Does he think Mom is finding better things along the road than the ones he has in the Picker Palace? I’ve been in his store and it’s so crowded I don’t think he’d have room for much more. Mom and I sell the things we find on a card table at the bottom of our driveway, but it’s not like Mr. Ronnie’s secondhand store. We don’t tell people what to pay. They take what they want and put whatever money they think it’s worth in the wooden Honor Box.

Mom knows the wet places in the woods where fiddleheads grow and sells them on the table in the spring. I put special rocks out for sale. Rocks that are smooth as duck eggs or shaped like hearts are good sellers. And one summer visitor told me she would buy as many flat rocks as I could find but they had to be at least a foot wide.

“Me and my son have a business to run, you know,” Mr. Ronnie grumbles, loud enough so I can hear it in front of the library.

Mom stops and looks back at him, like he’s speaking a language she doesn’t know. Then she waves and smiles at him. “Hi there, Mr. Ronnie, nice day,” she says.

Mr. Ronnie looks puzzled, as if now he can’t understand what she’s saying. He shakes his head and goes into the Picker Palace. The door slams behind him.

I hold Birdie’s hand and we cross the road to see what’s in the bag. “What did you find? Anything good for the table?”

Mom holds the bag open. There’s a long bolt with a washer and a nut on the end. It has hardly any rust on it.

“It was lying on top of the snowbank,” Mom says.

“I wonder what it came off,” I say.

“Big red,” Birdie tells Mom, hugging her book with both arms.

“Two books. Second-to-top shelf.” I show Mom my books.

“Hizzz hizzzz.” Birdie looks up at the winter sky.

“Is there a bird up there?” I ask her. Sometimes Birdie hears birds before we see them.

“No. Hizzz,” she repeats, but I don’t see anything.

When I’m ready for bed that night, I take my homeschool notebook and a pencil out of my nightstand drawer. Every year on my birthday Mom gives me a new notebook with my name and age written on the front in black marker.

How do animals find watering holes? Do they see the reflection of the water in the sky or do they smell it from miles away?

Can you train your nose to smell water the way dogs learn to track people’s scents?

What makes the dowsing stick move to the water?