“Are you OK, Jessie?” asked Mom.

My mom stood next to me and my younger brother, John, at the end of our new driveway.

I looked down the long country road for our new school bus…on our new road.

“You miss our old house, don’t you?”

I nodded. “I miss Sarah… I miss all my friends. I know I’ve met kids my age here. We visited Gram often enough—I even stayed that whole summer once, but it’s not the same.”

Mom frowned slightly. “John, how about you? Still upset about missing the playoffs?”

John, the former star baseball player on his former baseball team, just shrugged.

“I’m sure they have a team here that you can join,” said Mom.

“Maybe,” said John, “but it won’t have my teammates.”

John turned to Mom. “Why couldn’t Gram just have moved in with us? Then we’d still be back home.”

Mom sighed and offered John a slight smile. “We offered to have Gram live with us after Granddad died. We asked her again when her health got bad. But she wouldn’t leave her home. The home that she and Granddad built.”

Mom wrapped her arms around both of us and gave us a big hug. “Guys, this will all work out for the best.

"When Gram died, we just couldn’t sell her house. Dad said it was a tough market. Still, we knew we would sell it someday.

“Now that Dad’s been transferred to the new plant right over here in Salisbury, moving into Gram’s house was an easy decision. Perfect timing, right?”

Mom paused and looked momentarily distracted. “Anyway, her house is in good condition. Since we were able to sell our old house so easily, here we are.”

There was a low, distant rumbling down the road. We all turned toward it.

“Hey, here comes the bus,” said Mom. “OK, you two, enjoy your first day at your new school.”

“Wow, is that an old wooden wagon wheel?” asked John.

The first day of school had been...fine. At least that's what we had told Mom.

“At least part of one,” I answered, lifting up a rusted metal rim attached to a few wooden spokes. The wheel was halfway hidden under a fallen tree. “I wonder how old it is? That old, rusted toy car that you found looks ages old. I think that everything we find out here is a treasure.”

The warm September sunshine washed over John and me, erasing the stress from our first day at our new school.

I paused and smiled as I breathed in the scents of honeysuckle and pine. Grasshoppers took off in all directions with each step we took as we leisurely explored the woods behind Gram’s house.

“Hey, John, look.”

I pushed away some bushes to get a better look at my new find. “I think it’s a gravestone. It looks old. It’s hard to make out the writing with all this mud…”

“Hey guys,” yelled Mom as she leaned out the back door. “Time to come in and get ready for dinner.”

“OK, Mom. Ready John?”

John smiled and nodded.

There were lots of kids in our new school, but there weren’t many who lived nearby. So, John was my new best friend. At least for now.

Even though I was in the sixth grade and he was in fourth, we usually got along pretty well.

We left the woods and walked back to Gram’s house. Our new house.

It really wasn’t a bad house. But it was way out here, on the edge of the woods. Up on top of Baker’s Hill. And it seemed so removed from everything, so far away from everything. No, it wasn’t my old house, but it might be fun living here someday.

“Jessie, I told you not to leave your things lying around,” said Mom. She was walking up the stairs slowly, carrying a basket of laundry. “Please put that book back where it belongs.”

I was in my room doing homework and didn’t know what she meant. I looked out into the hall and saw an old book lying exactly in the center of the hall.

Strange.

It was perfectly lined up to the hall. Like someone had carefully placed it there.

I picked it up and recognized it as Gram’s diary. How did this get here?

I went to her room down the hall—we hadn’t touched it since she died—and placed it on the bookshelf. I hadn’t been in here in a long time. Her memory was still strong. It seemed like just yesterday…

***

The next morning John and I ran down the stairs for breakfast. We were running late. We hurried through some cold cereal, so we wouldn’t miss the bus.

“Slow down,” said Mom. “You still have time. By the way, Dad and I are going out tonight—a dinner party at his work. It’s in honor of all the new employees, like your dad.

“So, Jessie, you’re old enough to babysit. It will be just the two of you tonight. We shouldn’t be out too late.”

“I’m old enough to babysit myself,” protested John. “I don’t need Jessie to tell me what to do.”

Mom grinned. “Jessie needs the practice, John. Mrs. Stalls asked if she could babysit her son, Eric, sometime. You can be her guinea pig, give her someone to practice on.”

John faked a frown, trying to hide his smile. I knew what he was thinking. A whole night without parents.

Cool.