My Brother Louis Measures Worms by Barbara Robinson Page B

said, “I wonder which house?”
    Albert had spent the night, and there was a note propped against the cereal box: Albert and I have gone to dig worms.
    Louis had been collecting worms all summer and measuring them to see how long a worm got to be before it died. “I think that’s what kills them,” he said. “I think they die of length.”
    So far his longest worm was between four inches and four and a half inches. All his worms were between one size and another because they wouldn’t hold still. “It’s really hard,” he said. “I have to stretch them out and measure them at the same time, and if I’m not careful they come apart.”
    â€œOh, Louis,” I said, “that’s awful! What do you do then?”
    He shrugged. “I bury the pieces. What else can I do?”
    Of course, most kids wouldn’t even do that, but Louis was neater than most kids.
    It was late afternoon when he and Albert came back, and they had big news. They also had two coffee cans full of worm parts.
    â€œI thought you buried them,” I said.
    â€œI didn’t have to! Albert says . . . Albert says . . .” I had never seen Louis so pleased and excited. “Tell her what you said.”
    â€œIt doesn’t kill them,” Albert said. “The tail ends grow new heads, and the head ends grow new tails.”
    I looked in the coffee cans, but I couldn’t tell the difference between head and tails. Louis said he couldn’t tell the difference either. “But it doesn’t matter,” he said, “because the worms can. They know. We’re going to keep them, and watch them grow, and measure them . . . and maybe name them.”
    â€œThey’re no trouble,” Albert said. “They just eat dirt. We’ve got some.” He held up another coffee can.
    They took all three coffee cans up to Louis’s room, and this worried me a lot because I knew I would have to sleep in Louis’s room when everybody came for the family reunion.
    My father said he was always astonished that there was anybody left to come to the family reunion. “Your whole family is already here,” he told Mother, “living around the corner, or three streets away, or on the other side of town.”
    â€œNot everybody,” Mother said. “There’s Virginia and Evelyn and Clyde . . .” She reeled off the names—cousins, mostly, whom we knew only from Christmas cards, and from their annual appearance at the reunion.
    Some, in fact, had already appeared and were upstairs unpacking their suitcases. Mother, who was busy catching up on their news and shuffling food around in the refrigerator and getting out all the dishes and silverware, either didn’t realize that Albert was still with us or just didn’t remember that she had ever seen him in the first place.
    My father had gone off to borrow picnic tables for the next day, and since I didn’t want to sit around and watch worms grow, I went next door to play with my friend Maxine Slocum and forgot all about Albert.
    That night when I took my sleeping bag into Louis’s room, he was already asleep in a mound of bedclothes . . . and there was another mound of bedclothes beside him.
    â€œLouis.” I shook him awake. “Who is that?”
    â€œIt’s Albert,” he said.
    â€œWhy doesn’t he go home?”
    Louis looked surprised. “He is home. He’s going to live here now. Remember? He told you. . . . Don’t worry, Mary Elizabeth,” he added. “You’ll like Albert.”
    â€œI already like Albert,” I said, “but I don’t think he can live here. I think he has to live with his parents.”
    â€œHe doesn’t want to,” Louis said. “He even told them so. He told them, ‘I don’t want to live with you anymore,’ and they said, ‘All right, Albert, you just go and live someplace else.’”
    I