Found Things by Marilyn Hilton

“Actually, you are a mind reader, because that’s what I’m called—Professor—by people who don’t understand me. My real name is Benjamin,” he added with a little bow of his head.
    â€œI’m River,” I say, and bow back at him.
    â€œPleasure meeting you,” he say. “By the way, if you’re here to see Daniel Bunch, you’ll have to do all the talking, because he’s extremely ill.”
    â€œOh,” I say, suddenly agitated at the mention of Daniel, and I hoped Benjamin wouldn’t see my heart beating through my T-shirt.
    â€œSorry if that upset you,” he say.
    â€œIt’s just a big shock. Is he really that sick?”
    â€œHe might even be dead, but go see for yourself.”
    So what everyone in art class say was true. And maybe what Meadow Lark say was true too—that it wasn’t a coincidence, and it was our fault Daniel was in the hospital.
    I looked at Benjamin. “It’s time. I have to see him now.”
    This wasn’t like when Theron had his 103-degree fever in the bathtub and I had the choice not to look. This was different. When Benjamin say Daniel was so sick, I began to believe that it was our fault, so I had to pay him a visit and report back to Meadow Lark.
    â€œIt was a pleasure meeting you,” Benjamin say with another little bow, and I wandered out of his room and across the hall.
    I knocked lightly on the door, and when there was no answer, I pushed it open and stepped inside.
    The room smelled like rubbing alcohol and bleach. Daniel lay flat in the hospital bed with his eyes closed, as still as a corpse, and white as the pillowcase under his head. His left arm, now in a support bandage, rested on a rolled-up towel at his side.
    Out of respect for his state of possible death, I drew the curtain closed around his bed. Then I stared at him for a minute or so, watching for a telltale eyebrow twitch and listening for a sigh or a stomach gurgle.
    â€œIs he alive?” Benjamin asked from across the hall.
    I waved my hand in front of Daniel’s eyes, but he didn’t move. “I’ll find out,” I whispered, loud enough to carry.
    Daddy once told me that when he and Mama first brought me home, I slept so quiet and still that they were terrified I’d stopped breathing in my sleep. So Daddy would hold a little mirror under my nose. If he saw vapor on the mirror, he knew I was still alive. Remembering that, I looked around Daniel’s room for something to put under his nose.
    A butter knife lay on a tray near the window. I grabbed it and turned back to Daniel. But just as I was about to slide the knife under his nose, the curtain rings screeched, and the nurse from the front desk stood there with his hands on his hips.
    â€œYour mother must’ve gotten lost in the parking lot. Time to go,” he say. And then he saw the butter knife. “Hey, what’s that?”
    At exactly that moment, Daniel come out of his coma, and saw the knife.
    â€œShe’s trying to kill me!” he screamed, sitting full up in bed. “She tried to slice me open!” Then, “Oww!” he shrieked, and clutched his throat, as if that dull little knife had actually touched him.
    I ran out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs, and out the revolving door. Then I tossed the butter knife into some bushes, hopped on my bike, and took off.
    Pedaling home as fast as I could, I felt glad about one thing—if Daniel Bunch was dying, it was certain he wouldn’t die that day. Because when he sat up and saw that knife in my hand and screamed at me like that, he looked like the same Daniel Bunch that told me in art class that my collage stunk.
    If what Meadow Lark say was true—that we made Daniel Bunch sick by wishing it—then we had to make another wish to make him well again. And we would have to do it fast, before he got any sicker. We would go have to go down to the river and