I peered inside warily. It was stuffed to the top, and I was a little afraid there might be sharp objects, rotting food. But after a minute, slowly, I began to pull everything out. One object at a time. I couldn’t remember why I’d saved most of them in the first place. Corks and acorns and binder clips. Rocks I’d found in places I could no longer recall. Seven pairs of cheap plastic sunglasses, swag from booths at the East Atlanta Strut, and three totally deflated but still tied balloons at the ends of sad ribbons. Two strands of cheap purple beads. Wrappers from lunchbox cookie packs that I was only ever supposed to take for lunch but sometimes stole from the kitchen and snuck into my room to munch on late at night. I found a two-year-old permission slip from a field trip to the planetarium. And all of these things—every single one—went into the trash can under my desk.

Then I found it. At the bottom of the drawer, in the lower right-hand corner.

Technically, it was called Le Tooter. That was what the box it had come in said. Sam had shouted it at us enough times. “I’m a big pooter, with Le Tooter!” But Dad only ever called it the Damn Fart Machine. Sam had loved this awful thing. He’d gotten it for Hanukkah a year and a half ago from Grandpa Dan on a rare visit from Des Moines. Sam had taken it everywhere. The car, the park, the dinner table. He’d had it confiscated at school. But then . . . I’d stolen it.

How had I forgotten this? I’d stolen it the day before we left for camp! I just hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of that horrible thing, that dumb plastic noisemaker, farting away in the woods, at the lake, by the campfire. I knew it would embarrass me, so I’d stolen it from Sam’s bedside table and hidden it away in my junk drawer.

I stared at it in my hand and remembered Sam, dashing around the house, as we loaded the car to leave for camp. “I’m not going without Le Tooter!” he’d cried.

“Like fun, you’re not,” Dad had said with a grin. And he’d picked Sam up and carried him, kicking, to the car. It had all been a joke. A big, silly joke. I’d followed the two of them out to the car, where Mom was waiting. I’d been laughing too. Except that now I remembered what else Dad had said. “The Damn Fart Machine will be waiting for you when you get back. The Damn Fart Machine isn’t going anywhere.”

Now I turned the Damn Fart Machine over in my hand. I stared at it. I pushed the button, and out came the stupid sound I remembered so well. Thbbbbt!

“Oh, God,” I said. “Oh, God, Sam.”