“Yeah, like with Shar. But we don’t have an Aunt Erma, do we?”

“Sure we do. We know Aunt Erma.”

“You don’t get it. Just keep your mouth shut.”

I closed my mouth and nodded.

Then I looked into the ditch and saw something. It floated out of the big metal tube that went right under Mrs. Spooner’s driveway. There was hair and eyes and no body. It bobbed up and down. A doll’s head.

“Rowan! Catch it, Rowan! Save her!” He stuck out a stick and caught her. He held her up and water dripped out of her hair and her neck. “She needs to get washed.”

Mrs. Spooner must’ve heard me yelling because she opened her door and called out, “What did you kids find?”

“A head! We got a head.”

“A head? Not a real one, I hope!”

“No, no!” I laughed big. “Just a doll.”

“Let me take a peek,” she said. She waved at us.

I took the wet head off the top of the stick and ran to Mrs. Spooner.

“Well, that is a nice surprise to start off the summer.”

“Rowan saved her from the wolves.”

“What wolves, sweetheart?”

I looked at Rowan. He was standing behind me and he was frowning bad. “Nothing,” I said. “I was just telling a joke.” I had to know what to say and what to hold inside. There was always so much to remember.

“She’s like me, Mrs. Spooner. Big imagination.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Mrs. Spooner said. When she smiled there were tons of lines all over her face. She looked like crumpled-up paper. “I understand. Should we get this little lady cleaned up?”

“Yup!”

Me and Rowan went inside, and I sat on a chair in the kitchen. All the walls had blue flowers on them and there were tons of pictures of Mr. Spooner. There was a brown box on the wall over the table full of spoons. That was really funny. I poked Rowan, but he frowned again and said, “Don’t be rude.”

Mrs. Spooner turned on warm water and Rowan washed the doll in the sink. He used soap to clean her hair back to yellow and he used his finger to dig out dirt and leaves that filled up her brain.

“Here,” Mrs. Spooner said. “Why don’t you use a sock to make a proper body? It was Mr. Spooner’s, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”

Mr. Spooner was in the cemetery now. There was a grassy spot right next to him someday for Mrs. Spooner, but she told me once she wasn’t in a rush.

“I’ve got some stale oats you can use to stuff it,” she said. “Plump that girl up.”