A month had passed since we’d buried Uncle Cooter.

Nothing changed.

Even though now that school had started and I’d only work there on weekends, Miss Cary kept me running out of her office with “Now, off you go,” Wimpy was still teaching me the strange language of printing, Pay and Stubby were still geniuses with wood and still pains in my buttocks, and Mother and Father were still where they’ve always been, there.

But I found out two things about myself.

First, I learned that I needed the woods. After Uncle Cooter died, I’d stayed away. When I first went into them, I missed knowing he might be watching over me. Instead of being reminded of that sadness, I stayed away.

But the forest called me back. And if I took Spencer with me, I didn’t feel the loneliness quite so much.

The second thing I learned about myself was that almost as much as I need the forest, I need to write.

I followed Miss Cary’s suggestion to write every day, and it had become a real habit. But I didn’t follow her suggestion not to throw away anything I’d written. Some of the time, what I wrote was so bad I didn’t want anyone to see it, and some of the time, what I wrote made me feel too sad and I’d toss it.

I’d tried a million times to write an article about Uncle Cooter, but the words refused to cooperate. I even pretended I had a deadline to see if that might make them come easier, but all it did was make me feel terrible when the deadline went whooshing past.

Whenever one of the older people tells Mother that bad news always comes in threes, she has an answer for them. She says, “Maybe, but good news rides in on the same horse.”

And, as usual, she was right.

The first bit of good news came when Pay and Stubby agreed to take me on as their apprentice. It was kind of humiliating to ask, and I’m not sure why I did, but it always seemed like they had so much fun together.

The second bit of good news was when, early one Saturday, Spencer knocked ferociously on our front door.

“Benji! You’ll never guess what happened!”

Before I could open my mouth, he blurted out, “Hickman Holmely’s father got a job in Memphis, Tennessee!”

“That’s good, but why are you so excited?”

“They’re moving to Memphis! The Upper Ontario Forensics Competition is only for folks who live in Ontario!”

I was thrilled for Spencer! There was no way he wouldn’t be the next champion.

The third bit of good news was delivered by Mother and Father.

They burst into the house, screaming.

“Benji! Have you seen it? Have you heard?”

“Seen what?”

Mother was holding a newspaper. I could tell by the type it was the Chatham Freedman.

She was so excited, though, that she’d balled the paper up.

“What is it?”

Father smoothed the paper on the kitchen table and said, “Look!”

The headline read THE PASSING OF A LEGEND AND AN ERA.

Direct under those words, it read, BY BENJAMIN ALSTON AND SARAH CARY.

I was stunned!

“But why would she give me credit for this? I didn’t give her an article about Uncle Cooter.”

Mother said, “You didn’t, but I did!”

“Mother, how could you put my name on something you wrote?”

Father said, “No, you silly boy, she dug one n’em articles you threw away out the garbage and thought it was so good, she snuck behind your back and give it to Miss Cary. Miss Cary said she was very pleased but not the least bit surprised.”

“She didn’t tell you to leave her office and say, ‘Now, off you go’?”

“She told me, ‘Thank you very much.’ She said I should be very proud!”

Mother and Father hugged and kissed me and said, “We are, Benji, we are so proud!”

Good news had brought an extra horse along because the fourth piece of good news was the looks they gave me, looks of stunned disbelief!

I read my article:

Miss Cary is a wise woman and has accomplished a great many things in her life. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t make mistakes.

Major ones.

Some big enough they’ll last for the ages.

She got the headline all wrong. It should have read:

STAR, HUMBLE NEWSPAPER REPORTER OVERJOYED TO DISCOVER THE SPIRIT OF A MADMAN LIVES ON IN HIM.