“A little birdie told me it was good luck,” he whispered to me handing over the rabbit’s foot. I wrinkled my nose as I took it from him. The ratty, old rabbit’s foot as good luck? I never understood why he carried it and didn’t quite understand why he was giving it to me. I had always thought his habit of carrying the rabbit’s foot was really just to irritate our mother. She liked everything and Jake’s rabbit foot was anything but.
“But-” I started.
“But nothing,” he interrupted. He closed my hand around it and turned back to his dorm without another word.
I watched my brother wave to his roommate and disappear inside. He didn’t even look back to wave like usual. Tears started to fill my eyes and my heart started to race. What was he doing? Why was he giving his rabbit’s foot to me? I took a deep breath and turned back to my parents. Did they know what was going on? Why was everyone keeping me in the dark? My brother never gave up his lucky rabbit foot. He never let it out of his sight so I knew something was wrong.
I opened my mouth to ask if they knew what was happening, but before I could say anything my father threw his arm around my shoulders as we walked back to our car. My parents talked as if nothing was going on, that nothing happened. One week later my brother disappeared.
Standing Room Only 