“He’s got a new sister and a new brother,” Father Finnegan said, cutting her off. “The kid doesn’t even try. In the morning, I’m going to throw that book of his in the trash before he breaks a mirror trying to get to La La Land.”
Danny didn’t listen to the rest. He went right to his narrow twin bed, fished out The Way to Rio Luna from under the covers, and hid it on a dusty shelf in the garage.
He hoped Father Finnegan would forget about it, and for a few days he did.
But then Father Finnegan surprised Danny and his foster siblings with a fishing trip. Danny had always wanted to go on a boat and imagine what a pirate might have felt like. But then Danny remembered that all the fishing supplies were in the garage, gathering dust from the winter. Before he had time to act, Father Finnegan found The Way to Rio Luna next to the box of fishing wire and hooks.
“What’s this?” Father Finnegan snatched up the book in his calloused fist.
Danny’s heart thundered against his rib cage. He lunged for The Way to Rio Luna, but the man was too tall and held the copy up in the air. “It’s just a book. It’s my book, please.”
“You have to be part of the real world, Danny,” his foster father said, deep lines crinkling his freckled brow. “This is what puts crazy ideas in your head.”
“Don’t call me that,” Danny said, but it was just a whisper. It was as if his voice was being turned off completely. His body shook as he waited to see what Father Finnegan would do next.
“Get in the car,” Father Finnegan said.
Danny filed in and ignored his foster siblings snickering. The girl said, “You’re in trouble.”
Then Danny watched as Father Finnegan strode past the car and to the row of garbage cans. Before he could think, Danny bolted out of the car and ran down the driveway.
“Please, don’t!” Danny shouted. “Please, it’s the only thing I have left—”
Father Finnegan held the book out of reach. He opened the lid to the metal garbage can. Danny jumped and reached and grabbed for it. He felt like a mad, wild whirlwind. Tears ran down his face.
“It’s for your own good,” Father Finnegan said, and he dropped the book into the trash.
Danny cried the entire way to the lake, and while he held his fishing pole. Girl Finnegan blamed his tears for scaring away the fish. They didn’t catch a single one. By the time they were ready to go back to the house, Danny’s eyes felt puffy and burned when he blinked.
Perhaps it was seeing Danny’s hurt, but Father Finnegan relented.
“Fine, if you’re going to be hysterical,” he said, and marched to the row of garbage cans. He wrenched the lid open, and Danny’s insides felt like a sputtering candle. The light blew out when they both realized that the cans were empty. It was trash day.
The Way to Rio Luna by Ella St. Clay, the only thing he had left of his sister, was long gone.
Mother Finnegan clucked around like an apologetic hen. She went to three bookstores, but Danny reminded her that it was out of print. He visited to the library, but none of the local branches carried it. It was as if the book had never existed.
But Danny remembered the stories. He tried to write them down from memory, but they never felt quite the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
When Danny decided to climb out the window and stand on the Finnegans’ roof, everyone blamed the stories about children flying on shadows and grabbing the tails of shooting stars.
Earlier that same day, Danny had been following the Finnegan kids back home from school (they didn’t much like walking next to him) when they passed a yard sale. He’d rummaged through the books, but the owner of the house only seemed to read books about serial killers. Then Danny noticed something better. In a bin of old unwanted doll parts and gravy boats was a jar labeled FAIRY DUST. It was only fifty cents, and as he frantically dug into his pocket, Danny discovered he had exactly fifty cents!
Danny had read all kinds of fairy tales and knew how rare and special fairy dust was. It didn’t matter if no one else believed him. Magic was real and it would lead him to Pili. He would prove it with his little bottle of yard sale fairy dust.
When night fell and everyone in the Finnegan home had gone to sleep, Danny found his way out onto the roof. He held the small bottle against his heart. Just a sprinkle of the glittering powder would do, and he could be well on his way. It didn’t matter that he was an orphan who never quite fit into the puzzles of families he was shoved into. The place where he was going was full of orphans just like him. Pili would be there, too.
Danny stood on the rooftop. He could hear crickets and the hoot of an owl, and from the room inside, the soft snores of a family who would be relieved in the morning when he wasn’t there.
The moon was full, and so big it looked like it had been pulled closer to the earth by a lasso. Everyone said that if you looked at the moon, you could see a face. Danny did not see a face, no matter how long he stared. Maybe when he got closer, he’d be able to figure it out. He searched for the second star, but there were so many out there. How was he going to find the right one? It was like staring into a field of fireflies, twinkling and blinking and vanishing and reappearing. Before he could panic, he picked the biggest one, closest to the moon. He uncorked the glass vial. He turned the tube over his head and let the fairy dust fall over his hair.
Then he waited.
He waited for a feeling. Something that said, You can fly!
He waited for a long time.
So long that the stars even started to shift and move positions, and he had to search for the second star all over again. But the feeling never came. Danny was sure that when someone was sprinkled with fairy dust, they glowed with magic. They glowed like a star themselves. He just needed to believe harder.
So he closed his eyes and took several steps back. He focused on the stars in the sky, and the bulbous moon, and the dust that tickled his scalp and skin. He thought of Pili.
Danny broke into a run and he jumped.
EVEN WHEN HIS ARM was bandaged and broken in three places, Danny believed.
The Finnegans took him to the hospital, but he knew he was really in trouble when Mrs. Contreras came to see him. Everywhere he turned, adults surrounded him like giants, asking, “Danilo Monteverde! What were you thinking?”
Danny hated when they used his full name. Only Pili was allowed to call him that, and she wasn’t here. To everyone else he was simply Danny. The problem with being small and nine years old and alone was that no one listened to him. But he couldn’t lie. Pili taught him to always tell the truth.
He said, “I was trying to find her.”
Mrs. Contreras had been Danny’s social worker for years. She had thick, curly hair that was brown as tree bark, and skin like fresh coffee with steamed milk. She’d never had any kids but said all those she cared for were like her own. Danny always wanted to ask, “Then why don’t you adopt us?” But there were so many of them. Danny had once tried to count how many kids had been in his group home, but it was like counting grains of sand or blades of grass. He’d trip up on the numbers and have to start over. The grown-ups called it the System. He hated the way that sounded. It was like he was being sent to a dark, terrible part of a hospital with no windows or doors. The System.