Her voice seemed small, coming back to them. “There’s a dead bird on the platform,” she called, sounding shaky. “With feathers and everything. I can see its one eye staring at me.”

“Pretend it’s those cow bones,” Nate called back. “Just get off that rung.”

They watched her slowly raise her right hand to the final rung, her right leg following. She pulled her body up—left hand, left leg. She was at the top. From down below, Larry and Nate let out a cheer. “You did it!”

“I don’t believe this,” she called out to them, standing straight up on the top platform. “I can see forever.” She raised the binoculars to her eyes and scanned the horizon. For a long minute Nate and Larry just stood on the ground, gazing up at her as she surveyed the landscape.

“See anything?” Larry called.

“Not yet.”

She moved to a corner of the platform. She turned her body to the right, then to the left, then to the right again.

“She’s up too high,” Nate said. “From where she’s standing, my dad’s rifle would probably look like a toothpick.”

“I don’t know,” Larry said. “Those seem like really good binoculars.”

They waited. Not a sound from the top of the tower. Then all of a sudden, a shout from Naomi. “I think I see something. It’s a glint of light, hitting something metal, maybe. I can’t tell what.”

“Where?” Larry yelled.

“I need to come down and show you,” she called back. She moved cautiously back onto the ladder, with the binoculars around her neck again. Nate couldn’t bear to watch as she began lowering herself down. He imagined what would happen if she placed her foot wrong, even once. He thought of her in the cafeteria line, the awkward, unsteady way she navigated with her tray, the orange rolling off that time. He wanted to yell, Careful! but no sound came out.

“I can’t believe that girl,” Larry said. “She’s so cool.”

“I know,” Nate replied.

Then Naomi was on the ground again, making her way toward them with that goofy, loping run of hers, ponytail bouncing. “I think I know where it is!” she cried. “Come on.”

She grabbed Nate’s hand and took off running, with Larry following behind. They ran to a place near the far edge of the property.

Nate looked around. Nothing. “Over by that piece of fencing,” Naomi said. “That’s where I saw it.”

He walked another twenty yards, surveying each foot of ground as he went. “It’s not here.”

But just then Larry called out. “Look! She’s right.”

All this time Nate had dreamed of the moment he’d find his father’s rifle. But now that they’d spotted it, he just stood there, frozen.

“Jeezum,” said Larry. “What do we do now?”

“The important thing is not getting our fingerprints on it,” Naomi said.