On Thursday I try not to think about Adam. I take my walk into town. I paint with Dad in his studio. I lie on my bed and read a library book. I help Cookie in the kitchen. Finally I realize that I miss Adam. So I feel a happy flutter in my stomach when I hear him come whistling up our front walk late that afternoon. I run outside to meet him.

"Ho, ho, and good afternoon, Hattie," says Adam. He's all dressed up, wearing a too-small summer suit with a lime green bow tie and a broad black felt hat, so I think he's expecting to see Angel again. But he doesn't ask about her. Instead, he plops down in a porch chair, crosses one leg over the other, regards me seriously, and says, sounding as if we might be in a business meeting, "Very well. You shared one of your secrets with me, Hattie Owen. Now I'll share one of mine with you."

"Okay," I reply, trying to catch up with Adam. Sometimes I feel that he is miles ahead of me.

"Give me a date, Hattie, any date," says Adam.

"A date?"

"Yes. A month and a day and a year. January seventh in the year nineteen fifty-two, for example."

I think for a moment. Then I say, "Okay. September sixteenth, nineteen forty-one."

"Tuesday," says Adam promptly.

"What do you mean?"

"September sixteenth nineteen forty-one was a Tuesday."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. It's in my head."

"Are you sure you're right?"

"Positive. You can look the date up. Give me another one. A date you know." Well, I happen to know what day of the week Cookie was born on, so I give Adam Cookie's birth date.

"Saturday," says Adam.

"That's right!"

Adam is grinning like a Halloween pumpkin.

"You can really do this with any date at all?"

"Absotively."

"How come it's a secret?"

Adam leans forward and whispers loudly, "Because Mother says it's a circus trick and it's embarrassing and it must be kept in the family. The bosom of the family, I might add, although Mother didn't say that."

No, I can't imagine Nana saying "bosom" under any circumstances.

"So there you have it," says Adam, settling back in his chair and looking satisfied.

I have missed something. "What?" I say.

Adam's eyes grow unfocused. He glances away, then back to me, then away again. "My little corner of the universe," is all he will say.