Brother Gone Astray(Kristen Higgenbottom Hunt) I always told my annoying little brother to stay close to me whenever we are in public. I never lost him before. On a hot Memphis day in July, our church took a bus full of children to the historic National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. I was about 11 years old and my brother was five.

I saw this trip as an opportunity to hang out with my friends, not to baby-sit this brat who has magic legs.

"He's your little brother, you're all he has and he looks up to you, my mom said.

"Yeah right," I replied.

As we got to the ticket booth he ran out of line! I managed to run and grab his left hand which appeared to be sticky all of the sudden. I looked a few feet away and there was a candy wrapper with smeared chocolate all over it on the ground. How aggravating! When we got our tickets from the church counselor, I hauled my brother to the bathroom to wash his hands. As we left the bathroom, the counselor wanted to divide the kids by age group during the museum tour.

I sighed and kneeled down to my brother and said, "Please don't get lost and stay with your group, okay?"

He smiles and says "Okay!" He jumped in excitement and went with his age group. I told myself that even if he's out of my protection, I need to try to keep an eye on him.

About an hour later, my age group was looking at the sanitation workers strike display. I looked over and saw the five-to-seven-year-old group at the Lorraine Motel room display in front of us, but I did not see my brother. I felt a rumble at the pit of my stomach and my temperature felt like it went up 10 degrees. I jumped out of line in a panic to find him. I never lost him before. I looked around the entire second floor and he was no where to be found. I took the stairs back down to the first floor and my heart began to beat normally. There he was, sitting in a chair in the gift shop crying. I stared at him for a second, and then walked towards him. When he saw me, he ran to me and hugged me which was something he never did before.

I assured him that everything is going to be fine and he looked up at me and said, "I got lost because you weren't with me."

I stood back and smiled at him. I had no idea how much of an impact I had in his life that hasn't really begun yet at the age of five. He started to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.

I took his tiny hand and said, "Come on, let's go finish the tour."

---