Take a sip.”

I do, and it’s so sweet it tastes like he dumped Nana’s whole sugar bowl in it.

“How is Birdie? Did she step on the glass?”

“She’s fine. Nana is looking after her,” Dad says.

By the time I’ve drunk twenty-five percent of the coffee, I stop shaking. When I finish fifty percent of it, I can feel my legs again. This time it’s me sitting in one place and Mom is hurrying around the room.