And it made perfect sense to me that we can’t see what keeps the world turning. And that maybe we would never know why, if one day it all just stopped.

Mr. Khouri showed us a plastic globe of the world with a segment cut out like it was an orange, showing the oozing core in the middle and the Earth’s guts . . . and then on the outside it was like a regular globe with maps of countries and oceans and things.

“Fred.”

I thought of Drumlin like that, ever since we first learned about what formed our planet.

“Freddo.”

Like he was this little speck of dust, and then as the months went on and Anika’s stomach grew, I figured it was like him getting his core and crust and mantle too.

“Winifred.”

And then the day came when he was ready to be the world, I guess.

“Winifred, wake up.”

I was in bed so I groaned and rolled, then blinked my eyes open to find Luca hunched over me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Wha—”

“The baby’s coming,” he said.

41

Drumlin

Me, Pop, and Sam stayed home. Luca said it could take two hours or twenty for Drumlin to arrive, so there was no point in all of us sitting on the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room.

Pop said that was fine, that he’d already had enough of hospitals to last a lifetime, but that we’d all be sitting by the phone, waiting to hear the news.

Sam lasted two hours, but after drinking the hot chocolate Pop made for us, he ended up curled on the couch, his head hanging over the armrest and his curls in every bedhead direction.

Pop had the TV on with the volume low. It was Rage on ABC, the music coming out soft and tinkling as a bunch of people danced on the screen to a song I didn’t know.

I must have fallen asleep, too, because suddenly I was opening my eyes to light the color of freshly spread butter coming in through the windows, and Sam’s croaky voice yawning and asking, “How long has it been?”

Pop shifted his arm and shifted me, too, since my head was resting on his chest. He pulled his sleeve up and checked his watch.

“Eight hours, thereabouts.”

Who knew waiting for a baby could take so long? But then I thought of Drumlin like he was the Earth again, spinning and forming and still making oceans and rainforests, and I figured it would take as long as it had to.

“When will we name him?” Sam asked.

“Oh, as soon as we meet him, I suppose,” Pop said, and then he shifted to make me more comfortable. “Honestly, though, Drumlin has grown on me.”

“Me too,” Sam said.

“Littlest ridge,” I said, and then I yawned too.