ITS COMING FROM UNDER MY COAT.

The gym bag bumps against my hart. I feel the baby going uhh when it breaths in and then mew mew and then uhh again. The crying is not loud but I cant miss it. Its coming from inside me. Its like I am crying.

There there I say.

The baby does not stop. Uhh. Mew. Uhh. Mew mew. Great. This is great. I am having a wonderful time.

Push. Glide. Think. What could be rong with the baby? It is not as cold any more so its probly hungry. When I wake up from a nap Im hungry. Come to think of it I am hungry rite now. I think about foods I like. A grill cheese sandwich. Cereal. I remember the oat meal cookys at Steves house and I feel a bit like crying myself. Theres a small blu sine at the side of the road. 3731279. Whatever that means. Snow and trees and dark all around.

There are cheerios in the gym bag. The baby can eat those but not yet. It is 2 cold to eat in the middle of the road. Tuff luck baby. Keep crying. I will stop the next car that comes by if I have to stand in the middle of the road to do it.

Push and glide.

I have not herd any crying in a while. Is the baby back to sleep? Maybe. I am not tired any more. I am hungry and worryed.

Another blu sine. 3771592.

Still nothing from the baby. Not even breathing in—I can not feel or hear the uhhh. I stop at the next street lite and open my coat and unzip the gym bag a bit more. The baby looks up at me and opens its mouth but no noise comes out. Is it 2 weak to cry? Wow. This is not good. I can hear Grampas voice telling me to look after what is in the bag. But how? Nobody is around. There is only me and the street lites and miles and miles of empty road. And trees and snow. I do not know where the hi way is or the next town or the hospital or anything. I am lost. I am letting the baby down. And Grampa.

I need an idea. Smart people get them all the time. Spencer does I know. Come on brain—dont fail me now.

3779912.

What are these sines about? They dont show turnoffs—theres no where to go. Snow and forest is all I can see. I whack at the sine with my mitt fist. Im upset and angry. The feeling sits inside me like that big bite of peanut butter you cant get down. Its nothing to do with Grampa or rite and rong. Its not about Vi this time. Im angry because the baby is weak. Im angry I cant make it better. Im angry at me I gess. Hitting the sine is my kind of idea—stupid. Xept that when I nock over the sine it hits the pole behind it and I see something.

Not nock—knock. Its another of Mr Wings tricky spelling words for me. Know knock knee write wrong. After Christmas he wants me to learn about commas and stuff. I told him you dont need commas for anything and he says yes you do. He is wrong.

The pole behind the sine has a box on it. I didnt see it befor. And when I step forward and wipe the snow off the box I see a name.

GOYETTE.

Its a male box. Witch means theres a house back there in the snowy forest. I decide to find it. Is that an idea? Not really. But its what Im going to do. I hop-walk off the road and up thru the snow bank. The trees are mostly ever green. I start moving left and rite as I go forward. I dont know where the house is and I dont want to walk past it.

I am thinking that those blu numbers must all be house numbers. There are a few houses along this road. If I was smarter I culd of figured this out and Id be inside all ready. But theres no point in thinking about that. I am here now.

The ground feels different under my skates. Little stones. A lot of them. A drive way. I follow it up hill and around a bend and there is the house—dark against the star brite sky.

Hang in there baby I say out loud.

The drive way loops up to the door. No lites any where and no foot prints in the snow xept mine. I hop-walk to the door and pound on it but I dont wait long because this is an emergency and there are no rules in emergency. Beside the door is a small window. I smash it with a kick from my skate and reach in and around to open the door from the inside.