Dear Numbuh Four,

So here is where you've been, the whole time that I've called and called and called your name.

!

Calling and calling until I remembered that you don't like it when I call you that. I'm sorry, Numbuh Four; to be scared is a very terrible thing. Fear brings your heart to a flutter and your knees to a tremble. Your lungs shudder as if they are trying to suck in the whole sky. I was very scared, Numbuh Four. Even more scared than I am of the awful things that slither in my closet.

I ran everywhere. I flew so fast that I thought that my feet might tear through the sidewalk, my legs rippling the concrete stream. I called and I called and I called: I called for you until your name melted into a puddle of tired sounds, tired sounds that leaked over my chilled lips.

.

I looked everywhere that I could think of, but you were nowhere. Not in the treehouse, with your eyes angry and your fists angrier. Not in the corner store, with your tiny head stuck in one of your silly boy-comics. Not at the candy shop, with your mouth overflowing with sweets. Not at your house. Not at the park. Nowhere. My knees were suddenly rubber. There were tears, floods of salt bursting from my sticky eyes. I was all alone. Standing with the sun slipping down my back. Lonely as bad as loneliness can get. Sobbing on the shadowed concrete. But that was yesterday. Before I found out where you'd gone to.

It's a very pretty day today, Numbuh Four. I have shaken your shoulders and whispered to you with the gentlest words, but you still haven't answered. You just lay like a stone on your hospital bed.

Can you see? Can't you see?

Look at the sun, today, Numbuh Four: golden like the most precious thing. The wind trembles the leaves, and I hear a hissing like a thin crystal surf on the sand. There is a bitter wind out today. As I was racing to the hospital to see you yesterday, the wind slammed shivers like daggers into my skin. Ice swirling in my hair and in my ears. Flowing across my face like winter. Did I tell you about the trees? They are flushed with color, crisp as an apple's skin under my sneakers. Autumn is passing away.

I'm sorry that you can't see it.

The doctor says that you are sleeping and can't see anything through closed eyelids.

I am leaving you with Mr. Mopsy. He is tucked in next to you, snuggling under your covers. I know that you don't like him much, but he will keep you company. Whisper nice things into your ears. I hope that you can hear him, Numbuh Four, even if you can't hear me. Maybe when you finally raise your head from your mushroom pillow, you might read my letters and see what you couldn't before. Autumn is passing away.

Your friend,

Numbuh Three