Maple Sugar Moon by John Raymond Weber - HTML preview

Chapter Nine

Douglas gave the jar to Scot and he turned it in his hands. “This isn’t possible.”

“I know.” Douglas rapped the jar with his knuckles. “But there it is. It’s still warm.”

Walking home, the boys passed the jar back and forth and discussed the clues they had, but still couldn’t decide if they had been to Vermont or not. The score was tied between reality and dreaming.

Scot said, “By the way, how did you know that was our tree. They all looked alike to me.”

Douglas smiled. “They did to me, too. But I wasn’t looking for the tree. I was looking at the tracks in the snow. Our tree was the only with footprints coming from the tree and no footprints going to the tree.”

“I never thought of that clue. I’m sure glad you figured it out. I was getting worried.”

At the small stream they had to cross to get home, the water had risen from the rain and the rocks they had used for steppingstones to get across were underwater.

Scot looked at the rushing water. “Great. Now how are we going to get across?”

“Let’s just wade.”

“I’m not taking my shoes and socks off. There might be sharp rocks and junk in there.”

“I know and I’m not either. My shoes are already soaked from walking through the wet grass. Going through the creek won’t make them any wetter.”

Douglas waded into the water, firmly gripping the jar in one hand and holding his other arm out for balance. Scot shrugged and followed him across. On the other side, they crossed a meadow near the edge of town.

Squishing along in wet shoes, Scot said, “You know what? It doesn’t matter if it was real or not.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Because we know it happened. That’s enough. It’s our memory and it won’t matter to anyone else.”

“You’re right. Even if we told someone, they wouldn’t believe us—jar or no jar. Since Grandpa P won’t talk to anyone but us, we don’t have any way of proving it.”

Douglas held up the jar. They looked at each other grinning, slapped hands in a high five and said at the same time, “But we know.”