They drove a long time. Now and then Nate checked their map, studying the names of towns: Harlowtown and Checkerboard and White Sulphur Springs. They passed Frenchie’s, the restaurant where their grandparents took them once, and the turnoff for the county fairgrounds. Pretty soon there was nothing along the road but wheat fields and scrub. The prickly pear cactus was in bloom, and harebells and shooting stars, and with the windows open, Nate could breathe in the smell of sage, and the winter wheat was tall enough now that when the wind passed over, it made ripples, like a green and shimmering lake. The sun was just coming up, and Nate could see the silhouette of a fire lookout off in the distance and nothing else but sky beyond.

There were hardly any cars on the road, but when he saw one coming toward them from the opposite direction, Nate could feel his whole body stiffen. He pulled the car over as far to the right as possible, almost onto the shoulder—worried that his mother must have reported him and his sister missing and that the police would be looking for them. But the car cruised on by.

“Hey, Junie,” Nate said. “Do you mind scratching my ear? I don’t want to take my hands off the steering wheel.”

After a couple of hours, Junie needed to go to the bathroom. There were no rest stops on this stretch of road—no anything—so he pulled over, close to a little grove of alder by a creek. “You can go there, Junie,” he told her. “Just use a leaf.”

“Don’t look.”

“You nut. I’ve seen you in the tub a million times.” “I’m seven now.”

Junie sang to him. “Yellow Submarine” and “Jimmy Crack Corn” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” even though it wasn’t exactly the season. She taught him a round from Brownies, “Make New Friends,” and another one, “White Coral Bells.” She told him about the platypus, one of the very few mammals that lay eggs, and how the pilgrims made cornmeal mush. She fell silent then, and for a while the only sound in the car was the hum of the engine and the wind.

They were climbing in elevation. The stretches of open land were behind them now, replaced by craggy boulders and outcroppings of rock. Off in the distance, they could see the foothills of the Rockies, with snow on top. Once or twice Nate spotted an elk, and he could feel a new chill in the air.

Although it was not even noon yet, clouds began to roll in and the wind started wailing. Nate turned on the heater and wished he’d brought their winter jackets. His fingers felt cold on the wheel, and Junie was shivering.