by Lauryn April
“We have to find Charlie,” I said. “We need to figure this out now.”
We raced to the library, knowing that our conversation over personal matters had taken up valuable time. The lunch hour was winding down and we couldn’t afford to waste another second. Charlie spotted us right away when we walked through the glass doors. She seemed excited and as we approached, I hoped that she had gotten to the information that we so desperately needed.
“I got it,” she said as we approached the desk. She picked up a stack of papers that she had sitting on the desk and held it up with enthusiasm. “Book rentals, website searches, it’s all here.”
“Good,” I said, “’Cause we’ve only got ‘til Friday now.”
Charlie’s eyes went wide with alarm. “What, why?”
“The assembly,” Brant said.
Charlie’s expression lit up. I could see all the pieces come together behind her eyes. “The assembly, right… They moved it up because they had to move the date of the Play in the Park. Mrs. Emmeric had a note about it in her calendar. They’re doing it almost a month sooner, and they’ll be gathering all the students in the gym to talk to us about it. Oh God.”
“Yeah, so we have to figure this out fast.”
Charlie nodded in agreement. It was then, however, that the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch hour.
“We’ll have to look through all of this later though.”
“You guys want to come over to my place after school?” Brant suggested.
“I can’t, I have to be home for when my little sister gets there. You guys could come to my place though.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Charlie said and Brant nodded in agreement. As we all parted and went off toward our separate classes, I hoped that we would find what we needed quickly and easily.
23
Start Looking
After class, we met up at my house and spread out in the living room to look over the papers that Charlie had printed earlier that day. Sitting on the floor, we started with the book rental records and divvied up the pages. The lists were organized by book title, so it was our job to find people that rented multiple books. Highlighter in hand, I scrolled down the page, grateful that Charlie had at least been able to get a print up of only the books related to bombings and not the entire school library. Still, it was a tedious task. I highlighted any name I saw twice, trying to do each name in a different color. Finally I reached the last name on the last page of my section and I sighed in relief.
“How are you guys doing?” I asked setting down my papers.
“Think I’ve got three names here that stand out,” Brant said.
“I’ve got about the same,” Charlie agreed.
I flipped through my pages. “I probably have like four, but some of those should overlap with what you guys have too, so that’s not so bad.”
Brant set down his papers, finished with his share. “So what now?”
“Oh, um,” Charlie started shifting through her bag and pulled out more papers, “I have a list of names here of anyone who looked up anything bomb-related on a campus computer this year.” The list was at least three pages long. “Guess now we should compare.”
“See who’s got check marks in multiple columns,” Brant said, “Oh, and we have our list of ten names from the hardware store to look at as well.”
“Hopefully this narrows us down to one name,” I said with a sigh.
Charlie and Brant nodded in agreement and we continued on with our research.
I guessed that it was about five-thirty when we finished. The sun had yet to set but sat low on the horizon. The living room grew darker and I had turned on the lamp that sat on the end table behind me. Names were written down, rewritten, crossed out. We compared all the lists, did our best to narrow our leads. Who was searching bombings, checking out books on them, and buying ingredients? In the end, it came down to one name, one person. It seemed too perfect to be a coincidence. But there was one problem with what we concluded, and that was the name that we narrowed it down to. It was Eric Thompson.
I shook my head, this couldn’t be right. “I don’t get it. We ruled him out.”
“Yeah, but you did say he gave you a weird feeling.” Brant said.
“Still though, his voice wasn’t the same, and he wasn’t at school on Thursday when I heard the second voice.” It won’t be a big enough explosion, we need more. I heard in my head again.
“He might have lied about not being at school,” Charlie suggested, “I could check the attendance records and double check… Maybe he thought you were on to him.”
I began to second guess myself. “I guess, and you’re right, he did give me a weird vibe.”
“It’s got to be him, Ivy,” Brant said. “He’s the only one on all three lists. No one else was researching bombs, and extensively I might add, and bought supplies for them with his mother’s credit card.”
I nodded, “You’re right, I guess it’s just blowing my mind a bit. We had him, you know.”
Before anyone could say another word, the front door opened and my mom walked in. She looked frazzled from a long day at work but smiled as she saw us sitting in the living room. I said hello as she set her briefcase down and took her jacket off to hang on the coat rack. She smiled as she greeted Charlie and looked Brant up and down with a quick scanning of her eyes.
“You guys working on homework?” she asked and we were quick to agree. “Well, I won’t keep you then. If you kids get hungry, just holler, I can throw a pizza in.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as she made her way up the stairs.
We all waited until she was out of sight to begin talking again. However, before I could get a full sentence out, she reappeared on the stairs.
“Ivy, where’s Sadie?”
My eyes went wide and I felt all the color drain from my face. I quickly grabbed my phone and saw how late it was. Sadie should have come home from her after-school program more than a half hour ago. I hadn’t even noticed that she hadn’t walked through the door. I had been too wrapped up in my own things to even realize that she was missing. As I looked back up at my mom, I knew she could read the worry on my face.
“She never came home,” I said.
Mom was at the foot of the stairs in a second. She rounded the corner in one fluid motion, making her way into the kitchen and then I could hear her dialing the phone. After that, I couldn’t concentrate on anything but my little sister. I focused my ability on my mom in the kitchen. She was in another room and out of sight, which made it hard to tune in to her thoughts, but I needed to know what she was thinking. I needed to know what was going on. Then finally I was able to hear her in my head.
Mom was on the phone with Sadie’s school. As she listened to the woman on the other line, I found that I could hear both their voices in my head. Charlie said something to me, but I wasn’t paying her any attention. It felt like ice was flowing through my veins and my stomach was doing flips. I needed to know what was going on.
Mom was asking if Sadie had gotten on the bus to come home after her after-school program. The woman on the phone assured her that she did. Her words, however, didn’t calm my mother. She was anxious and worried and growing livid with every moment that passed. She insisted that they talk to the bus driver. She knew that Sadie got on the bus, but did she get off it?
The woman on the other line shuffled around, I heard papers ruffling. Then she told my mother to wait for a moment and she put her on hold. Minutes passed by, two, five, ten, thirteen. Mom was watching the clock. Then finally there was a click on the other line and the woman’s voice returned. She said that she had just gotten off the phone with the bus driver and he had told her that Sadie got off at her usual spot. Mom thanked the woman and hung up the phone, but her time talking to her had done nothing to reassure her. Mom paused for a moment, possibly frozen in shock and fear. Then she walked back out into the living room. Her eyes were distant as she looked at me.
“I don’
t know where she is,” Mom said. “They said she got off the bus, I don’t know…”
“We’ll go out and look for her,” Brant said and my eyes shot to him. He stood up and Charlie and I followed.
“Yeah, we can go drive around,” I said and watched as my mom nodded in agreement. “And if we don’t come back soon then call the police, or call them now if it makes you feel better. We’ll go find her.” I walked up to my mom and gave her a hug.
All Mom could do was nod as we pulled apart, and I left with Brant and Charlie. We walked outside and I noticed a chill to the air. The wind brushed by my face and sent my hair spiraling out around me. I looked down at the car keys in my hand then down to the end of the block. I could see her bus stop from here. I closed my fingers around the keys, feeling their jagged edges and hearing the muffled sound of metal clanking against metal.
“Maybe we should walk. I’m thinking we might have better luck on foot… if she just wandered off that is.” The other option was that someone grabbed her and I couldn’t think about that, because if that was the case then there was nothing I could do.
Brant rubbed my back, “We’ll find her,” he assured me, and he sounded so confident about it. It was hard not to believe him.
“Where should we start?” Charlie asked and I pointed to the end of the block.
“Her bus stop is down there.”
“Seems as good a place as any,” Brant said and we all started to walk down the block.
24
I Went by Myself
The sun was setting on the horizon when we started walking. The clouds looked like glowing orange waves rolling in and crashing against the darkening sky. I would have thought it was a pretty sight had I not been so preoccupied. The bus stop may have been a logical place to start the search for my sister, but we didn’t find her there. Once we were at the corner of Sunnyside and Parkway, we discussed splitting up, but neither Brant nor Charlie knew what Sadie looked like. And, as she had never met either of them, I couldn’t imagine her reacting well to a stranger walking up to her saying that her sister and mother were worried about her and that she needed to go with them, unless that was what had already happened.
We decided to stay together and walked across Sunnyside Lane to make our way toward the park. It seemed the most logical direction for her to walk in as Parkway was a much busier road, one that I wouldn’t have thought she’d try to cross. As we walked, my mind wandered back to Jason and the story Brant told me about his little brother. I realized then how helpless Jason must feel. Even as I walked, I didn’t know if there was really anything I could do. Jason’s little brother had a good chance of beating his cancer and I suppose Sadie had a good chance of me finding her, but the panic and insecurity I felt surrounding it all was eating away at me.
“Can you think of any place she might have gone? A friend’s house maybe?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m sure Mom’s calling all of her friends now. I just can’t imagine if she went over somewhere that they wouldn’t have called Mom first though.”
Sadie had never done anything like this before. Never even wandered off in the supermarket or left Mom’s side at the mall. The fact that this was so unlike her was the scariest part about it.
“How old is she?” Brant asked. He’d been unusually quiet since we started walking. I hadn’t listened in on any of his thoughts but I could tell by the look on his face that my missing sister fiasco was bringing him back to an earlier memory, that of his mom going missing.
“She’s eight,” I said and both Brant and Charlie nodded. No one said another word after that for some time.
It was a few minutes later that we neared the park. A long chain link fence surrounded its limits and tall trees broke up the landscape. I saw the metal skeleton of a jungle gym reaching toward the sky in the shape of a rocket ship. It cast crisscrossing shadows onto the grass from the last of the sun’s glimmering rays. There were picnic tables and a gazebo, a yellow plastic slide that twisted down from a tower, and a set of seesaws. As we got closer, more and more of the park came into view. At the far end of it was a cement patch with two basketball hoops that had long ago lost their nets. Just before a small parking lot, there was a small structure that contained bathrooms and water fountains.
I looked around for her, praying that she’d be here. I didn’t just hope or wish to find her though. I told myself that this is where I would find her, said it over and over in my mind so much that I started to believe that this was where she was. But, as I looked around for her, as I searched for her blonde hair and purple backpack, I found nothing. The park seemed completely empty beyond our presence, but we kept walking. I wondered for a moment if Brant had done the same thing with his mom so many years ago. I wondered if he tried to convince himself that she was coming home. I wondered for how long he held on to that hope that one day he’d look and she’d be there like he expected. Did he still hope? Did he still expect to find her?
Then finally something caught my eye. I breathed a sigh of relief and my paced picked up. Beyond the gazebo, a view hidden from my previous vantage point, was a swing set. The metal chain barely moved, but it was enough that, as I got closer, I could hear its soft squeaking. Set on the ground beside the tall metal structure was Sadie’s purple backpack and sitting on the swing with her back to us was my little sister. I ran to her, around the swing set, and her face looked up to me as I came around the corner. Her blonde hair had been braided in pigtails and she wore a pink and white striped shirt with a long-sleeved grey sweater. Her small hands held on to the metal chain links of the swing and there were tears in her eyes. I scooped her up and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Where the hell have you been? Mom is freaking out!” I heard the tone of anger in my voice but it was only there to mask my concern.
Slowly I pulled away from her to leave her sitting on the swing. Kneeling before her, I looked her over, checking to make sure that she was all there. In the corner of my vision, I saw Brant and Charlie hovering some distance away, but I paid them no attention. My thumb brushed away the wetness from Sadie’s cheeks and I was eager to know what had upset her.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Nothing happened, Ivy. I just wanted to go to the park.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
“Dad wouldn’t take me to the park, and now he’s gone so I went by myself.”
I pulled her back into a hug feeling my heart break for her.
“I’m sorry Sadie,” I said, “I’m really sorry… let’s go home though, okay? Mom’s really worried about you.”
Sadie nodded at me and we both stood up. I watched as she put her backpack on and I grabbed her hand as we began to walk back towards my friends.
When we walked through the front door, I heard Mom hang up the phone and rush into the entryway. Her eyes immediately found Sadie and she grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. As she held her tight, she threatened her to never do that to her again. I let them be and walked outside with my friends. We hovered on the front step for a moment and stood in silence in the now dark night.
“I’m sorry about dragging you guys on that goose hunt,” I said.
“It’s no problem,” Brant said, “we’re just glad she’s okay.”
“Yeah, really, Ivy, we were glad to help,” added Charlie.
Their sentiments warmed my heart and I offered up a grateful smile.
“Well, thank you,” I said.
After that, I gave Charlie a hug and she left. I waved and watched as her headlights cut through the dark then disappeared around the corner. Brant and I sat down on the stoop, sitting side by side, and enjoyed the quiet of the night. I looked to him. His face was cast in dark angular shadows created by the porch light. He was hunched over with his hands folded between his legs. I sat with my hands resting lightly on my knees. We listened to the soft chirping of crickets and felt the cool breeze rush past us, but we didn’t move. Didn’t say a word,
and I didn’t need to nor need him to. Just being in his company was comfortable.
After a short moment, Brant unbraided his fingers and reached over to grab my hand. My fingers intertwined with his and I squeezed, comforted by the feel of his skin against mine. Wordlessly, he stood and I stood up beside him, keeping our hands linked. With his free hand, he brushed a stray hair out of my face then kissed me softly on the lips. After that, we said our goodbyes and I went back into the house.
Sadie was lying on the couch, her head on Mom’s lap and her eyes closed. She snored lightly and Mom ran her fingers through her hair. There was a calm that came over the room. It contrasted heavily with the chaotic atmosphere that had been when Sadie was missing. Quietly, I sat down in the oversized chair that was adjacent to the couch. Mom looked to me with a grateful smile.
“I like your new friends,” she said. “They seem like good kids.”
I nodded in agreement.
“What was the boy’s name?”
“Brant.”
“Right, of course, he’s the one that’s not your boyfriend? He seemed to like you.”
Her words were soft and observant as she looked at me, her eyes expressing the insight and wisdom that was rooted within their green orbs. You would have thought my mother had lived on this earth for a thousand years to absorb every bit of information there was about life and love just from the depths of her eyes.
I smiled. “I’m not so sure of that anymore,” I said. “About him not being my boyfriend… he’s a good guy.”
Mom didn’t say anything after that. She just smiled with that knowing look in her eyes.
