A Friend at Midnight by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

himself.
    He had to find those escalators. He stumbled past the gift shop, but it was not the gift shop he remembered. It had stuffed animals on display, but different ones. I’m lost, he thought. I missed Lily’s plane and I’m in the wrong place.
    The gift shop was entirely open to the hall, and right in front was a little display wagon filled with teddy bears. One of them looked a little like York. Michael could not help touching its pitching arm, and then he could not help lifting it out of the rack, and then he could not help hugging it.
    A woman yelled at him from her cash register. “Hey!” she yelled. “You stealing that?”
    â€œI’m just holding it,” he whispered.
    The woman stomped over to him.
    A security guard stomped over to him.
    Michael could not seem to stop holding the bear. He could not seem to give it back to the woman.
    â€œWhat’s your name, son?” said the officer.
    I’m not a son, thought Michael. Sons have fathers.
    The woman folded her arms and glared at Michael while the officer said, “Where are your parents?”
    He remembered Baggage Claim, the absolute necessity to get there. His head throbbed, the phone number that he had learned wrong hammering inside his head. I’m a thief, he thought. My father doesn’t want me. I don’t have York. “I’m waiting for my sister,” he said weakly, and he looked down the great concourse as if she would be there and he saw that not only were the passengers and the crews and the workers and the guards rushing to meet planes, they were all pausing to stare at him, the little boy caught shoplifting.
    From far away came a voice as high and clear as a piccolo. “Miikooooo! Miikooooo!”
    Hurtling among knees and suitcases came his little brother, legs churning, arms out. Michael set the stolen bear on the little wagon and went to his knees and Nathaniel flung himself on Michael and Michael knew what it was to be loved completely and without judgment and without thought or knowledge.
    Lily was screaming at him from down the hallway. “I was on time!” she yelled. “I was
here
! I couldn’t
find
you! I thought you were lost! I thought something awful happened! Where have you been! What are you doing! How could you scare me like that?”
    Lily was as tall as the policeman. In only two and a half weeks, Michael had lost track of stuff like that. She looked old and angry. She had Nathaniel’s tote bag and Michael thought, Bet she’s got food. He was suddenly starving to death.
    â€œYour brother was stealing this bear,” said the stuffed animal woman.
    â€œI was just holding it,” he told Lily. “I held it too long. Lily, I didn’t—”
    â€œWe’ll buy the bear,” said his sister to the woman. “I’m sorry he upset you. He was wrong. All of us are wrong. I even gave him the wrong cell phone number so he couldn’t let me know what was happening. It’s my fault. How much does the bear cost?”
    â€œOh, forget it,” said the woman, irritably. “Just go! He didn’t hurt the bear. I can still sell it.”
    â€œ
I
wanna bear,” said Nathaniel hopefully.

    Michael with a paper bag of fast food and Nathaniel with the bear (Lily figured one more charge on the credit card wouldn’t make a difference) went separately through security and were the first to board. They stared out the window at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
    Nathaniel fell asleep in Michael’s lap, chubby legs spread apart, face buried on Michael’s skinny chest. His little mouth hung open. He wasn’t swallowing in his sleep and Michael’s chest was getting wet.
    â€œWhat do we tell Mom?” whispered Michael.
    Lily hated all this whispering, as if Michael’s lungs had been dented. “You tell Mom you missed us,” she suggested. “It wasn’t any fun down there and you wanted