“He’ll be back soon,” said Mrs. Spooner. “I sense it in my bones. He’s such a wonderful child. The brightest boy I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching, and I say that without hesitation. Such curiosity. He’s bound to be a writer. You’ve read his stories?” Gloria nodded. “Then you know what a gift he has. Of course you do.”

Tears poured out of Gloria’s eyes. She bent her head over and they splatted on the plastic covering up the sandwiches.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Spooner said. Then she saw the THEIF sign on the table. The sign those boys made when they wouldn’t let Rowan play with them. They were garbage. Those boys. Mrs. Spooner turned it around with her finger. She looked hard at that sign and then her face went funny.

“That’s quite odd,” she said. She tapped on the letters.

“What is? What’s odd?”

“Oh, nothing. Just reminded me of something, that’s all.”

When Mrs. Spooner left, I watched her stop in front of the fox-tie man. He was by his car and he squashed a cigarette into the grass. She talked to him. Her hands were moving, and she made a rectangle shape. She talked some more, and I heard her say, “Just concerning, don’t you think?” The man made me think of Telly then. All those times when Gloria was telling him things. His head would nod, but his ears and his brain were gone off somewhere else.

—

Some of Telly’s friends came in big trucks. Six of them went in the woods and I watched and watched but seven didn’t come out. If night came, and he still wasn’t home, that meant Rowan was gone for two whole days.

Telly came inside and wiped his face on a dishtowel. He told Gloria they didn’t find him, and he looked right at me without blinking. Like he knew I’d told a lie. At first I didn’t know what I lied about, but when he kept saying there was no sign of nobody, I started to worry Carl wasn’t real. Maybe there was no one under the bridge. Maybe I pointed at the wrong picture. I knew my mind had too much imagination. It was a giant problem. Gloria told me that all the time.

Then Telly held my shoulders. “You got nothing to worry about, you understand? I know you’re worried, but Row’s going to be back home in no time at all.”

I made a mistake. He wasn’t angry at all. He let go of me and ate three ham sandwiches fast.