Every Missing Piece

by Melanie Conklin

  My second thought was that Diesel Jessup had come to rip my arms off. Either him or his younger brothers, Devin and Donny. Devin was round as a potato, and Donny’s face was always smeared with dirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little dirt.

  The Jessup boys like to act like they own this cemetery, but the land doesn’t belong to them or anyone else. It’s just there, hidden by the houses that surround it. Dad said it was a historic site, so it belongs to everyone. And besides, Mr. Jessup was Dad’s best friend. He was there for us after Dad died, always doing stuff around the house for Mom, fixing things or moving heavy furniture. He says we’re family. He would never chase me out of the cemetery.

  More than anything, I wished I’d brought Frankie with me. It was a pain holding her leash while I biked, but for protection she was aces. One day last summer, we were walking in the woods when she grabbed a snake and threw it off the trail. Mom said she was probably trying to play with it, but I knew the truth: Frankie always had my back.

  “Hello?” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so small.

  It was probably the Jessups. The trees were still bare except for last season’s beech leaves, which hung from the branches like curled-up waffle cones. They could’ve spotted me through the enormous bay windows on the back of their house.

  “Who’s there?” I said louder. “Show yourself, coward!”

  The woods remained still.

  That’s when I noticed something odd overhead: a hunk of wood, hanging from a rope. The rope led to the ground and disappeared into the leaves. I couldn’t tell what it was tied to, but that old hunk of wood looked like it could fall out of the sky at any moment.

  I took a step back.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice said from somewhere up ahead.

  “That you, Diesel?”

  A lanky, pale-haired boy popped out from behind the tree in front of me like a ghost appearing out of thin air. White-blond hair, skinny arms, stick-out ears.

  Not a Jessup.

  “Fudgesicle,” I swore. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “I should be asking you the same thing,” he replied, giving me a sly half grin. It was the kind of smile that spelled trouble, like the faded purple bruise beneath his left eye.

  “I thought you were the Night Ghost.”

  “The who?”

  “The ghost who haunts these woods. He’s been pining for his long-lost love for a hundred years. He’ll kill anyone who disturbs his peace.”

  The boy cocked his head. “Really? I haven’t seen any ghosts out here.” He probably thought I was a total weirdo who was afraid of ghosts. Which I am not.

  “You know what, never mind.” I took another step back. “I was just leaving anyway.”

  He frowned. “You’d better stop right there.”

  I took another step back, and my foot caught on something. By the time I looked down, that hunk of wood hanging in the trees plummeted to the ground as a rope net shot up from under the leaves and snagged my legs, leaving me dangling upside down like a squirrel in a trap.

  “Told you.” The boy came closer, reaching for the net.

  “Stay away from me!” I shouted. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He crossed his skinny arms and leaned back against an old oak tree while I flopped around like a fish, trying to get my sneakers free of that darn net. I finally got my legs loose, slithered to the ground, and hauled myself upright, my T-shirt and shorts all smeared with dirt.

  I fixed him with a glare. “What’re you booby-trapping a cemetery for anyway? That’s plain silly.”

  He scowled. “I have my reasons.”

  There was something familiar about the boy’s face, but I couldn’t place it. For all I knew, he could be a serial killer. Plus, his baby-doll hair gave me the creeps.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said, slow and even. “You’d best not follow me.”

  His face went still as I backed away.

  When I reached the edge of the little woods, I turned and ran. The boy didn’t follow me, but I could feel his stare boring into my back all the way home. I rushed inside and slammed the door, but when I closed my eyes, he was all I could see.

  His weird, bright hair.

  His skinny arms.

  That empty look on his face.

  And that’s when I remembered Billy Holcomb.

  3

  THE GIRL WHO CRIED WOLF

  After Billy Holcomb went missing, he was all anyone could talk about. Missing-child flyers covered the bulletin board at the Food Lion. The Christ Baptist Church held a prayer vigil. The local news gave updates every night like they did when a hurricane was headed for town, even though he was from Fayetteville, which is clear on the other side of North Carolina.

  Mom and Stan were glued to the coverage, but they always shut the TV off when I was there. When they weren’t around, I watched the news reports for myself. My heart raced as I listened to Billy’s father pleading for the kidnappers to let Billy come home. I studied the photo of Billy that flashed up on the screen. I imagined Billy walking to school, minding his own business—maybe staring at the ground like I always do—and someone snatching him. Bam. Gone. Just like that.

  Now here I was, all these months later, thinking maybe I’d found him.

  As I got ready to hang out with Stan for the afternoon, I went over every little detail of my encounter with the boy in the woods that morning, trying to decide what to do. You might think that as soon as I thought I’d seen a missing kid, I’d call the police.

  And maybe I would have, if I hadn’t already worn out my welcome.

  The summer after Dad died, the electric company ran a power line through the back of our property. They mowed down the trees and blasted the bedrock. The explosives were so loud our windows shook. All I could think was that they might blow us up, too, so I called the sheriff’s office to tell them about it. They said they’d look into it, which made me feel better, like maybe I’d stopped something terrible from happening. They did ask to speak to Mom, though. That was the first time I saw a ripple of concern on her face.

  Later that year, I called again when our neighbors were practicing their aim on a foam deer. Their bows weren’t pointed in our direction, but hearing that thwap, thwap noise was enough to make me break into a nervous sweat. That time, the officers weren’t as friendly. We started seeing our therapist then, who made me practice deep breathing and taught me how to imagine my own private island when I wanted to call the police.

  After that, I tried not to call too much, but some things needed to be seen to.

  Like a lady at the mall who looked like she had a gun in her purse (it was an umbrella).

  Or when the Jessups shot sparklers into people’s front yards (they weren’t illegal).

  Or when Frankie went missing, though it turned out she was begging for treats from our neighbors, the Davises, who have a tiny bichon named Beamer (Labs are greedy like that.).

  Each time I called, the deputies got a little less friendly and the worry lines on Mom’s forehead got a little deeper, until they were ironed in like creases in a tablecloth. By sixth grade, Sheriff Dobbs and I were on a first-name basis. He didn’t mind hearing from me every once in a while. In fact, he was so nice about my “harebrained theories” that I was pretty sure he didn’t take me seriously at all. The truth is, Sheriff Dobbs and I have never seen eye to eye about what counts as an emergency. He only wants information that’s “statistically sound,” which means likely to be true, but I can’t help it if I’m good at spotting trouble. Once you’ve seen the worst-case scenario, it’s impossible not to see terrible prospects everywhere, like promises waiting to be fulfilled.

  Then the Skate-A-Thon happened.

  Every fall, our middle school holds a fund-raiser at our local roller-skating rink. I didn’t go there expecting to see anything suspicious, but as Cress and I skated around the rink, I kept catching glimpses of this man who
looked a lot like someone on America’s Most Wanted. He was wearing a baseball cap with the bill pulled down, like he was trying to hide his face.

  I tried not to freak out, I really did, but then I saw him taking off his skates like he was going to leave, and I had to dial 911 before he got away. Only this time when the police came, they turned off the music and locked the doors so they could check every single person to make sure the guy from America’s Most Wanted wasn’t there. Which he wasn’t. It turned out the guy I saw was really someone’s uncle from out of town. By the time the police finished their search, our fund-raiser was ruined and the whole school knew I’d done it.

  After that, Sheriff Dobbs came over to our house to have a talk with Mom and me. He was built like a tank, with a crisp tan hat and dark brown skin. He looked at me like I was some broken, rusted thing that had been left out in the yard.

  “Do you know the story about the boy who cried wolf?” he asked.

  I did. It’s about a shepherd boy who wanted attention, so he tricked his village into thinking wolves were attacking his flock. Everyone got tired of him lying, so when a wolf really did appear, no one answered the boy’s cries for help. All his sheep got gobbled up.

  “I’m sure you don’t mean any harm,” Sheriff Dobbs said, “but this can’t happen again. If it does, there will be consequences.” Mom held my hand while he used words like false report and felony charges. On the way out, he tipped his hat and said, “I’ll tell you what I tell everyone, Maddy: I hope I don’t see you anytime soon.”

  Then he gave me that look again, the one full of pity.

  When your father dies unexpectedly, people don’t forget. The tragedy is always there, hovering like a ghost in their words. When they look at you, they see the same person, but inside, you’ve changed. They can’t see the change inside of you, but they can feel it. And it feels wrong to them. They wear their concern on their faces, the questions they want to ask but never will. Do you remember him? Do you miss him?

  It’s a gossiping, prying kind of concern that doesn’t make you feel any better, just haunted. Even worse is how everyone thinks I freak out about everything, like emergencies aren’t the kind of thing little girls should worry about, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as caring too much when it comes to saving someone’s life.

  All it takes is one little mistake, and your world can change forever.

  For example, you can end up without a dad.

  4

  STAN SATURDAY

  Stan was all smiles on the way into Greensboro. Mom had decided that he and I should do something fun together, just the two of us. This was our first official Stan Saturday. Maybe Mom wanted to keep me busy, or maybe she was worried about how Stan and I still weren’t clicking. Either way, that’s how we ended up at the ropes course in Greensboro, which is at the zoo and over forty feet tall. I’d never been there, but Stan thought it sounded fun.

  The trouble with this plan was that Stan is not an outdoor guy. Like I said, he’s from New York City. His idea of adventure is ordering takeout from a new restaurant. Stan works as a computer programmer. He likes things neat and orderly, not messy and unpredictable, which was why I had a really hard time imagining him swinging through the woods on the end of a rope.

  When we pulled up to the course, Stan’s eyes widened behind his glasses. The ropes course looks like a giant spiderweb hanging from the trees with nothing but a flimsy net to catch you if you fall.

  “You really want to do that?” I asked.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Trees are cool.”

  Meanwhile, all I could think about was the boy in the woods. After the Skate-A-Thon, Mom had banned me from watching America’s Most Wanted, and Cress had made me promise never to freak out again. For six months, I’d been good. I hadn’t called the police once. But seeing that strange boy made my fingers itch to call.

  A strange boy who matched parts of Billy Holcomb’s description. A strange boy who had no reason to be out in those woods. A strange boy who could very well be a missing kid.

  I knew what I’d seen, but the tip line was for serious inquiries only, not “hysterical children.” I’d been told that a dozen times. I’d be in trouble if I was wrong. So, instead of calling Sheriff Dobbs, I followed Stan toward the ropes course and certain death.

  It was overcast, so there weren’t many people in line. The air had that chill we can get on spring days in North Carolina, a crisp coolness that fades as soon as the sun appears. While we waited, a nervous jiggle took up residence in Stan’s foot. I could have cut him a break—after all, I was the one who’d agreed to come here—but knowing you should do something and being able to do it are two very different things.

  When it comes to Stan, there’s this invisible barrier between us. We’re like goldfish swimming in separate bowls. What makes it even worse is that the barrier is entirely my fault. When Mom told me she thought Stan and I should spend more time together, I got upset and said some things I shouldn’t have said. And Stan heard them. And now there is a barrier between us.

  After a while, Stan pulled out his little red notebook and started writing. That’s why he didn’t notice when we reached the front of the line and the attendant asked for our tickets.

  “Stan,” I said.

  “Hmm?” His eyes were still on his notebook. Gone.

  The teenage attendant gave me a look like he wished we’d disappear, too.

  “It’s our turn,” I said louder, and Stan finally snapped out of it.

  He apologized, handed over our tickets, and led us to the fitting area. While we got our harnesses, I watched the people in front of us: a mother and daughter. They were good climbers. They worked together, and when they messed up, they just laughed. They clicked.

  While we waited, Stan’s knee started bopping again. When they told us to go, he went the wrong way and our ropes got tangled up. Then we reached a split in the course and he turned in the opposite direction when we were supposed to be working together.

  “We should go this way,” I said. “See the wooden steps?”

  He tilted his head, gears turning. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Steps are better than one little rope,” I snapped, followed by a quick rush of guilt.

  Stan was only trying to help. He didn’t even say anything back, which made it even worse. He worked his way over to me and waited while I wiped my sweaty hands and wished we’d never come to this awful ropes course in the first place.

  Ahead of us, wooden steps hung from ropes like swings.

  I stepped forward, and the board that had looked so stable shot out from under me, flipping me head over heels. We were in harnesses so we couldn’t fall far, but I still screamed as I tipped over. For a split second, I heard the crash of the ocean and felt my father’s hands on my sides, but when I opened my eyes, it was Stan who’d grabbed me. He’d fallen, too, trying to catch me. We hung there like two puppets on strings.

  “Having fun yet?” he asked with a goofy smile.

  My mouth fell open. “We could have died.”

  He shook his head. “No way. You checked the harnesses five times.”

  “You’re trusting an eleven-year-old to keep you alive,” I said slowly.

  “Not any eleven-year-old. A vigilant one.”

  I rolled my eyes. “This was a bad idea.”

  “Maybe. But I like ‘hanging out’ with you.”

  He did the air quotes and everything. Then he laughed at his own corny joke.

  That night, I lay in bed stiff and scraped from fighting my way through the rest of the ropes course. Earlier, when Mom asked if we’d had fun, Stan had said yes, even though I’m pretty sure he hadn’t had any more fun than I did. Which was pretty cool of him.

  Before I go to sleep, I always check three things: First, I make sure my lamp is unplugged. Electrical appliances are major fire starters. I also make sure the path from my bed to the window is clear, in case I need to
escape during the night. Most people don’t know this, but you’re more at risk from fire when you’re asleep. We have a safety ladder below my window, just in case. Finally, I make sure that Croc is right next to me in case we need to split. As you might have guessed, Croc is a stuffed crocodile. Cress and I won him at the county fair in fourth grade. I threw the ring, but she bought the ticket, so technically he belonged to both of us. We even made up a contract to schedule sharing him, though I had custody more often those days, probably because Cress was being nice about Mom and Stan getting married and everything.

  I rolled over to where Dad’s picture faced me from my nightstand. He would have loved rope climbing. Dad worked as a surveyor, and in his spare time he restored the wildflower field behind our house and built a bridge across the gully, where he showed me how to catch the tiny fishes that spawned in the shallows.

  My memories of Dad are like movies I can play in my mind. All it takes is a smell or a sound to trigger a memory. Only lately, the movies are playing less and less and the pictures are getting blurry. Sometimes I can’t see Dad’s face and I have to rush to my photo albums to remember what he looked like. It feels like I’m losing him piece by piece, and one day, he’ll be gone.

  “Hey,” I texted him, waiting for the reply that would never come.

  In the picture, Dad’s smiling, his handlebar mustache tipped up at the corners. He looks like some kind of biker, but Mom says he was growing a beard for the hockey playoffs, which is when lots of hockey fans stop shaving out of superstition. I’m not in the picture with him, but the camera caught him at the perfect moment, when his eyes were looking straight into the lens.

  When I stare at the picture, it feels like he’s looking right at me. Like he’s saying, “What is it, Maddy? What’s wrong?”

  I lay there for a while, telling him about Stan and rope climbing and the strange boy in the woods and how I had not called Sheriff Dobbs. When I finished, I felt better. I know it’s just a picture and Dad can’t really hear me, but it feels like he does.