The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  Her mother spun the wheel, and the car slid over three lanes and onto an exit ramp. My knuckles turned white, and I reminded myself to inhale. “Always good to know,” she said. “At the very least it will come in handy at cocktail parties when everyone has run out of things to say.”

  I tried to imagine myself at some point in the distant future, wearing a silk dress and holding a cocktail and telling a circle of glamorous people about giant squid and their eyeballs. “I guess so,” I replied doubtfully.

  The car whipped around a corner with a squeal of tires. Fiona’s mother tossed more questions over her shoulder. “Any juicy gossip from the girls’ room? What was the most horrific thing you had to do in gym? Are you girls going to the game on Friday? Who are you going with? When’s the first school dance? Is there a theme this year?”

  The worst part was that after firing each question at us, she waited for an answer and then actually listened to it. Now I knew where Fiona had learned her unnerving technique. Finally even Fiona succumbed enough to utter a few sentences, although she still sounded like a prisoner talking under threat of torture.

  At last we pulled into their driveway with one last jaunty swerve and came to an abrupt, screeching stop. As we went inside the house, Fiona’s mother murmured something about calling the office and melted away.

  “Thank God the third degree is over!” Fiona opened the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of sodas. “You see what I mean? My mom asks billions of questions! She always wants to know everything about my life! I mean, everything! Down to the smallest, most insignificant details!”

  “Irritating,” I said, hiding my smile as I followed her, looking around me with interest.

  Fiona’s house was so . . . perfect. The kitchen counter gleamed. I could tell, because the only things actually on top of the counter were a polished toaster and a coffeemaker that looked as if it could run the space shuttle. No copies of Life magazine from 1982, pots of dried-up cold cream, ancient cat toys, pencil stubs, stray buttons, bird feathers, snakeskins, rusty nails, half-empty boxes of Christmas cards, bent clothes hangers, or mysterious jars filled with murky liquids. We walked through the living room, where the couch and chairs didn’t look as if anyone had ever sat on them, let alone spilled a drink or dropped cookie crumbs or dripped candle wax on the cushions. The rug still showed faint track marks from the vacuum cleaner.

  Fiona’s bedroom was pink and white, with a canopy bed, ruffled bedspread, plush flowered rug, and collection of family photos on one wall. She took her snow white Mac laptop out of her backpack, put it on her immaculate desk, and turned it on. Its blue screen lit up, glowing with an unearthly light.

  “Wow.” I just stood in the center of her room, trying to take it all in.

  Fiona looked at me, a little puzzled. “What?” she asked.

  “Your house, your room.” I gestured feebly, trying to find the words. “They’re so . . . great.”

  “Really?” She shrugged. “Just a regular house in the burbs. In fact, sometimes I think it’s kind of, well, boring, really.”

  I laughed in disbelief. “Everything’s so clean and shiny and new.”

  She glanced around, as if seeing her room for the first time. “I guess so. But it’s just so . . . normal. And so decorated. I mean, look at this.” She picked up a mother-of-pearl tissue box holder from her desk and frowned at it. “Shouldn’t life be more odd or mysterious or strange or . . . or something?”

  I thought about crooked porches, peeling paint, and cracked windows. I thought about poltergeist pranks, a possibly demonic cat, and a house filled with nine females and one bathroom. I thought about gravestones in the backyard, spirit readings in the parlor, and ghosts wandering the halls.

  I shook my head decidedly. “No,” I said. “Normal is good.”

  Fiona shrugged again and flashed me her usual sunny smile. “Well, I guess I can always live in a garret and have an interesting life after I graduate from college, right?” She sat down at her desk and clicked on a few keys. “So, I had a fabulous idea today! We should Google Jack and see what we can find out about him!”

  I looked at her with a new appreciation. Clearly she had learned a thing or two from her mother about investigative reporting. “Awesome idea,” I said, as I grabbed the extra chair and sat down next to her.

  “This is so much fun! I’m so glad you could come over,” she said as she typed the words Jack Dawson. “Maybe I can come over to your house next time.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said vaguely, praying that we would move off that topic, fast.

  At that moment some higher power—and it seemed its name was Google—answered my prayer. A new screen appeared. The words Jack Dawson were listed a dozen times.

  Fiona beamed. “Oh, look! There are ten thousand seven hundred fifty-one Web pages about Jack.”

  I leaned forward to read over her shoulder. There was a Jack Dawson who had published a scientific paper and a Jack Dawson who ran a balloon company and a Jack Dawson who was an actor in summer stock theater—

  “Let’s narrow it down.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Do you know where the Dawsons lived before they moved here?”

  I tried to remember what Mrs. Dawson had said. “I think it was—Collins? Yes, that’s it. Collins.”

  “Great.” She added Collins New York to the search. She waved her hands over the computer and proclaimed in a spooky fortune-teller voice, “Now the great god Google, which knows all and sees all, must reveal all to us! Oh, great Google, we must know all there is to know about the mysterious Jack Dawson! Hear us and give us our answer! We command thee!”

  Usually I wouldn’t appreciate such a stereotypical portrayal of a psychic, but I was too interested in what Google might turn up to feel miffed. Fiona lifted her hand high above the keyboard and, with a flamboyant swooping motion, hit the return key.

  A mere 0.71 seconds later a list of articles appeared on the screen. Fiona clicked on the first link. Just like that, we were staring at our answer.

  The headline said, LOCAL TEEN MISSING.

  The subheadline said, HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS STAR VANISHES, COUNTY-WIDE SEARCH IN PROGRESS.

  The photo caption said, “The Dawson family (l. to r., Jack, 15; Sarah, 42; Robert, 43; and Luke, 17).”

  The photo showed a happy family, beaming at the camera.

  “Wow,” Fiona said. “Jack looks completely different!

  It’s hard to believe this picture was just taken”—she paused to read the caption—“a little over a year ago. He looks so young! And so . . . I don’t know . . . innocent.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly.

  But my gaze wasn’t focused on Jack. It was riveted on his brother, the lost Luke Dawson. Dark blond hair, hazel eyes, and a lopsided smile.

  Luke Dawson was none other than the ghost of room 12B.

  And he wasn’t haunting me. He was haunting Jack.

  Chapter 16

  Fiona and I printed out every page we could find on the Internet about Jack Dawson and his brother’s mysterious disappearance. There were quite a few pages—104, to be exact. Apparently Luke had been something of a celebrity in his hometown—star quarterback, top student, and (a bit of a surprise here, although it explained how he learned to argue so well) captain of the debate team. His vanishing was much more than a one-day wonder.

  In fact for six months the local newspaper had run constant updates on the investigation. After a while actual news seemed a bit scarce on the ground, so the paper had resorted to asking people for their pet theories about the disappearance and then running that speculation under headlines like THE LUKE DAWSON MYSTERY: WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED.

  “Listen to this.” Fiona read part of one article out loud. “‘Jack Dawson seems to be a sensitive young boy, clearly distraught over the event that has caused a seismic upheaval in his life.’” She scanned down a few paragraphs and read more. “‘He stands at the living room window, gazing wistfully into the night, as if hoping that his brother, Luke
, would soon come home again.’”

  “Really? That’s what it says?” I read over her shoulder in disbelief. The writer seemed to be indulging in a little wishful thinking. Her description of Jack— sensitive, distraught, wistful, hopeful—sounded like some weird, parallel universe version of the person I knew.

  “Where do reporters come up with this stuff?” I demanded, remembering, too late, that her mother was a reporter.

  But she didn’t take offense. She just said, “I know what you mean. Although Jack could have been in shock or something.”

  “Maybe,” I said, although it was still hard to imagine a sensitive or wistful Jack.

  We didn’t have time to read much more before Fiona’s mother knocked on the door and asked if we wanted an afternoon snack. We said yes, of course, and took the printouts with us into the kitchen.

  “Carrot sticks?” she asked, holding out a plate. “Or if you’re not interested in the healthy alternative, chocolate chip cookies?”

  Fiona defiantly grabbed a cookie. “Mom has to watch her figure. The camera adds ten pounds, you know. But since I’m not on TV—”

  “I’m a mother,” Mrs. Jones said mildly. “It’s my duty to push vegetables.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes at me. I took two cookies as a sign of solidarity and gave her a wink. She grinned back, and we settled ourselves at the kitchen table with the articles spread out before us.

  Her mother began unloading the dishwasher as I picked up a paper at random. This article had been written by a different (and clearly more observant) reporter, who introduced Jack by saying: “Jack Dawson, 15, sat huddled on one end of the couch, staring at the toes of his sneakers in grim silence.” Now, that was the Jack I knew.

  “Imagine waking up one day to find out that someone you loved had vanished from the face of the earth!” Fiona exclaimed, her eyes wide.

  As she gave a delighted shudder, my mind flashed to a photo of my father, waving good-bye as he bounced down the road in the back of the ornithologists’ pickup truck. My mother had snapped the picture as he left, capturing his exuberant wave and his half-guilty, half-gleeful smile as he escaped into another life.

  Glad to be going. And, maybe, still glad to be gone.

  Mrs. Jones glanced over at us. “What do you have there that’s so fascinating?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Fiona.

  Her mother gave us a knowing glance, then leaned over Fiona’s shoulder to read one of the headlines.

  “‘Search for missing boy ends after two weeks,’” she read out loud. “‘Family increases reward for information to twenty-five thousand dollars.’” She shook her head. “How tragic.”

  She picked up the first story we had printed out. “Why are you girls so fascinated by this story?” she asked absently as she began reading.

  “Jack is in our class,” I said. I pointed to his picture. “The missing boy’s brother.”

  Mrs. Jones glanced over at me, her eyes sharp and interested. “Really.” Her gaze moved on to rest thoughtfully on her daughter. “I certainly hope you aren’t planning to bring up bad memories for this poor boy—”

  “We’re not going to say anything to him, Mom!” Fiona said indignantly. “Honestly. Give us credit for some tact!”

  “All right, honey. Just making sure . . .” Her mother flipped through the papers spread out on the table, frowning in concentration. “It looks like this story got a lot of attention.”

  “It was a small town,” I pointed out as a tiny alarm bell went off in my head.

  “Mmm.” Fiona’s mother wasn’t listening. She grabbed a pen and memo pad from the kitchen drawer and began jotting notes. “Unsolved mysteries always get great ratings.”

  “Mom!” Fiona protested. “How is doing a story on this any different from talking to Jack about it? Won’t you be ‘bringing up bad memories’ for him?”

  Her mother waved one hand dismissively as the alarm bell in my head rang even louder. “I would approach his parents first, of course.”

  “I don’t know if the Dawsons will want to do another interview,” I said hastily. “It looks like they had their share of news coverage last year.”

  “Yes, but,” her mother countered, listing her arguments with the ease of long practice. “There’s always the chance that someone who knows something will come forward. Newspaper articles are fine, but a television audience is huge. Thousands of people will see the story and be on the lookout for this boy. Someone might remember seeing him.”

  Fiona nodded slowly as she saw the logic of this argument. “If anyone in our viewing audience has seen Luke Dawson or has any information about his disappearance, please contact Channel Seven News,” she intoned in a deadly serious anchorperson voice.

  “Or your local police,” her mother added, but without much conviction.

  That alarm bell was clanging so loudly that I was surprised no one else could hear it.

  “They might be too upset to talk,” I said, giving it one last try.

  “Oh, Mom has a special talent for getting people to open up,” Fiona assured me. “Her news director is always sending her on stories where people have suffered some sort of tragedy, because they always start out by saying that they won’t talk to anyone, they’re just too distraught, and then they always end up giving her an exclusive interview. Always.”

  Mrs. Jones double-checked the date on one of the articles. “The one-year anniversary of Luke’s disappearance is in a few weeks,” she said to herself. “Good hook.”

  She asked, “Do you mind if I hold on to a couple of these articles?” even as she was picking them up and heading out of the room. “I think I’ll make a quick phone call to Cutler—”

  “That’s her news director,” Fiona explained. “He’ll love this story! And who knows? Maybe Luke will see the story and decide to contact his family! Maybe someone who saw him will call in with a tip! Maybe Mom will solve the mystery! Wouldn’t that be awesome!”

  She kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I pushed my plate of cookies away. I had that hollow, fluttery feeling you get in your stomach right before a roller coaster plunges straight down at breakneck speed.

  Chapter 17

  “Sparrow! Come help me, sweetheart!”

  I cautiously followed the sound of Grandma Bee’s voice, well aware that her use of the word “sweetheart” meant that nothing good was in the offing. Sure enough, as I rounded the corner of the house, I spotted her in the side yard. She was standing in a martial pose, her legs planted in a wide stance and her arms raised as if she were about to deliver a killing blow to an unsuspecting passerby.

  She lowered her arms and peered happily at me through trifocals smeared with mud. “Just the person I was hoping to see!” she cried. “Sparrow, you are the answer to a weak old lady’s prayers!”

  “No. My elbow still hurts.”

  She blinked innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, dear.”

  “Last month?” I reminded her. “Helping you practice judo throws?”

  For the past two years Grandma Bee has been creating a new martial art designed for older people. Her belief, based on a completely immodest assessment of her own talent, was that the elderly could be organized into our country’s most effective crime-fighting force. “It’s so unexpected, you see,” she always says. “Who would ever suspect that a man wearing a ‘World’s Best Grandpa’ T-shirt could kill with his bare hands?”

  “I promise I won’t hurt you,” she said, inching closer. She stared into my eyes and spoke slowly and evenly. “Everything . . . will . . . be . . . all . . . right.” I had a feeling she was trying to work hypnotic mind control into her technique.

  “Forget it,” I said, backing away.

  “Stand still. You won’t feel a thing.”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” I sprinted for the porch.

  As I took the steps three at a time, I heard her yell after me, “You know, it doesn’t hurt to be rendered briefly unconsc
ious! It’s actually rather restful!”

  Once safely inside my room, with the door shut and firmly bolted, I pulled the printouts from my backpack and flung myself on the bed to read. An hour later I put the papers down and stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

  The most illuminating article was a long feature story written six months after Luke’s disappearance. The investigation had stalled. There was no news, good or bad. The newspaper had clearly wanted to run something, however, so the reporter had recapped the facts and then filled in by interviewing almost everyone, it seemed, who had ever crossed paths with Luke.

  LOCAL TEEN’S DISAPPEARANCE

  STILL A MYSTERY

  Investigators Stymied,

  Family Reaches Out to Public, Psychics

  BY LITTON HOUSTON BERES

  Collins, New York—It happens every day. Someone vanishes without a trace. A toddler is snatched from a supermarket, a teenager runs away, a husband or wife decides to jettison daily responsibilities in favor of a new life somewhere else, somewhere far away. It happens every day, and according to law enforcement statistics, the missing person is usually found. Eventually.

  Waiting for “eventually” is the hard part. That is what is facing Robert, 47, and Sarah, 45, Dawson, of Collins, and their son Jack, 15. The Dawsons’ son Luke, who had just turned 17, disappeared six months ago. Despite a continuing intensive search, the police have not found any clues to how or why Luke vanished. The mystery has unsettled this small town, where almost everyone, it seems, knew Luke Dawson, and absolutely everyone has a theory about what happened to him.

  Neighbors share their speculations at the grocery store or dry cleaners. Classmates talk about Luke in hushed tones between classes or at lunch. But the Dawson family no longer cares to listen to hypotheses or conjecture or suppositions.

  They just want their boy home.

  The morning of September 30 dawned cloudy and cool. Although the temperature got warmer during the day— Sarah Dawson remembers being grateful for the last bit of Indian summer—it was clear that fall weather was on its way.