• My mother says the equator turns at 1038 miles per hour. I dunno who Equator is, but he must be mighty strong to go off spinning 1038 miles every hour. My mother also tells me that my unseen daddy is like the equator, constantly in motion, never in one place for too long. Thats why I want to meet the Equator. I'd walk up to him real calmly and ask in a polite voice "Excuse me sir, have you seen my daddy?" and he'd turn and smile and point in the right way and then I'd run mighty quick to that place and bring my father back.My big brother Raymond says I'm stupid. My little sister Carly says Equator ain't a person. She's only 4, so she don't get much. She probably picked that rumor up from Milky Way, the biggest liar in the neighborhood. He's the biggest one out of all of us (he's 8 years old) , and all the little kids worship him. I think he's dumb, but if I said so he'd beat me up. That's why I keep my mouth shut.

    One day, we were playing tetherball outside and I saw a big man watching us. That got me real scared because one time my biggest sister Arianna told me this story where a little boy gets eaten by Watchers, who would watch a person for 3 days before eating them. This man was a Watcher too. He had lots of scars on his arms and a butterfly on his right hand and he was wearing a big hat like the kind you see in detective movies. I didn't like the way he was watching Carly either, so we both went inside and played Parcheesi.That man was still there the next day, so me and Carly stayed home and read Old Yeller for the fourth time. My mother seemed nercous too, but I don't know why. The Watcher only eat people they could see and he couldn't see us. That is, until she opened the curtains real wide, so we could see the man, still watching us.


    After that, the man left. One night, I woke up and could of sworn I heard talking, but I guess that was just a dream. Life went on as normal. Raymond graduated from high school and I went into the third grade. Guess what? The Equator really isn't a person! Carly started school and now she can write her name. Se wrote it on the living room wall a few weeks ago.

    One day, my mother pulled me aside while I was telling Carly about how I was gonna find my father. She kneeled and said "Daniel, do you remember the time on Thanksgiving when Carly got a wishbone and you didn't and you wanted seconds?" I nodded, wondering why she was talking about turkeys. "Well, your daddy is kind of like you. He's still out there, looking for seconds, because he missed his chance the first time. Now, I don't want you going out there and looking for him, because I don't think he wants you to find what he's looking for. I think it will make you very sad." I promised I wouldn't go she smiled and walked off.I don't get that analogy , but I do get something: wherever he is, my daddy still loves us, just like I still loved my firsts even though I wanted seconds. And maybe, someday, he'll come back to his firsts. Maybe, he'll find that they're even better than the seconds.