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Charlie wasn’t supposed to be on the bed and he knew it but when Emmie called, he came. He might be kind of bad about wanting to chew her Dora shoes, but he was a pretty good dog besides that. Emmie threw her arms around his furry neck and buried her face in his ruff, breathing in his warm, doggie scent.
Before Grandma had waked her up, being so loud, she had been dreaming again—a dream of the Daddy-man, as tall as a tree with eyes that were two different colors. But both eyes had looked sad in her dream, almost like the Daddy-man had been crying because he missed her and Mommy so much.
Emmie sniffed when she thought of it. Why couldn’t Mommy see that the Daddy-man was good? She knew he had done some bad things in the past but he would never hurt Emmie, any more than her real daddy would. And now both her daddies—her real one and the Daddy-man—had been sent down the river.
If I could only find them I could bring them back, Emmie told herself. If I could only get to the river…
Then she remembered that she knew where the river was now. In fact, it started not far from their trailer and led into the woods.
A sudden thought occurred to her—why shouldn’t she go down the river herself and get her daddies? Mommy wouldn’t go—she wouldn’t believe Emmie that Daddy-man was really good in his heart—like an apple that has some bumps and bruises on the outside but is sweet and juicy on the inside. But Emmie bet if she could bring the Daddy-man back, then Mommy would have to talk to him again and then she would see how good he was.
“I’ll do it!” Emmie whispered in the darkness. Not wanting to wait, she climbed out of bed at once and slipped her feet into her slightly-Charlie-chewed Elmo slippers. Charlie himself whimpered softly and jumped off the bed to stand beside her.
“Come on, Charlie—but be quiet. Shhhh.” Emmie put a finger to her lips and shushed the excitable dog. She grabbed her little pink flashlight that Grandpa Bud had given her to keep by her bed in case she got scared and opened the door as quietly as she could. She had to make sure not to wake Mommy, whose room was right next to hers.
She thought about trying to leave a note, but though she could read, she wasn’t really great at writing yet. And besides, she would probably find the Daddy-man and bring him back before Mommy even woke up. So what was the point of a note?
Emmie snuck out into the living room and Charlie came with her, both of them padding softly over the carpet. Trying to stay as quiet as possible, Emmie snuck over to the trailer door.
This was the only problem—the trailer had a clicky-lock on the doorknob that was easy enough to open. But there was also a bolt way-high-up—lots higher than Emmie could reach—and it was always locked at night.
But tonight, it was like everything was working just right for her. The big bolt was unlocked and in fact, even the little bottom clicky-lock was open. Emmie had no problem at all turning the knob and letting herself and Charlie out of the house.
There were stars overhead and the moon was bright too—that was nice. The air was hot and sticky and humid but since Emmie had been born in Florida, it just felt like a normal night to her.
Once she was a safe distance from the trailer, she turned on her pink flashlight and shone it around until its thin beam caught on the little trickle of water that came out of the woods.
“There it is,” she told Charlie who was panting quietly beside her. “There’s the start of the river. Now all we have to do is go down it, into the woods, and we’ll find the daddies—maybe both or maybe just the Daddy-man. But that would be okay, right?”
Charlie whuffed quietly as though in agreement.
“All right,” Emmie told him. “Then come on—let’s go.”
Taking a deep breath, she stepped in the soft ground by the side of the little trickle of water and started following it. When she got to the tangle of branches and vines her heart started to pound and for a minute she was afraid. But then she remembered a story she’d read in school about a mouse name Ralf who lived in a hotel.
Ralf made friends with a human boy and then the boy got sick and his parents couldn’t get him any medicine. Ralf knew where the medicine was but it was far away, across the hotel and past lots of mean humans and mouse traps and a big, scary cat. But Ralf had gone anyway and gotten his friend the medicine, even though he was afraid.
