QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

Maybe this sounds weird, but I didn’t really spend much time thinking about my father before all this. Most of my life, he didn’t really exist. I mean, not for us, anyway. I was used to not having him around.

But now, after seeing that picture, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. What did he look like? Did he live in the city? Was he rich? Poor? Did he think about us much?

I sat up late that night, drawing in my sketchbook and talking to Leo about it.

“What do you think will happen if I find him?” I said.

“I don’t know, but I’ll give you a ton of credit for the mission,” he said.

Sometimes Leo has a one-track mind.

“What happens if I look for him and don’t find him?” I said.

“What if you stop asking questions and start figuring it out?” Leo said.

So as soon as I heard Grandma’s TV go off upstairs, I got out of bed and went over to the computer.

I couldn’t find a website for Hairy’s Place, but I did find an address—3921 Calumet Avenue. I pulled it up on a map and then coughed a lot while it was printing out, just in case Mom was still awake.

Then I stuck the map in the bottom of my backpack and tried to get some sleep.

Even that wasn’t easy, though. On top of everything else, I started thinking about that question Mr. Beekman put up on the board the first day of school: WHO ARE YOU? Like maybe if I could find out more about who my father was, I might find out more about me too.

And if that wasn’t part of getting a life, I didn’t know what was.