by Sarah Ellis
Dawn’s voice shrank and her glance wandered. She started to talk to herself. “Oh. Okay. I get it. He did this for me. He knew it would be hard for me with my parents and all that. So he’s letting me have some space.”
Charlotte bounced off the bed. Just like everybody else. How insulting. And stupid and dreamy was even worse than insulting.
She stood over the beanbag chair and tried to sound understanding.
“Dawn, listen. Tom Ed doesn’t like you that way. Believe me. I mean he likes you. He likes us both. Like you’d like a kid sister.”
Dawn, still gazing out the window, sighed. It was the sigh that did it.
“Maybe you’ve got a crush on him but it’s not Romeo and Juliet.”
Dawn’s head whipped around. “Crush! I thought you of all people would be on my side.”
“I am on your side but you’re not the reason Tom Ed left.”
It might all have gone another way if Dawn had just asked what was the reason that Tom Ed left. Charlotte had taken a breath to tell her.
But Dawn just rolled out of the beanbag chair and headed to the door.
“I’m out of here. Don’t phone me.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
The door slammed behind Dawn.
Charlotte yelled through the door. “And, by the way, his name is Tom Ed.”
Her throat was tight with tears. It wasn’t a very good yell.
* * *
Dinner that night was strange. James didn’t come home. Dad was working late. Uncle Claude was with the lumberjacks, likely not cooking stir-fry. And of course Tom Ed was gone.
Charlotte couldn’t remember a time when she and her mother had had dinner alone, just the two of them. They had cheese sandwiches and dill pickles.
It was tempting to tell her mother about the kiss and the fight with Dawn. It was tempting to just dump it all in her lap. But Charlotte couldn’t even imagine how to start. It was all way too complicated.
“He left in a hurry but he took time to buy chocolates.”
Mom nodded. “Yes, so well brought up. I’ll miss that boy. I liked the way he talked. Whenever I go to turn on a switch I think, “Fixin to turn the lat own.”
“Yeah. Water on the wind.”
“What’s that?”
“The smell of rain in Texas.”
Charlotte could feel Tom Ed already turning into a story, joining Lena and Frankie and Ludo and all the other guests who had come through their house. But she wasn’t ready to tidy him away. He was more than a story.
Fourteen
Charlotte flipped like a fish. The pillow was too flat, the sheets were too tight on her feet, her hair was itchy, somewhere outside her window was a drip.
Where was James? Flip. Did Tom Ed really just run away? Flip.
And Dawn. What did Tom Ed really say to her on that drive? Was she still going to do the presentation for O.O.? Did “don’t phone me” really mean don’t phone me? Did she even want to phone her? Was Dawn firing her as a friend? Double flip.
It was a hamster wheel of questions as Charlotte watched the blue glowing numbers on her Indiglo clock slide gently from one moment to the next.
2:46. Puff started to make a strange sound. In the glo of the Indiglo Charlotte thought she saw something small at the end of the bed — something Puff was throwing around.
Her body was faster than her mind, or at least faster than the part of her mind that flashed the word.
Mouse.
She was out of the bed and out of the room before she was thinking. She might have been squealing.
There was a light under James’s door. She knocked.
“Go away.”
“There’s something in my room.”
James opened the door. He was dressed.
“What?”
“Puff got it. It’s kind of dead but not quite.”
“Wait here.”
Charlotte waited by the door, peering into the half-dark as James went in.
“Puff! Give it here.” James picked up Puff and tossed her out the door toward Charlotte, then kicked the door shut.
“Reeeowwwww.” Puff returned to the door and started scratching, making a creepy ack-ack sound — a sound that was way too far into wild nature for Charlotte, who was afraid to even touch her.
There was scuffling and banging and then the door opened and James appeared with a Kleenex bundle in his hands.
“Okay now,” he said, heading down the stairs. “I’ll get rid of this.”
Charlotte hovered at the door of her room, her toes curling on the cold floor. James clumped up the stairs again.
“Done. Go back to bed.”
“What about if there’s mouse bits or mouse blood in my bed?”
“Oh, good grief,” said James. “Look. Take my room.”
It was like Charlotte’s feet were glued to the floor.
“Jamie? This morning, I mean yesterday morning. Behind the shed …”
His face snapped shut like a door. “Forget about it, Charlotte. It’s not your business.”
It was the hands on shoulders that did it. It was the steering push that he gave her toward his room.
James turned into everybody who was pushing her away or leaving her behind or disappearing. He was Tom Ed and Dawn and O.O. He was Serge the hairdresser and flute-Helen with her stupid “lines” and the whole army of teenagers marching in formation and all you could do was duck out of the way.
Her fist hit James’s nose with a crunch, felt and heard.
The last time Charlotte tried to hit James she was about six. He just held her at arm’s length and let her punch the air and roar with frustration. He laughed.
This time James gave a surprised “oof” and then leaned over and held his hand to his nose. Blood began to drip through his fingers.
“Jeez, Charlotte.”
The anger drained out of her in one giant whoosh.
What had she done? Here he’d saved her from a not-dead mouse and she’d slugged him.
Girl Guide first-aid kicked in.
“Lean forward. Pinch your nose. Keep up the pressure for ten minutes. I’ll get a towel.”
James waved her away. “I’ll deal. Just go to bed, Charlotte.”
He didn’t sound mad. He sounded tired, which was somehow worse. He went into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind him.
Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Charlotte stood in the hall with her throbbing hand tucked into her armpit. Puff looped around her legs.
James wasn’t coming out. She went into his room and slipped between the cold sheets.
* * *
Could things get worse? Charlotte tossed her pajamas into the laundry. Would this be the first day of her period? Of course it would. Her hand ached, her best friend hated her, she’d slugged her brother, her favorite teacher had been fired, the best house guest ever had disappeared and now this.
She stepped into the shower. Periods. She and Dawn thought the whole human reproduction thing was ridiculous. Why not just flip a switch or get a shot or something when you wanted a baby rather than getting ready for it every single stupid month?
At least, she and Dawn used to think this. Maybe now she thought this alone.
Why not just stay home? Mom would always write a note. You didn’t have to be sick. She said, “You have the whole rest of your lives for the tyranny of schedules.”
You just had to make sure you made up the work.
Except, no. Today was the hotdog fundraiser for the grade-seven grad trip to Rollerland. She told Monique she’d help.
Charlotte dried between her toes. All right. A plan for the day. Hotdogs and trying to mend things with Dawn.
Friend mend didn’t happen, though, because Dawn wasn’t at school. That was unusual because Mrs. Novak was
the opposite of Charlotte’s mom. In her rule book you were either in the Emergency department on life support or you were in school.
All morning Charlotte kept glancing at the empty desk. Was Dawn sick? Was she so sick that she’d miss the presentation? Or had she quit that already? Had she quit their friendship?
The day was a wash-out. In art her hand was too sore to hold the pastels. At the hotdog sale one of the mustard squeezers leaked onto her skirt. Three o’clock was a long time coming.
The phone rang just as she got in from school.
“Oh, Charlotte, I know this is short notice and I’m sure you’ve got something on, it being Friday and all, but we’re in a pickle. Don’s got this cocktail do. Did he tell me that wives were supposed to go? Not till today. I said to him, I said, ‘Don, if we can’t find a sitter why don’t we just take the kids? Children’s first cocktail party.’ Ha! Of course I’d rather not go at all because, well, I’ve told you about his boss, right? Such a chauvinist. So I’ll have to stand around and listen to bra-burning jokes. You know what that’s like …”
Charlotte didn’t actually know but she appreciated being talked to like an adult.
“… We’ll be home by seven.”
“Sure.”
“You are saving my life.”
When Charlotte arrived, the Seeley twins were already in matching baby-doll pajamas, teeth brushed. They were adorable.
“Aren’t they adorable?” said Mr. Seeley.
According to the Quintan Code this kind of praise for children should spoil them, but actually the twins were funny and sweet, brattiness score zero.
After three renditions of “Going on a Bear Hunt,” each version crazier than the last, the twins put themselves to bed in their pink flouncy beds and Charlotte went to check out the snacks.
The Seeleys were the best babysitting people. They paid fifty cents an hour more than the standard and they left excellent snacks. This time the tray held a bottle of Coke, a Mars bar, a little bowl of almonds and a cupcake.
Charlotte poured the Coke into a martini glass and turned on the TV. Color and cable. Bewitched? Carol Burnett Show? It was the perfect way to tune out the mess that everything had turned into.
Mrs. Seeley drove her home (“Don’s had a few”) and gave a full report on the cocktail party. “They were sweet-talking a potential client. He was one of those men who says ‘the wife.’ You know the kind. The car, the house, the aquarium, the wife. But I was good. I didn’t roll my eyes. Business is business. Oh, I just can’t wait to get out of this girdle.”
There was a police car in the driveway.
Charlotte’s mind leaped. Accident or crime. There was never a good reason to have a police car in the driveway.
“What the …” said Mrs. Seeley.
Charlotte was halfway to imagining herself an orphan when Dad appeared beside the car.
“Thanks, Joan. I was just about to phone.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No, it’s okay. Claire will call you later.”
The policeman was a woman. She was sitting with a notepad on her knee. Tom Ed’s goodbye letter was on the coffee table in front of her.
Had something happened to Tom Ed? Had he been arrested for being a draft dodger?
“It looks like Dawn is missing,” said Mom. “Officer Johnson hopes you can help.”
Missing what? Oh. Missing. Like teenage runaway. Charlotte pushed some papers off the chesterfield and sat down.
“So, Charlotte.”
On To Tell the Truth Charlotte would have guessed that Officer Johnson was a kindergarten teacher. She had a soft voice and red hair. But, was that a gun on her belt?
“When’s the last time you saw your friend Dawn.”
“Um. Yesterday after school. She came over. Left around five.”
Mom jumped in. “Didn’t you see her today?”
“No, she wasn’t at school.”
“The absentee reporting system apparently didn’t function at the school today,” said the officer. “The parents saw her in the morning but were not aware until after school that she was not in attendance. So, Charlotte. How did she seem yesterday? Normal? Upset about anything?”
Charlotte noticed that the officer had large feet. Oh, how could she possibly explain yesterday? She didn’t even really understand it herself.
“Charlotte?” Mom moved to sit beside her.
“We had a fight.”
“You did?” Mom moved even closer.
“What was the nature of this fight, Charlotte?”
Why did the officer keep saying her name?
“Honey,” said Dad. “We’re not looking to get Dawn in trouble. We just want to find her and make sure she’s safe.”
Safe? There were those scary runaway stories. Charlotte looked up from the police feet. “She …”
She just couldn’t quote Dawn. She couldn’t say, “meant to be together.” Even though it felt like a betrayal she had to use words that the adults would understand.
“She told me she has a crush on Tom Ed.”
“Ah,” said the officer, picking up the letter. “And that’s this individual, the draft dodger who was staying here?”
“Evader,” said Mom. “Draft evader.”
“Now, Charlotte, is there a chance that Dawn has run away to follow him?”
Charlotte could feel three pairs of eyes boring into her. She shrugged.
“She might’ve. She didn’t say anything to me but she might’ve.”
The officer tapped her pen on her notepad. “Have you girls ever hitch-hiked?”
“No!” The policewoman had the whole wrong idea of who they were. Or was Charlotte the one with the wrong idea of who Dawn was?
“Right. That’s it for now.” She folded Tom Ed’s letter into her notepad and stood up on her oversized feet. “And I’ll take this if I may. Thanks for your help, especially you, Charlotte. In these cases the first twenty-four hours are key. Here’s a direct number to call if you remember anything else or if Dawn gets in touch.”
“How long has this thing between Dawn and Tom Ed been going on?”
Dad had gone off to phone the Novaks and Mom was pacing around the living room running her hands through her hair.
There was no Thing. Even if there was a thing Charlotte didn’t know about it. She didn’t seem to know about anything. Everybody was keeping secrets. Everything she thought she knew was wrong.
“Stop asking me questions!”
Charlotte was not a yeller. Mom stopped dead in her tracks and Charlotte’s stomach took the yell as an invitation to get rid of the Coke and the cupcake and the Mars bar.
She just made it to the bathroom in time.
Then Mom was holding her head and giving her a warm facecloth.
“Oh, Charlie, I’m so sorry. No more interrogation. Promise. Come on, I’ll get you some ginger ale.”
The ginger ale trickled down Charlotte’s burning throat. Curled up on the chesterfield under a blanket she should have been sleepy, but there were still buzzing bees in her head.
Dad got off the phone. Dawn had left a note for her parents saying she was okay and that they shouldn’t worry.
“Which at least assured them that she hadn’t been kidnapped,” said Dad.
The police were trying to find out if Dawn was on a Greyhound bus but there were some fog issues in one of the mountain passes so they didn’t know yet. Mr. Novak was ready to drive up there as soon as there was any news.
“Let’s just hope that’s where she is,” said Mom. “Oh, Charlotte, if this was you … The Novaks must be beside themselves.”
“There’s not much else we can do this evening,” said Dad, heading toward the stairs.
How was it possible to be so tired but not one bit sleepy? “I’m going to stay up for a wh
ile.”
“Not too long,” said Mom.
Charlotte turned down the lights and made a nest of the afghan and a couple of pillows.
Dawn wouldn’t hitch-hike, would she? Nobody good was going to pick up a thirteen-year-old girl on the side of the highway and drive her to Nelson. Anybody good was going to phone the police and get her rescued. So that left bad people. Dawn would figure that out, wouldn’t she? If she was figuring things out at all.
She must have taken the bus. Charlotte thought about the bus station — a big, grubby, glaring place that smelled like pee. How much did a bus ticket to Nelson cost? How long did it take to get there? Wouldn’t she be there by now? If she wasn’t on the bus where was she, out in the night, not at home?
She shouldn’t have said crush. She said it to be mean, to put Dawn down. She was a bad friend.
There was no way to make a story when you didn’t have enough information.
Charlotte stared into the hall.
Just ring, for pete’s sake. Be somebody saying Dawn’s okay.
Pride and Prejudice was sitting on the coffee table. Escape to Jane Austen.
It was all there, of course. Chapter forty-six. Lydia, the silliest Bennet sister, a total teenager, runs away with this army guy, Wickham, who turns out to be a jerk. She thinks he’s going to marry her but he doesn’t have any intention of doing so. Mr. Darcy goes off to rescue her and then he pays Mr. Wickham to marry Lydia, which Wickham has to do because he had sex with her. When Lydia comes back you would think she would be totally embarrassed but instead she’s all “Neener, neener, neener, I got married before the rest of you. I win.”
Charlotte tucked the book beside her. It was the neener, neener thing. The way Dawn had started acting so superior.
But what was she doing, thinking bad thoughts about Dawn when her friend was missing and might be in bad trouble?
Thinking in circles. Trapped. She needed to move.
Charlotte found her runners and made her way down to the basement. Maybe she could just jog around the furnace. But there, in a corner half-hidden by boxes, was an exercise bicycle. Every so often somebody in the family would decide to keep fit and use it three times and then give up.
