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didn’t know, couldn’t find out, and it didn’t matter. They didn’t even want him to talk about it and he didn‘t, except sometimes to Andrea and me.

    Andrea let her legs drop to the floor and rolled over to look at me. “They weren’t even interested in a baby,” she said. “But guess what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThey decided it would be nice to invite an orphan here for Christmas vacation. So they wrote to the orphanage and we heard yesterday. We’re going to have a girl. Eleven years old. She’ll arrive by boat three days before Christmas and stay through New Year’s.”
    â€œWhat’s her name?”
    â€œMillie.” Andrea screwed up her face. “Ugh.”
    I agreed that the name was not good. But an orphan! I’d like an orphan sleeping in my house and spending Christmas with me. “Maybe you could call her Lee for short,” I suggested.
    Later at supper Mrs. Hull told my mother about Millie’s coming. As soon as she was finished, I spoke up.
    â€œWhy couldn’t we ...” I began, but Mrs. Hull interrupted. She turned to my mother.
    â€œWe could share Millie,” she said. “She could go to your house for a few days in the middle of her stay. I expect Jean would like that.”
    That wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but still it sounded like a good idea. So it was settled that when the Hulls came to our house for Christmas dinner (which they always did), they would leave Millie with us for three days. (In my mind I was already calling her Lee. She’d be more like a sister, I decided, than a friend.)
    I was still thinking about Lee when we went to bed, although I didn’t usually bother with private thoughts when I was going to bed at Andrea’s. The Hulls believed in fresh air, so they had a sleeping porch where the whole family slept, winter and summer, with the windows wide open around three sides of the room. When I came for a visit, Mr. and Mrs. Hull slept in their own room and I used their bed. Sometimes before going to sleep, David and Andrea and Edward (who was only six) and I played Pioneer. We’d roll the beds into a semicircle and fight off the horse thieves. Sometimes we played War and lined up the beds for the wounded. Maybe because it was later than usual, tonight we didn’t play anything. Andrea got under the covers and began right away to shake her head from side to side on the pillow, which was the way she went to sleep. Sometimes she had to shake her head a long time but not tonight. I had decided that I was the only one awake when I saw David sit up.
    â€œJean?” he whispered. “You awake? I want to ask a favor.”
    I couldn’t imagine what David Hull could want of me. I did understand, however, that it wasn’t easy for him to ask. He was a pale, thin-faced, twitchy boy who, I had to admit, seemed out of place in the Hull family with their free and natural ways.
    â€œI want it to be a secret.” His whisper had turned hoarse.
    I got up, pulled a blanket off my bed, wrapped myself up, and went to sit on his bed.
    â€œYou know that Millie,” he said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, she comes from the same orphans’ home as I came from. And I was thinking. They must have records in the office of that place.” He was looking out the window and shivering as he talked.
    â€œWhy couldn’t she sneak into that office when she goes back after being here? Why couldn’t she find out about me?” He took such a big breath I could feel the favor coming.
    â€œThen she could write you. And you could tell me. That way, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have to know anything about it. You know how they are.”
    The whole idea sounded crazy. “David,” I said, “why do you care so much? What difference does it make?”
    He turned on me, his face fiercer than I’d known it could be. “How would you like it,” he hissed,