No one would play football with Derek. No one would play kickball. No one would play soccer, even if he let them start two goals ahead. It was making him crazy.

“How about baseball, then?” Derek tipped back his head to call up into the climbing tree. High above, he spotted his brother’s feet through the leaves. “Come on, Abner!”

“I’m busy.” Abner eyed a branch above him. He was trying to see how high he could go. As the oldest of the four Willow children, it was his duty to make sure the branches would hold everyone’s weight. Besides, if a branch cracked just a little, it might be exciting.

Derek tipped his head so far back that his baseball cap fell off. He caught it neatly before it hit the ground. “But baseball is fun!”

“Not on this hill, it isn’t,” said Tate, his older sister. She looked up from her book and calmly turned a page. “The ball keeps rolling down to the river.”

“It’s more fun than climbing trees, or reading, or—” Derek glanced at his little sister, Celia. She seemed to be mashing a bottle cap on her stuffed rabbit’s nose. “What are you doing, anyway?”

“Giving Mr. Bunny some milk, of course.” Celia wrinkled her forehead at Derek. “I’m not playing baseball with you, either. You always make me stand in the outfield. And then I have to run after every single ball.”

Derek squatted down and adopted a soothing tone. “Listen, Celia. It’s just that you’re so good at running after the ball, see?”

“It’s not fair. And Mr. Bunny thinks so, too.” Celia smoothed the blue satin ribbon that was tied around her stuffed animal’s neck. She was glad Mother had finally unpacked the box that had held Mr. Bunny. The moving men had stuffed him in with the gardening tools by mistake.

Derek picked up the rabbit by the ears. “Face it, Mr. Bunny. What else is she going to do? She can’t bat. And she sure can’t catch.”

“I can too catch,” said Celia, leaping for her rabbit.

Derek tossed the rabbit over his head. It hit a branch and came down, legs flopping, into his ready hands. That gave Derek an idea. “Hey! Let’s play bunny-ball!” he said.

“Give him back!” Celia cried.

Tate looked up from her book. “Stop being mean, Derek.”

Abner called down from the tree, “Pick on somebody your own size. Go get the mail if you want something to do.”

Derek, half-ashamed, tossed the stuffed rabbit to his little sister. He wasn’t really trying to be mean. He just wanted to play something fast and exciting. Bunny-ball might have been fun. And there wasn’t anybody his own size—that was the problem.

Derek scuffed down the long, winding driveway to the mailbox. Maybe his plastic army men had come in the mail. Two weeks ago he had sent off some cereal box tops. Every day since, he had waited for a package. It was a dusty trip to the mailbox and a hard climb back up the hill, but at least it was something to do.

He missed his friends. Back in his old neighborhood, if he wanted a game, all he ever had to do was step out the door. There was always something fun going on—street hockey, tetherball, basketball, even mudball, if it had just rained.

Mrs. Willow did not like mudball. She said she could never get Derek’s clothes clean. But mudball was the best. You got extra points if the ball landed in a mud puddle, and you could play it with almost any sport.

Derek loved getting dirty, and he loved playing hard. But ever since they had moved to this lonely house on a hill, there was no one to play with. Except Abner, Tate, and Celia, of course. It just wasn’t the same.

The branch above Abner’s head creaked, and he hastily let it go. He watched through the leaves as his brother trudged over the stone arch bridge, threw a stick into the river, and ran to the big silver mailbox on the main road.

He supposed he really should play catch with Derek. But just throwing a ball back and forth was boring. He would rather be up in this tree. No one could see him, but he could see everything that was going on. It was like he was a secret spy.

He could see into the third-story windows of their house at the top of the hill. He could see his father walking from the house to the garage. He could see the garden shed and the toolshed. He could even see the small shed where his mother painted the pictures she hoped to sell one day. She called it her studio, but it still looked like a shed to Abner.

There was a banging noise as Father flung open the big wooden door to the garage. A moment later, he came out again, dragging the lawn mower.

Abner stopped being a spy at once. He slid down the tree trunk, jumped from the lowest branch, and landed on the ground with a thud. He eyed the battered red mower with longing. “I wish he’d let me mow, for once,” he said out loud. “I’m responsible enough.”

Mr. Willow yanked at a cord. There was a faint rattle, and then nothing. He bent over the elderly machine and fiddled with a lever, muttering something that Abner could not hear.

Tate glanced up from her book again. “It never starts on the first try,” she said.

“Or the second,” said Abner as their father pulled the cord again, harder.

The machine coughed twice and died.

“Poor Daddy.” Celia patted her stuffed rabbit’s ears. “Mr. Bunny feels sorry for him, too.”

Derek came puffing up the hill. His pockets were jammed with envelopes. “No package. No army men,” he said briefly.

“Any letters for us?” asked Tate. She closed her book.

“I didn’t even look. I mean, when are there ever any letters for us?” Derek pulled the envelopes out of his pockets and handed them over. “Here. It’s probably just bills.” He threw himself down on the long grass.

“It’s always bills,” said Celia. She had heard her father say this more than once.

The mower sputtered to life at last and Mr. Willow pushed it forward, sweating in the hot sun.

“Fifth try,” said Abner. He had been ticking them off on his fingers. “One of these days it’s not going to start at all.”

“I wish new lawn mowers didn’t cost so much,” Tate said. She flipped through the envelopes one by one. Someday there might be a letter for one of them.

“I bet Dad wishes he was cutting the grass at our old house,” Derek said. “There wasn’t so much of it. This lawn is way too big.”

It was true that there was a lot of lawn to mow. There was a narrow strip of short grass where their father had mown. But beyond that, a vast expanse of shaggy green covered the hill.

“Our old house didn’t have a river, though,” said Tate.

“Or good climbing trees,” said Abner.

“Or magic,” added Celia.

There was a moment of silence. It had been weeks since magic had happened on that very hill.

“Maybe it will never happen to us again,” said Derek, who was feeling gloomy.

“Lots of kids never have magic happen to them even once,” Abner pointed out.

Tate looked down at the envelopes in her hand and turned over the last few. “We should feel lucky,” she said.

The Willow children tried to feel lucky. They were only partly successful.

“You can feel lucky for a while,” said Celia, swinging Mr. Bunny by one foot, “but then you stop feeling lucky and you start wanting something else to happen.”

This was so very true that no one bothered to comment.

But suddenly something else did happen.

“You got a letter!” Tate cried. “Look, Derek!” She handed a square envelope to her brother.

Derek tore it open and stared with unbelieving joy.

“What? What does it say?” Celia and Abner crowded in close.

Derek read the scrawled invitation once more and grinned until his cheeks hurt. His friend Ben wanted him to come for a birthday party and stay for a week! A whole week in the old neighborhood, with the guys! He would pack his baseball glove, and his bat, and his hockey stick!

Tate leaned over Derek’s shoulder and read aloud. “ ‘Let us know which train you’re taking, and my parents will meet you at the station.’ ” She looked up. “You’ll have to buy a round-trip ticket. How much money do you have in your piggy bank?”

Derek’s grin faded. “Six dollars and thirty-seven cents … I think.”

“Not enough,” said Abner. “Round-trip tickets cost a lot of money.”

Derek gripped the letter tightly. He watched his father, who was bent forward, pushing the mower hard uphill. Would his parents pay for the ticket? How much would it be?

The mower gave a sudden POP and belched a puff of oily smoke. Mr. Willow jumped back as it spit out a clump of grass. Then, with a rattle and a groan, it died. And nothing Father did made it go again.

The children stood at a respectful distance, as if at a funeral.

“Fine, then!” Mr. Willow wiped his forehead and glared at the machine. “Die, if you must. But where I’m going to find the money for a new lawn mower, I don’t know.”