The Neverland Wars

by Audrey Greathouse

  “Wouldn't you?”

  “Tall, dorky, and freckly isn't my type,” Katie announced, even though it was well-established she'd had a crush on Michael Kooseman herself in the eighth grade. “Have either of them asked anyone to homecoming yet?”

  “No,” Gwen answered, popping the tab on her soda. “I overheard him talking to Troy before math last period. He hasn’t asked anyone yet.”

  “He had that conversation in front of you?” Claire and Katie exchanged delighted looks.

  “Did he pass you any more notes today?” Katie pried.

  Gwen looked down at her rubbery pizza, desperately trying not to catch their foolish optimism. “Aren’t he and Jenny turning into a thing?”

  “Jenny Malloy?” Claire asked skeptically. “The bottle blonde with the hydrodynamic body of a fourteen-year-old boy? Gwen, you are so much prettier than her, even if you do refuse to wear makeup.” Claire would know. She and Gwen had become best friends in the sixth grade, and since Gwen hadn't changed much since then, Claire considered herself an expert in all things Gwen.

  “We’ll go get fabulous dresses this weekend and do hair and makeup at my house before the dance,” Katie announced. “I promise not to let you show up to the dance looking like a tomboy.”

  Something about that bothered Gwen. It sat wrong with her, not because she disliked the idea of being a tomboy, but because she fundamentally knew she wasn’t one. She kept her hair long and she had even worn a dress today, taking advantage of one of the last warm days of October. Admittedly, it was just a sundress, more childish than feminine, but certainly, this did not warrant the title of tomboy. Gwen had never even gotten rid of her dolls and dress-up hat collection. “I’m not a tomboy,” she defended.

  “Well, you’re something,” Claire retorted, slurping her soda. “The point is that we’re all going to look like beauty queens at the dance. Katie’s mom is an actual hairdresser.”

  The conversation moved forward, dragging Gwen with it. She wasn’t invested in the finer details of makeup and hair plans. Still, she didn’t interrupt the teenage dream that her friends were building out of homecoming.

  After lunch, Gwen trudged to fifth period biology, and then hurried across campus for her final and favorite class. She liked Mr. Starkey’s classroom. Her speech and debate teacher had turned the boxy room into a place that he felt comfortable in, and it showed. The walls were plastered with posters and quotations of great speakers, all of whom had lived and breathed the inspirational spirit of the sixties. John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. hung beside Bob Dylan and John Lennon. When Mr. Starkey sat at his desk, he typed by the glow of an antique stained-glass lamp, the origins of which had never been explained.

  Mr. Starkey tended to dress in a manner that made him look like a much older university professor, or a much younger actor from New York. He seemed to be under the delusion that he was teaching a college course, not a high school elective, but the students never minded the slight pretensions that accompanied this. Mr. Starkey acted like a college professor and treated his students like adults, something that won him instant favor with all of his classes. Gwen certainly appreciated it, and was fond of the way he always smelled like old books.

  Everyone turned in their papers at the start of class, and then settled into their seats for an animated lecture on logical fallacies. Gwen took ample, happy notes, finding it impossible not to share in Mr. Starkey’s enthusiasm when he spoke so candidly and gesticulated with so much energy. There was a childlike passion in his personality, and that made him one of her favorite adults. If there was anything unpleasant about Starkey’s class, it was only the apprehension that Gwen’s speech in defense of the literary significance of fairy tales next week would pale in comparison to Starkey’s daily lectures.

  Sixth period flew by in a way that her third period math class with Ms. Whitman never had and never would. When Mr. Starkey dismissed the class a few minutes early, Gwen was forced to hurry through the process of packing up her notes while her peers fled by her desk. She chucked all her things into her backpack right as Mr. Starkey finished filing the yet-to-be-graded papers into an ancient, leathery briefcase.

  “Would you do me a favor and make sure the computers in the back are powered off?” he requested.

  “Sure, Mr. Starkey.” Gwen clicked the mice of each of the four computers in the back of the classroom to confirm they were shut down. Mr. Starkey turned off his computer as she did so, and clicked off his colorful, stained glass lamp.

  “Thank you, Gwen. I’m not usually in such a hurry to leave, but I’ve got to get down to the grade school and pick up my son today.” As they left the classroom, Mr. Starkey turned off the florescent lights, leaving the posters of activists and artists in the dark as he locked the classroom door. No one else was in the halls yet. Mr. Starkey’s class had vanished to the parking lot already, and the bell had not yet sounded to let the rest of the student body free for the afternoon.

  “I’m looking forward to reading your paper,” he announced, tapping his briefcase. “I really enjoyed seeing the outline. It’s exciting to have a student broaching such an unusual topic.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Gwen replied. The bell sounded, its harsh ring filling the locker-lined hall for a brief moment before students began swarming out of the classrooms.

  “Fairy tales are fascinating, and they can be surprisingly hard to defend from a literary perspective. My son just turned seven and can hardly get his fill of them though, so I’m learning to appreciate them again myself.”

  Gwen nodded. She raised her voice to be heard over the clamor of students. “My little sister is the same way.”

  Starkey gave her an amused smile. “It’s fun to watch how their imaginations run away with them… and how they sometimes end up running away with their imaginations.”

  “Hey, Gwen!”

  Gwen would have looked behind her to see who was interrupting, but she already recognized Jay’s voice. Starkey peeled away from her, continuing out to the staff parking lot before Gwen had a chance to respond to his odd remark, or even say goodbye. She turned to see Jay striding through the crowd, stopping to wait for him.

  “Hi, Jay!” Gwen responded, trying not to betray her joy in its entirety. Still, she smiled as he approached.

  “Hey,” he responded. Jay held his books under one arm and dug his other hand into his pant pocket. “I’ve been trying to catch you all day.”

  “Yeah?” Gwen asked, feeling curious, fluttery, and other emotions she would sort through later.

  “Yeah, I meant to talk to you after math, but I had to get my history book back from Jenny. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know…I’m having a party. Not this Saturday, but next.”

  “Columbus Day weekend?”

  “Right. My parents are going to be out of town, but my brother Roger’s coming down and going to buy us a whole bunch of booze. It’s not going to be a huge thing, so keep it on the DL, but if you want to come, you’re definitely invited.”

  Gwen processed this as coherently as she could. “I’m not much of a drinker.” She’d never touched a drop in her life. “But I’d love to come to your party.”

  “Hey, that’s cool,” Jay answered, smiling with just half of his mouth, his vibrant blue eyes still fixed on Gwen. “Do you know where I live?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, I don’t… why don’t I give you my number so you can text me the address? Then I’ll have it in my phone.”

  “Sure.” Jay pulled out his phone and typed on its touch screen with one hand as Gwen recited her phone number.

  As he finished adding her to his contacts, Gwen thought to tell him, “Oh, hey, I heard you were on the homecoming ballot today. Congratulations.”

  Jay smirked and rolled his eyes. “Ah, who cares?”

  “Hey, it’s pretty cool,” Gwen told him. “You’ve got a lot of friends around campus. That’s neat. People like you.”

  Jay put his phone back into his pocket and looked up. “And yo
u?”

  Gwen laughed as she considered what sort of reputation she must have among her peers. “Claire and Katie like me, I don’t know about the rest of them.” She looked at the crowd of students herding themselves by. It was true she didn’t really fit in, but who did? She wasn’t concerned about her status, and neither was Jay.

  Jay nodded, still smiling. “Cool. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  “See you in class,” Gwen responded, watching as he walked down the corridor to the senior parking lot. She waited until she was certain he would not look back before she did a prancing pirouette, happily taking off. Dashing past the few straggling students, Gwen hurried to the junior parking lot. Within a minute’s time, her phone gave a quick vibration in her pocket. Knowing what it was, but unable to resist the temptation of confirming it, Gwen found a text from an unknown number with the address 1068 Park Street NE. She also noticed three missed calls from her mother, but that was irrelevant.

  She was almost out the door when her heart stopped and her feet stuck.

  “People like you.”

  “And you?”

  What had Jay been asking? He was asking about whether people liked her, too, right? Gwen felt electrified as she considered the possibility that Jay’s question concerned whether she liked him. She’d screwed up and misread him—maybe, sort of. What did the words ‘and’ and ‘you’ fundamentally mean, anyway? Swimming in an emotional brew of delight and self-consciousness, Gwen burst out of the school halls and down the steps to the junior parking lot. She began to panic in the most euphoric way possible.

  On the drive home, Gwen rolled down the windows and blasted her radio. Something was clicking. For a brief and glittering moment, she felt like a teenager. Pop music blared, and the October air blew wildly through the car. Her scalp ached from her tight ponytail, but Gwen pulled her hairband out and let the tired hair dance with the breeze. She felt fantastic.

  When Gwen saw the police car, she immediately took her foot off the gas and slowed down, well aware she was driving a few miles over the residential speed limit. It took her a moment to process that it was parked in front of her house. The officer was not in his car. Gwen pulled into the driveway; her father’s car was parked in her usual spot. What was he doing home from work?

  Gwen’s heart began beating faster as her mind shuffled through the possibilities. Both of her parents’ cars were here, so there couldn’t have been a car crash. If her father was home, something must have gone wrong with Mom. Could a burglary have happened while Mom was running errands?

  Gwen knew that there was no positive outcome for this situation. Something had gone wrong, and the police were here now. She was… excited.

  She knew it was irrational, but something inside of her held its breath, hoping that if some disaster was unfolding inside, at least it would be poetic or adventurous. In a moment, she would curse herself, but for an apprehensive second, Gwen felt an innocent curiosity and longed for a spectacle.

  She parked and anxiously dashed to the front door. It was unlocked, and Gwen barged right in.

  Her mother was on the couch, sitting on the edge of the cushion and holding her head in her hands. Her father looked more distressed than she had seen him in a long time. His arms folded in front of him, he stared at his shoes. His blazer was resting on the couch, but it looked as though he had been pacing as the officer spoke to him.

  The police officer’s black slacks were crisply starched, as was his dark shirt. He had patches on it that identified him as an officer of the law, but Gwen’s eyes went immediately to the walkie-talkie and gun on his belt. He stopped talking the second Gwen stepped into the door.

  Her parents stared at her, and she had the sudden sense that she was interrupting something. They were giving her a look that told her she did not belong, and whatever was happening was a very grown-up thing she was not a part of. This faded though, as if her parents realized that Gwen was grown-up, or if not, she was going to have to be now.

  “What’s wrong?” Gwen asked, her heart trembling as she clutched the straps of her backpack at her chest.

  “Gwen… Gwen, come sit down,” her mother requested, patting the couch cushion beside her. Her voice broke as she spoke; she had been crying.

  “Why? What’s happening?” Gwen looked at the officer, but he shied away from the question, deferring it to her parents.

  When it became obvious that Gwen was not going to budge until she got an answer, her father walked over to her and in a calm voice explained, “It’s Rosemary. She’s missing.”

  “Since when?” Gwen demanded. “Missing?” What did that even mean? She had seen her little sister just last night. How could Rosemary have gotten lost since then? The grade school wasn’t even out yet.

  Gwen gingerly lowered her backpack to the ground. Her mother didn’t even object to her setting the bag down in the way of walking. Gwen saw Rosemary’s bright blue pack hung up in the entryway. Rosemary hadn’t gone to school this morning.

  “Your mother called me when she woke up and found Rosemary missing,” her father soberly informed her. “We couldn’t reach you, and the officers advised us not to contact the school.”

  “Oh my God,” Gwen cried. Not knowing how else to respond, she threw herself into her dad’s arms, panicking within the confines of the hug. She felt her dad’s hand in her hair, but there was only so much comfort that he could impart. Gwen could feel his fear, and that shattered the support she desperately needed from him.

  The officer continued with the line of questioning that Gwen had interrupted. “Are you sure nothing was missing from the room… no toys or stuffed animals? In kidnappings, the perpetrators often take things from the child’s room, familiar things to keep them calm.”

  Gwen stared at the officer, feeling that he was an alien, unwanted presence in her home. He didn’t belong here, and she wanted to push him back out the doorway. Her thoughts were distracted when she saw the patch on the arm of his shirt. It dawned on Gwen how odd it was that there wasn’t any lettering on his uniform, no initials or numbers to denote his precinct or department. The patch on his arm was unlike any Gwen had seen on police officers. The symbol looked like an atom, but instead of a clustered nucleus, there was a golden star in the middle.

  “I—I didn’t notice anything missing,” Mrs. Hoffman announced.

  “When my partner comes back down, we’ll have a clearer idea of what happened, Mrs. Hoffman… We’ll see if the perpetrator left prints or if he left dust.”

  “I didn’t see any dust,” she insisted, panicking.

  “It isn’t always obvious, that’s why Kubowski’s inspecting the room. There’s still a chance this isn’t a kidnapping. It may very well be an abduction.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gwen asked.

  “That’s not possible,” her mother said, fighting back a sob. “Her window was closed this morning.”

  “It’s possible he closed it on his way out, Mrs. Hoffman.”

  “No,” her mother insisted. “The girls never sleep with their windows open. We make sure of it.”

  A stiffening chill crept down Gwen’s spine. She pushed away from her father and addressed the officer. “Her window was open last night.” Heart trembling in her chest, Gwen watched them lock their eyes on her. “I heard her bathroom door slam last night, and when I woke up this morning and Tootles wanted out of her room, I went in. I closed the window for her so she wouldn’t get in trouble.”

  The adults looked at her, horror-struck. Gwen didn’t understand the significance of this detail. She turned to the officer in the hopes that it would be easier to communicate with him. “We’re not supposed to sleep with the windows open… the breeze slams doors and screws with the heating bill. I closed the window in the morning so she wouldn’t get in trouble for it.”

  The officer, who still had not introduced himself to Gwen, ignored her and asked her parents, “I take it you haven’t had this conversation with your daughter.”<
br />
  “She’s only sixteen,” Mr. Hoffman responded.

  In a moment of crisis, the worst thing is to feel deprived of information. While no one was certain what had happened to Rosemary, Gwen felt a distinct gap between what her parents knew and what they were telling her. The gap between their understanding and Gwen’s was painfully obvious, and it burned at her nerves. “What conversation!” she yelled. “What happened to Rosemary?”

  The police officer did not answer her. “Was Rosemary in bed when you closed her window?”

  “I thought so.” Gwen didn’t realize how loud she was yelling. “I mean, why wouldn’t she be? I didn’t check. I just assumed.” All at once, Gwen burst into tears. There was no gradual progression. One moment, she was not crying, and the next, she was weeping. Was this somehow her fault? Was there something she should have done differently? She felt the eyes of the adults drilling guilt into her.

  “It’s okay, Gwen,” her father told her, reflexively using the words without considering whether they were true. Gwen was not a little girl who could unthinkingly take her father’s words at face value, and his lie sat bitterly with her.

  “This changes things,” the officer admitted. “This aligns with an abduction, not a kidnapping.”

  “What’s the difference?” Gwen sobbed. As far as she knew, the terms were interchangeable. The technical legal distinction didn’t matter to Gwen; a stranger had taken her sister.

  It gave her a start when she heard someone tromping down the stairs. Gwen felt vulnerable and endangered, even in the light of day. Nothing was safe when Rosemary had vanished in the darkness of the previous night.

  The noise was only the policeman’s partner, Officer Kubowski. She came down the stairs, her dark hair pulled tight and her mannish eyebrows furrowed over her hard eyes. “We’ve got dust,” she announced. She was wearing disposable gloves and held up a small, plastic evidence bag.