Micah scooped up the tea tray before Aunt Gertrudis could tell him to do it. It was difficult to hold it steady, and the teacups trembled in their saucers as he took a cautious step toward the door.

Aunt Gertrudis blocked his path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Micah tried to smile at her. “Upstairs for tea?”

She gave him a considering look as she lifted the tray out of his hands. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re going to sit right here where you won’t make a mess.”

Micah frowned at her. He didn’t make messes. “But I always get to see Grandpa Ephraim during tea.”

She sniffed. “Ephraim’s been exhausted lately. I think it’s best if you don’t bother him quite so often.”

“But he was feeling better this morning! He wanted to tell me about . . . You just don’t want me to talk to him because—”

“Because I don’t want you to annoy a very sick man every hour of the day. And because you don’t need any more silliness stuffed between your ears, especially not your grandfather’s sort of silliness. Now sit.” She nodded at the kitchen table.

When he didn’t move, she set a pink roses teacup on the table and raised her eyebrow at him.

Lately, Micah felt like he was a rubber band that Aunt Gertrudis was stretching a little farther every time she spoke. Surely it couldn’t go on forever. She would have to get tired of pulling eventually. If she didn’t, he would snap.

But not today.

Micah dragged his feet as he went to the table, but he went. He gave his aunt the worst glare he could muster.

She turned to the door.

“He’ll want to see me,” Micah said to her stiff back.

“Drink your tea.”

“I think—”

She looked back at him. “Don’t you have homework?”

He glanced at the sticky note on the fridge.

“That’s what I thought. Maybe you can see Ephraim once you’ve proven that you are responsible and sensible about your obligations.”

She left without another word.

Micah waited until he could hear the hard soles of her shoes clicking on the stairs, and then he poured his nasty cup of tea down the sink.

When Micah trudged upstairs, Grandpa Ephraim’s door was shut tight. Of course. I’ll sneak in as soon as Aunt Gertrudis leaves, he promised himself.

He went to his room and flopped down on his unmade bed. He was supposed to be working on his half of a group project for social studies. Jenny Mendoza, the smartest girl in the whole fifth grade, was expecting Micah to bring a model of an Incan artifact to school tomorrow so that they could rehearse for their presentation. He hadn’t exactly started on it yet, but it would be easy. One of the pictures in their textbook was of a thing called a quipu, which just looked like a bunch of strings tied into fancy knots, and Micah could do that with his eyes closed. Probably.

Knots weren’t regular homework when you were a Tuttle. They were something of a family specialty.

Maybe, thought Micah, Grandpa Ephraim and I could make the quipu together. It wasn’t as exciting as building a tree house, but it was the sort of project his grandfather might like. Making the quipu together sounded . . . fun, normal, like something they would have done before everything went wrong.

Micah rolled off the bed and reached for the bottom drawer of his dresser. A neat coil of blue string lay on top of a nest of odds and ends that he had collected from all over the house when he realized that Aunt Gertrudis’s idea of “tidying the place up” meant throwing everything she herself didn’t use into the garbage. Micah’s socks had had to make room for two yo-yos, a baseball, a felt hat, a small army of action figures, a pack of Old Maid cards, and the string.

He picked it up and wrapped his fingers around it. It was good string, perfect for tying.

All that was left to do was wait.

When he finally heard Aunt Gertrudis shut his grandfather’s bedroom door, Micah was out of his room and across the hall in a flash. A sneaky, quiet flash.

He slipped into Grandpa Ephraim’s familiar room, and took it all in with a glance. A ceramic duck crouched on top of the alarm clock. A five-gallon pickle jar full of shooter marbles and tarnished coins sat in one corner. Pictures covered the pale blue walls.

A couple of the photos, tucked away in corners, showed his grandfather standing with a pretty young woman who Micah knew was his wife. Grandpa Ephraim didn’t like to talk about her. There were pictures of Grandpa Ephraim’s friends and places he’d been, and there was even a tiny one of Aunt Gertrudis, taken when she was a little girl. She had a cast on her arm.

Micah liked to look at the pictures of his parents’ wedding. They had died in a boating accident when he was four, and the pictures helped him remember them. But his favorite photographs were of him and Grandpa Ephraim together. He liked to think they looked alike, even though his grandfather’s hair was gray and his own was brown. Most of the pictures of the two of them were out of focus because they had never figured out how to take a good photo using the timer on the camera. But in every one, they had the same hazel eyes and the same smile.

Grandpa Ephraim didn’t look quite like himself these days. His smiles were just as warm as they always had been. But he was thinner, and pale from being stuck in bed all the time. When Micah entered the room, he was propped up on a mound of pillows, staring toward the window. Through the gap in the curtains, Micah could just see the half-finished tree house cradled in the branches of the oak.

“It’s a great tree house,” said Micah. “It will be a lot of fun this summer. Even without a roof.”

Grandpa Ephraim turned to face him. His eyes were bright with secrets. “Oh, there you are, Micah. We have business to discuss, you and I.”

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Micah made a place for himself on the foot of the bed and set down his coil of blue string. “She kept me away.”

“Ah. You missed some delicious tea,” Grandpa Ephraim said.

“I bet.”

Even though they were both trying to look serious, Grandpa Ephraim’s nose wrinkled up at the thought of the inky tea, and Micah’s own nose couldn’t help itself. They grinned at each other.

“I poured mine down the sink,” Micah confessed.

“Well, at least one of us escaped!” Grandpa Ephraim said.

That was true enough. But Micah would drink a whole kettle of ink every day if it meant they could spend more time together.

“I . . . why is Aunt Gertrudis always so . . . the way she is?” He didn’t want to tell Grandpa Ephraim that his sister was horrible, but it was hard not to complain sometimes.

Grandpa Ephraim sighed. “Your great-aunt and I haven’t been close for a very long time. It’s my fault as much as it is hers.”

“I doubt that,” Micah muttered.

His grandfather raised an eyebrow. “It was good of her to come. She’s not happy here, but we do need the help.”

I could do everything she does, Micah thought. And I would be a lot nicer about doing it.

“I know she can be frustrating. If you could just try to get along with her for a little while longer—”

“I am trying.” He didn’t know how to explain it, to say that it seemed like he was doing nothing but trying these days. He was trying not to upset Aunt Gertrudis, and he was trying to find ways to help his grandfather, and he was trying to be okay even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t. “I’m trying a lot.”

“I know you are. And you’re doing wonderfully, Micah. You really are.” He looked toward the window again. “I need to tell you something.”

Micah smiled. “Something magical? I was hoping it would be one of your Circus Mirandus stories.”

Their eyes met, and Micah felt something pass between them. A zing, a little spark of knowing that whatever his grandfather was about to say would change everything.

“I’ve written a letter to an old friend,” said Grandpa Ephraim. “I think you should read it.”