"Jessi, Jessi, come watch Squirt!" called Becca.

Jessi was sponging off the table. "Becca, I've seen him walk." "Well, you haven't seen this. Please come here." "Okay." Jessi abandoned the sponge and crossed the room to her brother and sister.

Becca had set Squirt on the carpeted floor of the rec room and he stood there unsteadily. She backed away. "Okay, Squirtles," she said. "Come here!" She held out her hands. "Come here!" Squirt lurched toward Becca. As he walked, he cheered himself on. "Yea! Yea! Yea!" So that was what Becca had wanted Jessi to see. Jessi began to laugh. "Who taught him that?" "He did. I kept cheering for him when he was walking. Now he cheers for himself." "Group hug!" announced Jessi. She and Becca and Squirt moved together for a three-person hug.

After that, it was Squirt's bedtime. Jessi read him some nursery rhymes before he went to sleep. Squirt is too little to understand them, but Jessi thinks reading is important at any age. Then she let Becca read to her from Baby Island, and finally, when Becca was asleep, too, Jessi brought her copy of Sounder downstairs and curled up with it on the living room couch. Sounder is about a dog, but Jessi found herself thinking of Tigger the cat, wondering the same things I was wondering. What had happened to him? Was he safe? Was he hurt? If he was hurt somewhere, would we find him? And . . . where was he?

Chapter 8.

"Mary Anne, Mary Anne! My mom did it!" "Did what?" It was Sunday morning and I hadn't been awake very long. My brain was barely working. All I knew was that Kristy was on the other end of the line and she was very excited.

"She copied the posters!" said Kristy. "I've got the whole stack right here in my lap. So I'm on my way over. We can paper the neighborhood." I wanted to find Tigger more than anyone else did. But it was only eight-thirty in the morning. I wasn't dressed. And I had a pretty good idea that Claudia and Dawn weren't even awake.