He dug past a few more miscellaneous items, setting them on the floor beside him—keychains, plastic cups with faraway city names printed on them in shiny block letters, bead bracelets, an antique admission ticket to a carnival in New Jersey—until he found the faded postcard. His parents had sent it from Norway, just a few days before the accident. Like the box, the edges of the postcard were frayed, and the ink had smeared in some places, but Adam already knew the message by heart.
Dear Adam,
Hello from Norway! We hope all is well back home. Uncle Henry left us a message at our hotel to tell us you won second place in the kindergarten egg-and-spoon-race derby! We’re so proud of you.
We miss you and can’t wait to be back next Tuesday. Someday when you’re older, we’ll take you on these trips with us. Soon you’ll be as tired of airplanes as we are! (Though they’re certainly more ordinary and predictable than other forms of travel, shall we say?)
No matter where or when or how, we want to do all the good we can in the world. It’s such a big, amazing place full of wonders. And you never know which of these wonders are in store for you, or what you might find!
Love,
Mom and Dad
Adam would never sell any of his parents’ personal belongings, of course. But neither did he like to look at them for too long. He started to place the postcard back in the box. Then he did a double take.
Underneath the postcard, wedged next to an atlas, was a snow globe. Adam vaguely remembered seeing it displayed on the topmost shelf of his parents’ bookcase in their old apartment.
The snow globe looked like an ordinary snow globe, the glass sphere a little bigger than a grapefruit, and glued onto a square wooden base. However, unlike most snow globes, the inside of the glass was clear and blank. It contained only a layer of confetti snow—nothing else. On the corner of the base was a small engraving of a compass rose.
Adam remembered the uncanny stranger in the raincoat who had shown up with his own snow globe a week ago. Go up to the attic, he had instructed Adam.
Nonsense, Adam fumed. It doesn’t mean anything. The man was a lunatic.
He was bitter at himself for even thinking of the man in the raincoat, who had correctly guessed Speedy was about to die. Earlier that week, Uncle Henry had prepared an empty egg carton for Speedy’s funeral. “A dead mouse can’t feel the cold,” his uncle had said in a failed attempt to comfort him.
They’d buried the mouse in the dumpster out back, since they didn’t have a yard.
Adam placed the rest of his parents’ keepsakes back inside the box. He gathered the tools, candelabra, and old curtains he’d found for Uncle Henry into a duffel bag, slung the strap over his shoulder, and started to climb back down the ladder.
But then, for some reason he couldn’t explain, Adam stopped. He set down his bundle and went back to his parents’ box.
The next time he made his way to the ladder, he had the snow globe with him.
Downstairs, the bakery was devoid of customers. Adam placed the bag of items from the attic on the counter, right above the untouched rows of breakfast pastries that were slowly going stale.
Uncle Henry was in the kitchen. “Did you find anything?” he called through the window, to which Adam held up the candelabra in reply.
His uncle came over with a batch of mouse-shaped frosted sugar cookies. “Here, I made these for you. You’ve been glum all week.”
Adam knew they were meant to cheer him up about Speedy. For his uncle’s sake, he pretended to enjoy a piece of mouse tail, even though he didn’t feel like eating anything. They chewed in silence. His uncle cleared the plates.
“All right, I’m heading out,” said Uncle Henry. He hung the CLOSED sign on the bakery door, then picked up the bag of items Adam had gathered. “This is everything, right?”
“Wait!” Adam jumped up and removed the snow globe from the duffel. “Not this.” He placed the snow globe on the counter.
After Uncle Henry left, Adam went back to his cramped bedroom. There wasn’t a lot to do at home, especially now that he no longer spent his free time teaching Speedy new tricks. He sat for a while and tried to read the new book he’d borrowed from the library, but there was a paragraph about talking mice, so he tossed that aside. He doodled on a piece of paper, but soon his circles and zigzags connected into a head, and then into the body of a cartoon mouse, as if his hand had a mind of its own. In frustration, he crumpled up the paper.
Adam didn’t like to admit it, but in particularly lonely moments like this, he wished he had at least one friend. A friend who was a real person, just like him—someone to swap stories and joke with, the way other sixth-graders did.
He sat in his room until the empty silence, without the usual scratching noises Speedy made, became unbearable. He shuffled back downstairs, looking for something to distract himself.
Outside, the early afternoon sun hung lazily behind puffy autumn clouds. The first brittle leaves had begun to litter the sidewalk. Adam decided to sweep the leaves from the front of the store—a boring task, but his uncle would appreciate it.
First, though, a quick snack.
The croissants behind the counter still looked fresh enough. Adam started to reach for one with raspberry jelly. He halted.
On the counter, the snow globe had changed. The glass dome was no longer empty, but contained a tiny, snow-covered city.
Adam examined the snow globe. The cityscape within looked just like New York. He thought of J.C. Walsh’s snow globe again.
Great things await you. Fantastic things.
Adam batted away the voice. He
