Girl Across the Water
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turning them face-down, a guilty expression on his face like
he’d been caught doing something bad. Then I noticed his
eyes. They were red and watery. Had he been crying?
“Hey,” I said, turning away to open a cupboard and
rummage around for food. Everyone deserves a chance to
cover up if they’ve been caught crying.
I grabbed a granola bar, and couldn’t help noticing
that the snack food had diminished considerably in the
three days we’d been here. Which meant I should pick
some up in town… I’d need more supplies to take to the
girl.
“So, um, what did you see at the end of the lake?”
Jasper asked.
“End?” I asked, and then quickly recovered. “Oh,
right. Not much. It’s all trees and rocks.”
“Oh. Did you stick to the shore? On this side? Or did
you go down the middle?”
I raised my eyebrows. Why was he so interested?
“Those other islands looked kinda cool,” he added.
“Oh, right. No, I didn’t check them out.”
This seemed to worry him. He screwed up his face,
and under the table his feet bounced up and down. He was
covering the photos with his elbows. What was up with
him?
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“Oh. I thought you might.” He shuffled around again.
“Well, um, maybe we can do that tomorrow.”
This was really strange: Jasper’s prerogative so far
had been to avoid doing anything that involved exercise
unless he was forced to or guilt-tripped into it. Maybe he’d
been feeling lonely today. This made me look around and
realize, “Hey, where’s my Dad?”
“Um, he drove into town. Said he had to send some
faxes or something.”
“Dammit!” I slammed the cupboard door shut.
“What? What’s wrong?” Jasper looked panicked.
“Nuts! I wanted to go into town today. Now how will
I get there?” I was almost shouting. “Why did he go
without telling me? He could have waited till I was back.”
“Um... cause... you said you’d be out all day?”
I stood there glaring until I realized Jasper was right.
This didn’t solve my problem, though. Now, I’d have to wait
until tomorrow to go into town. But was it really okay to do
that? The situation could be urgent. “When did he leave?” I
asked.
“Not long ago. Fifteen minutes, maybe?”
I swore loudly. I’d just missed him, then. “Did he say
if he’d be long?”
“Um, no. Didn’t say.”
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Drat! Two options now faced me: either walk into
town and hope Dad wasn’t already on his way back —
although he’d probably turn around and give me a ride if I
met him — or walk in and hope to find him somewhere so
that I could get a ride back.
It was a fifteen minute drive into town, which made
it... I groaned. A long walk. Why couldn’t we have bikes
here?
“Do you need something?” Jasper asked, alarmed by
my behavior.
“What? Oh, yeah. Ah... fishing... stuff.”
“You don’t fish.”
“Right. Well, thought I might start.”
“Then we can go into town tomorrow, right? I’ll come
with you, and I can buy some more comics, too.”
With Jasper accompanying me, it would be a lot
more difficult to accomplish what I needed. This decided it
for me: “I’m going to walk in. I could do with some more,
uh, exercise.”
Jasper’s expression grew even more panicked. “Um,
you know what? I think maybe I have enough comics. You
don’t still want me to come with you, do you?”
#
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I set off at a fast pace. I needed to hustle if I wanted
to make it into town before Dad left. Otherwise, I wouldn’t
have much time to get things done.
The road through the woods seemed hotter than the
path, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere near the
neighbor’s place. When I passed their driveway, I glanced
down it, and saw a brown car parked behind the GMC. At
first I didn’t think much of it, but then slowed my steps and
came to a halt. Could it be someone looking for the girl?
Could someone — the girl’s family, for instance— have
driven up from town to ask if anyone had seen her?
If that was what it was, then they’d go to our cabin
next, and I didn’t want to miss them. The neighbors
wouldn’t be able to tell them anything, nor would Jasper.
Should I had to wait and see if they came out the
neighbors’ place and headed for our cabin?
But time was ticking by for me to get into town, and
if it was just some friend of the neighbors…
It was hard to imagine ‘Pa’ with friends, especially
out here, so I turned back and jogged down their driveway,
squeezing between the vehicles and an overgrown
blackberry bush.
The rust-haired girl was standing the yard, and when
she saw me, she bolted for the cabin, hollering “Pa!
Visitor! ” at the top of her lungs.
You already have a visitor, I thought. I heard
scuffling and scraping sounds from inside the cabin, like
kitchen chairs were being pushed around, and Pa stepped
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out onto the porch. “Stop right there!” he said. “You’re
trespassing!”
I stopped in my tracks, surprised. He’d been
unfriendly before, but not this unfriendly. “Um, I just came
to… say hi.” I couldn’t think of a good lie.
“You already did.”
“Well, I came to invite the kids over tonight,” I shot
back, feeling ticked off now. Why was the guy being such a
jerk?
“I’ll let them know. We’re busy right now.”
I crossed my arms and stood there defiantly. “You
have visitors?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just wondering if…” My defiance faded as I
scrambled for excuses. If the visitor was someone asking
about the girl, surely they’d come outside at the sound of
voices so they could ask about her. “…if your visitors are
heading back into town soon, ‘cause I really need a ride.”
“They’re staying for lunch.”
“Oh.”
I waited another second, trying to think of
something else, while ‘Pa’ glared me down. It couldn’t be
anyone searching for her, then. Seeing as the whole family
was so rude and hostile, I decided I didn’t have to make
any polite excuses: I just left.
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I ran back up the driveway again and continued
down the path, keeping up a steady jog. By the time I
reached T-junction where the lake road met the road into
town, I was sweating and had a stitch in my side. I stopped
to stretch out the stitch before turning and heading down
the main road.
/>
This was even hotter. There was no shade at all, and
the sun reflected back off the pavement, hitting me with
heat. My shoulders were soon drenched in sweat. I wished
I’d worn my sports tank-top with the air vents.
No sidewalk bordered the road, so I had to run along
the verge, stopping every time I heard a car or truck and
turning to make sure they saw me. It was tempting to hitch
into town, but my Dad would throw a fit if he found out.
To my surprise, I made it into town in half an hour. I
pulled my watch off, shaking sweat off the band, and
quickly headed for the shade of a building.
The ‘business section’ of town consisted of two
blocks of stores, single-story offices, and diners, before all
the houses started. I decided to wander the few streets
here, looking for notices, before doing anything else. The
grocery store might have a bulletin board, so I headed
towards it, my body reveling in the coolness as I stepped
through the automatic doors. I wandered over to where
there was, sure enough, a big cork board. Posted on it were
a couple of real estate ads, requests for recycled items,
notices for things like church events and a Boy Scout
garage sale... no missing girl.
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My sweat-drenched shirt was beginning to chill in the
cold air, so I decided to buy a bottle of Coke and a Mars bar
and head back outside.
The checkout girl was really cute — she had blonde
hair pulled back in a pony-tail and golden-brown eyes that
sparkled, making me want to grin. I did, and she smiled
back. Since there was no one else around, I decided she’d
be a good person to ask about the locals.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Paul, I’m staying up at one of the
cabins on the lake.”
“I’m Mandy.” She rang through my Coke and candy
bar, then tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear before
glancing back up at me. “Yeah, I know those cabins.
They’re empty most of the year. Sometimes we break in
and have parties.” Her smile made me wish I could be here
for the rest of the year and go to one of those parties to
meet up with her.
“So, you know most people in town?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say know them all. But working
here...” She gave a resigned smile and a shrug. “I definitely
see ‘em all.”
“Great!” This was better than I'd expected. “I mean,
it’s just that... I’m trying to find out about the people in the
other cabin.” I leaned forward and rested my palms on the
counter, trying to grin at her and look attractive until I
remembered my sweaty T-shirt, and stood back up.
Mandy jutted out her lip while she thought. “I’m not
sure I know them... what do they look like?”
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“Well, the Dad’s pretty big. Looks like a redneck
from a movie.”
She laughed at this. “You'll have to narrow it down
more, in this town.”
“No, seriously,” I said. “Trucker hat, T-shirt with
sleeves cut off, beer gut. The kids are two boys, twins,
about ten years old—”
This made her roll her eyes. “Oh yeah, I remember
those two all right. I had to keep an eye on them while I
was ringing up all the food, 'cause they were all over the
place trying to shoplift candy. I don’t know why they
bothered ― their dad bought so much junk food, it should
last them a month. Probably doing it for kicks. Anyway, the
dad bought a ton of food, so they must’ve been stocking
up. I haven’t seen them since.”
“Oh, wow, great. So... there’s also a girl, about
twelve, kinda scrawny with curly red hair. Orphan Annie
style, but she has this way-pissed-off expression.” Mandy
smiled at this, tucking back the piece of hair that had
slipped out again. “But what I’m trying to find out is... you
wouldn’t happen to remember if there was anyone else with
them? Another kid, that is? I wasn’t sure how many of
them there were.”
While she considered this, I noticed she was wearing
some kind of sparkly lip gloss. This was way too distracting;
I had to focus.
“No, there wasn’t anyone else.”
“You sure?”
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“Yeah. Trust me, I’d have noticed, the way they
were all over that candy.”
Oh. Well, that cleared that up.
“Okay. Hey, one more thing... you wouldn’t happen
to know about any missing kids around here?”
She blinked in surprise. “No. If there were, it
would’ve been in the paper.”
“You guys have a paper?”
“Yeah. Well, just a little one, a weekly. Oh right, so it
wouldn’t be in there yet. But I’d have heard for sure. News
travels fast around here. It’s a small town. And a missing
kid… that would be huge.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I tried for another grin. “A lot.”
Mandy smiled back again then looked down, toying with
one of the cash register buttons. “Ah... unfortunately I
have to get going...” I said. We gave each other hopeful
looks. “...so maybe I’ll see you around some time?”
“Hope so,” she said, and it was with sparkly eyes in
my mind and regret in my heart that I left the store.
The next step, I figured, would be to head to the
police station, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. How
would I ask without giving it all away?
When I walked through the doors, a female officer
with brown eyes and chin-length, wavy brown hair looked
up from her desk.
“Hi there,” I said.
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“Hi, can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah, I was just wondering something. This
may be nothing, but it’s been bugging me.. when we were
driving up to our cabin a couple days ago, I noticed a little
girl walking along the side of the road by herself. It was
pretty far from town. I know it’s a few days ago now, but I
keep wishing we’d stopped to ask if she was okay. So, ah,
there’s no kids gone missing or anything like that, is
there?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No, but that sure was nice
of you to check. What did she look like, anyway?”
“Oh, um... dark hair in two braids, white sundress,
and maybe eight or nine years old.”
The officer tapped her fingers on the desk, but
lightly, like she wasn’t particularly worried. “Doesn’t sound
like anyone I know. If anyone’s gone missing, I’m sure it
would have been reported right away. But thanks for
asking, we really do appreciate things like that. Listen, can
I get your name and number just in case anything were to
come up?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s Paul VanDerMere, and we’re up
at the lake, in the second cabin. There’s no phone there, so
I’ll give you my Dad’s cell, except the reception kinda
comes and goes. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.”
After she’d jotted down the number, I turned to
leave. Beside the door, a glass-covered bulletin board
caught my eye. Pinned to it were lots of newspaper articles,
some older-looking than the rest, all relating to the town.
Things like a new building by-law, changes to fishing
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regulations. And then, as I scanned them, my eyes came to
rest on a photo that almost made my heart stop.
From the yellowness of the paper, I could tell the
article was old. I leaned in closer and saw that the date was
ten years ago.
Local Child Missing
Corey Johnson, age 8, was reported missing on
Monday evening when she didn’t return home from playing
with friends. Police officers interviewing the friends learned
that the group of four children had gone swimming in the
lake earlier that day, but that Corey had insisted on staying
when the others left. A search of the lakeside was
immediately launched.
The search was called off at midnight, and resumed
again at dawn. No trace of her has been found. One of the
friends later informed the police that Corey had suggested
trying to swim out to one of the islands. The other three
children had attempted to talk her out of it, but left by
themselves because they “didn’t want to get into trouble for
being late.”
Tracking dogs are being brought in to continue the
search.
Underneath this was the photo. It was small, and
made up of black-and-white dots ― I guess the newspaper
was pretty low-tech ― so it wasn’t the clearest picture in
the world. The kid’s chin was lowered, making her hair fall
partially over her face, and the photo quality made it look
like she had dark circles under her eyes. But still, I could
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tell right away: it was The Girl. I had to reach out and
steady myself against the glass.
Feeling light-headed, I turned to the police officer
and pointed to article. “This case here... was it ever
solved?”
She got up from her desk and came to see what I
was pointing at. “I’m not sure, that was before my time. I’d
have to look.”