“Bears?” said Ric.

  “Or aliens,” said Artie. “I mean, who says it wasn’t a UFO that crashed out there?”

  Ope groaned with disdain. “Clearly there’s no intelligent life around here,” he said.

  “Ope’s right,” said Ric. “You’re being stupid.”

  “I didn’t exactly say that,” said Ope.

  “I’m still going,” said Artie, and we started off.

  “Hold on,” said Ric. “Emergency services said to wait right here.”

  “So, you guys wait,” I said, and then Artie and I took off into the dark.

  “I’ll go out to meet them at the head of the driveway,” Ric shouted after us.

  “Excellent,” I shouted back.

  “Thirty-eight,” said Ope. It was the last thing we heard as we jogged down the pathway that led from our backyard to the trail.

  The trail was rough, overgrown since we’d last bush-hogged it, and laced with fallen branches. I’d never come out here at night, and if it hadn’t been for Artie I’d have turned back. Why did he have to say that about bears? Mostly we trained our flashlights on the ground, but every now and then I flashed mine into the underbrush to either sides of the trail, looking for a darkness that was thicker than the night. With more fur.

  “Ope’s going to destroy us with his meteor count,” I said.

  “Yeah, but we’ll be the ones who make the big discovery,” said Artie. “We’ll be famous.”

  We slopped through a low spot, inky water lapping at our ankles.

  “What did you feel?” said Artie.

  I tried to think how to describe it. “Like the earth shifted,” I said.

  “Got to be a UFO,” said Artie. “Glad we’ve got our phones.”

  I didn’t bother reminding him that the chance of getting a signal was zilch.

  * * *

  The low meadow was a real slog. Mud squelched underfoot, seeping into my sneakers. Artie tried jumping from one grassy tuft to the next. Then he fell with a splash.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. I just said ‘Ow!’ for something to say.”

  I helped him up. “Can you walk?”

  He took a step, grimaced but nodded.

  Then we climbed a short hill to drier ground and the grove of trees that stood sentinel there. We called it the Squad. We’d mapped every part of the high meadow. From here we could see the fire up ahead on the rise where we built a fort a couple years back: You and Me Pal Hill. It was a car, all right, still blazing, black smoke pouring into the still night air.

  “Look at this,” said Artie. He was standing in an area flattened and torn up by muddy tire tracks. We followed the tracks through the prickly ash that dominated the slope, managing to avoid getting too scratched up.

  And then we were there, close enough to feel the heat and hear the crackle. Some old clunker, the paint bubbling and blistering on its sides, the front passenger door hanging open.

  Crouching low, we pulled up to within ten meters of it, which was as close as we could get because of the heat. I wiped the sweat from my face and peered into the vehicle. Didn’t seem to be anyone or anything inside. There was a stench in the air and Artie started coughing. What little breeze there was this high up pushed the smoke our way and we stumbled around the fire in a wide perimeter to get upwind of it.

  Carefully we walked, keeping our distance, aiming our flashlights this way and that to see if there was anyone lying nearby. I glanced at Artie. He’d drawn his cleaver, which made me nervous. The ground was rocky — rocks some farmer had piled here a hundred years ago. We stood looking at the front of the car.

  “It’s stoved in,” said Artie.

  “So, not a meteorite hit,” I said.

  He shrugged — didn’t want to give up on the dream just yet.

  “Somewhere in the valley, there’ll be some crappy old beater like this one with a stoved-in back end or side or maybe even front end — a head-on collision.”

  “Maybe,” said Artie. “But maybe it was when he got hit by the meteorite that he crashed into the other guy.”

  When we got to the driver’s side, I was sure we’d see a body lying facedown on the trail, his back charred to a crisp as if our high meadow was some war-torn place. I had my extinguisher at the ready — but there was no one there.

  By then we could hear, over the crackling of the fire, the sounds of sirens way back on the road to my place.

  I shoved the flashlight into my pocket and walked toward the car, the fire extinguisher raised.

  “Isn’t that kind of like attacking Optimus Prime with a pair of pliers?” said Artie.

  I looked at the extinguisher, looked at the car. “It’s just that I’ve always wanted to use one of these things.”

  I turned to Artie. He looked red in the reflected light. “Knock yourself out,” he said. “But I was just thinking how the car might blow.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. It usually did in movies. I backed up in a hurry — so fast I fell over. Which started Artie laughing. I scrambled to my feet and it was only then that I saw the boy.

  “Artie?” I said standing and staring.

  “What? Whoa!” He’d seen him, too.

  We aimed our flashlights at the kid and he covered his eyes.

  “That hurts!” he said.

  “Sorry!” we both said at the same time and aimed our flashlights down at the foot of the stump where he was sitting, about twenty meters uphill from the burning car. A preschooler, by the look of him, wearing pajama bottoms and a ratty T-shirt, clutching a pathetic piece of blankie.

  “What … what are you doing here?” I said.

  “He told me to wait,” said the boy.

  “Who?”

  “My daddy.” He yawned. “He said to wait and NOT TO MOVE.” He waggled his finger at us, just like his dad must have done to him. “’Cause it would be DANGE-ER-US.”

  We walked up to the copse of three rock elms. There were boulders and high grass all around him. A slip of breeze found us. I shivered but it wasn’t just from the wind.

  “Are you cold, little guy?” I asked.

  The boy nodded. I put down my Maglite and fire extinguisher and slipped off my hoodie. “Here,” I said. “Put this on.” I helped him with it. He was swamped in it — covered right down to his flip-flops. “Is that better?”

  As soon as he’d recovered his blankie, he nodded again. Then he pointed at the burning car. “That’s my daddy’s,” he said.

  Artie and I exchanged a secret glance and turned to look again at the car. Artie muttered something under his breath. If he’d been at his place and his mother was nearby, he’d have had to put a dollar in the swear jar.

  With another glance at each other, I grabbed up my flashlight and headed down to take a closer look. As I got nearer, I held up my arm to ward off the heat. From about three or four meters away, I stood on my tiptoes, trying to peer into the shattered driver’s side window. Then I backed off, quick.

  “Empty,” I muttered. And Artie and I both breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

  “Daddy got banged,” said the boy. “His friends took him away.”

  “And they left you here?”

  He nodded. “They didn’t remember.”

  “Wait,” said Artie. “They drove off with your dad and they just left you?”

  The boy nodded again and then grasped his blankie closer. “Mommy said Daddy had to look after me — he PROMISED — but he forgot and she said SHE wasn’t looking after me and then they had a BIG fight and she left. So, Daddy said we were going to have some fun. Only when we got here, he told me to sit and NOT TO MOVE.” He waggled his finger again.

  Artie and I stared at each other. His jaw was hanging open. I think maybe mine was too.

  Then the car exploded.

  * * *

  The firemen came, the cops, the whole emergency response team. We met them just as they were crossing the swampy lower meadow, me carrying the boy, Artie carrying everything else. The firemen and cops raced up the hill toward the fire. I told the paramedics what the kid had told us, that they’d taken the injured guy with them.

  “Nobody in the vehicle?” said the male paramedic. I said, “I sure hope not,” and he decided to go check, leaving his partner with us.

  I have a feeling the kid would have given us a fight about leaving his stump, if it hadn’t been for the explosion. He pretty well leapt into my arms and clung there, and I clung to him so hard it was kind of hard to say who was clinging to who. Even the other paramedic couldn’t peel him off me and I said I was okay and the kid was okay, and she said as long as you’re sure and I said I’m sure, it’s fine, and so I got to carry him all the way home. The paramedic kind of guided me by the arm through the boggiest part. She sure had a strong grip.

  Just before we reached the shelter of the trees and the head of the trail, the kid said, “Look!” He was pointing over my shoulder across the meadow up at the sky. I caught the tail end of a fireball.

  “A shooting star,” he said.

  “That’s right, a meteor.”

  “Mee-tee-or,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “There’s lots of mee-tee-ors,” he said.

  “There are tonight,” I said, hoisting him up a bit so he was sitting more on my hip. His skinny legs coiled around me, tight.

  “I saw them,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, lots and lots and lots of them. Maybe ten.”

  “That is a lot.”

  The boy looked at me. “I’m this old,” he said and held up his hand right in front of my eyes, with his thumb folded over his palm. Then he threw his counting hand around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder.

  “You tired?” said the paramedic. I was but I shook my head. She went ahead with a big flashlight, while Artie walked beside me, lighting our way.

  “That feeling you had?” he said. I glanced at him, waiting for him to finish the thought, but he just looked at me as if he was waiting for me to finish it for him.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  He managed to hoist his phone out of his pants’ pocket. Showed it to me: 11:43. I nodded. There was still a chance that my brother might be born today. Maybe he had been born already.

  Artie fell back a step. “The kid’s asleep,” he said, real quietly. “He must weigh a ton.”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay.” My mind was working overtime. I was wondering if Ricardo might make this little space cadet a micro necklace. Maybe he could make two.

  Christmas with Auntie Annie Ping-Pong

  Auntie Annie Ping-Pong had lost her marbles.

  It used to be fun. Annie used to feed him Welsh cake and shortbreads and Coke, which he wasn’t allowed at home. Then they would play cards or watch soaps and boo the bad guys. But not anymore. No more baking; his father had taken the fuses out of Annie’s stove so she couldn’t hurt herself. And no more cards; Annie thought all the cards were people. One day she had a long conversation with the three of clubs.

  Auntie Annie Ping-Pong wasn’t a real name, but she had always been that to Matt. And now, when he thought about it, it seemed perfect. Talking to Annie was like a ping-pong match. They could keep the ball in the air for only so long, before plop! it would roll off the table — zing! it would bounce off the ceiling — flub! it was snagged in the net.

  “Don’t let it get you down,” said Matt’s father. “At least these hallucinations of hers are friendly.”

  They were friendly, all right. He watched Annie place a little lavender-colored pillow behind a fruit bowl. “Are you comfy, dear?” she asked. She patted a shiny Northern Spy on the head.

  “You’re talking to an apple,” said Matt, trying to sound patient.

  Annie smiled at him and then smiled at the apple, too, as though they were all having a good time together.

  Her neighbors in the condo were great. She left her door unlocked and they popped in for visits.

  “She came around to our place today,” said Mr. Morcombe to Matt one afternoon. “Seems her ‘visitors’ were sleeping in her bed and she couldn’t take a nap. So I sent them packing.”

  “Thanks,” said Matt. He smiled respectfully.

  “No problemo,” said Mr. Morcombe. “We all love our Annie.”

  Which is when Matt thought a horrible thing: “If you all love her so much, why don’t you keep her.” Of course, he didn’t say it. These days he was full of things he didn’t dare say.

  He took to sneaking around to Annie’s back door to avoid neighborly confrontations. Auntie Annie lived on the ground floor. There was a deck with steps down to the garden. She seldom went out anymore, not even to church. And she never went out alone.

  “I’m a little uncertain on my pins,” she said leaning heavily on her walker. Matt remembered when he had to run to keep up with her. It made him sad.

  Some days were worse than others. Once, he arrived after school to find her at the counter in the kitchen. “You’re here,” she said, with relief. “My muscles are on holiday, today, Matt. Perhaps you can cut this sandwich.”

  “Sure thing,” said Matt and helped her to a seat at the table.

  But he couldn’t cut the sandwich. Because, apart from cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise and tomato, the sandwich also contained the TV remote. It was a TV remote sandwich with the works! Matt didn’t say anything. He took out the remote and handed her the sandwich cut up into quarters. She took a bite and looked thoughtful. “Hmmm, it seems to be missing something,” she said.

  “Don’t laugh,” said Matt to his parents at dinner that night. “Can’t they give her some drug or something?”

  “She’s already on a dozen drugs,” said his father. “The side effects of the drugs are part of the problem. Especially the prednisone for her temporal arteritis. But without it, she might have a stroke.”

  Matt pushed his potatoes around on his plate gloomily. He had spent half an hour trying to get the gunk out of the TV remote. When Annie asked him what he was doing, he said, “I’m digging cheddar cheese out of your TV remote, Auntie Annie.”

  “Oh,” she said, chuckling merrily. “That sounds fun.”

  “Shouldn’t she be in a home, or something?” said Matt irritably. “Then she would have real people to talk to instead of talking to the furniture. Or making sandwiches out of it.”

  His mother patted his hand. “I know it’s weird, but try to see the bright side of it. She’s got a care worker coming in twice a day, Meals on Wheels bringing her hot lunches, and good neighbors. As long as her delusions are harmless, she’s just as well off where she is.”

  But Matt wasn’t so sure her delusions were harmless. Some days she was pretty jumpy.

  “It’s these guests,” she said to him one cold November afternoon. “I can’t get them to leave. What am I going to feed them?”

  Matt got an idea. “Your guests are imaginary,” he said softly. “They can make their own imaginary food.”

  She looked pleased, but then she frowned. “Well, just as long they don’t make any smelly stuff like fish.”

  December rolled around. It snowed and every fat flake whispered Christmas. When Matt arrived at the condo one day, he found Auntie Annie out on her porch with just a sweater over her shoulders, staring at the garden and the river beyond. Quickly, he hustled her inside and wrapped a blanket around her. She kept staring out the window, preoccupied.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  She looked confused. “Is this a test?” she asked, her teeth chattering. “I’ve had so many tests lately.”

  “No,” said Matt, “it’s not a test.”

  But she wasn’t listening, she was thinking. Then she smiled. “I know,” she said. “Gloria Boem­kamp is up. I can hear her walking around.” She beamed with pride. She made Matt listen, and sure enough, Mrs. Boemkamp was walking around upstairs. Matt shook his head, tried not to scream with frustration and took himself off to watch TV in Auntie Annie’s bedroom. He couldn’t cope.

  A few minutes later she was at the bedroom door wringing her hands.

  “What is it?” Matt asked, a little frightened by the look on her face.

  “They’re still there,” she said. “I think we had better invite them in.”

  “Who?” said Matt.

  “The two fellows at the bottom of the garden by the river. They’ve been there all day. They must be very cold.”

  Matt went to look. Auntie Annie followed him. “Oh,” she said. “There’s three of them now.”

  The river bank was empty but for the tall grass and cattails dusted with new snow. Annie opened the sliding door. A gust of icy wind came in and shook the snow off its boots. Matt closed the door quickly. But not quickly enough. Annie was already addressing her latest guests.

  “Did you come by boat?” she asked.

  The three imaginary strangers were still there the next day. None of them had drunk their tea, but Annie was in high spirits. “They didn’t like plain old everyday tea,” said Auntie Annie to Matt when he arrived that afternoon. “So I brewed them a pot of Lapsang souchong.”

  She didn’t seem anxious anymore, but Matt was. “Do you think it’s wise to let strangers in?” he asked, trying to be diplomatic.

  Annie looked toward the china cabinet. Apparently, that was where the three men congregated. She had offered them a seat, she told Matt, but they had things to talk about in private.

  “Well, I wouldn’t normally, of course,” said Annie. “But you see, they have to wait somewhere. And I feel I almost know them,” she added.

  “Wait for what?” said Matt. It sounded ominous to him.

  But Annie only looked delighted. “For Christmas, Matt. What else?”