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"Stop it!" I screamed at him. "Shaking me won't help. Bring in the magnifying glass."

"I don't know where it is." he said. "We've got to look everywhere. You have to help me. Get up." he commanded. "Mommy says you should."

I groaned, ground the sleep out of my eyes, and then slipped my feet into my shoes.

"C'mon," Noble cried, pulling my hand.

"I want to at least wash my face with cold water and wake up. Noble," I complained.

He stood by impatiently. waiting. I had to pee. too. He opened the bathroom door while I was still on the toilet.

"Get out!" I shouted at him.

Although we shared a room. I didn't like him in the bathroom when I was there. and I no longer took baths with him or let him see me in the tub.

"Hurry up," he cried. "Im hungry."

I joined him in the hallway, and he shot down the stairs.

"This is really stupid. Noble." I muttered. I could hear Mommy in the kitchen. She sounded like she was unloading dishes from the dishwasher, something she ordinarily wanted me to do. She was so angry at me that she wouldn't even permit me to do my chores.

I followed Noble outside and stood on the porch. "Okay, so now what?" I asked him.

"We'll search everywhere.'' he declared, "I'll use my magic wand," he added and went for a broomstick that he had painted yellow and red. Somehow, despite his own hunger, this had all turned into one of his silly, childish games. I thought.

I traipsed behind him from the house to the Garage to our barn. He would lift his broomstick and then say some gibberish he had invented, which was probably what the postman had overheard and thought was a real foreign language. Noble's magic stick supposedly leaned toward one direction or another, and we followed it as if it were a bloodhound. How long, I wondered, would he keep this up?

He opened closets in the garage. He looked under the vehicles and in the vehicles. He went through shelves, and then he went to the old barn, where I thought he would produce the magnifying glass for sure. He looked through tools, looked in a wheelbarrow, looked in carts, and even looked under the lawn mower. I stood by watching him and waiting.

The magic wand isn't working. It lost its power." he decided and threw it down outside the barn. Then his eyes brightened. "No, it didn't!" he cried.

"What now. Noble? I'm tired and hungry and Mommy is so mad at us, she'll never be nice to us again."

He lifted his arm and pointed to the broomstick. "Look at where the wand is pointing." he said. "How can you tell where its pointing?"

"The end. silly. It's pointing there," he said and pointed his right forefinger toward the old

gravestones.

"Noble --"

He broke into a run, and I followed, When we reached the tombstones, he stopped, and then he turned to me and smiled.

"Told you Daddy did it," he said and went to Infant Jordan's stone. There atop it was the

magnifying glass.

I felt my breath stop.

"You did that. Noble" I said in a hoarse whisper.

"No. I didn't! If you tell Mommy I did. I'll throw it away again." he warned.

"Okay, okay, I won't," I said. "Let's just bring it into the house and make her happy."

I started toward the house and paused to look back once. For an instant. I thought I did see Daddy, but then I decided it was just a shadow caused by a cloud drifting in the wind. I shook my head to shake out my heavy thoughts that felt like cobwebs, and I continued toward the house. Noble followed with a soft smile on his face, the smile of someone who thought he had been validated. He might even believe what he's saying. I thought. He certainly looked and acted like he did. Was that his dream, or was it the truth?

When we entered. Mommy came into the hallway. She was wiping a dish.