by Joan Bauer
“Anna, listen to me. I don’t like the way you’re sounding. I can hear the stress. I think it’s best that we all see Jen individually and as a family so that we can—”
“I don’t want to talk to Jen!” I’m shrieking now.
“Anna, I very much want you to feel heard in all this, but sometimes a child doesn’t get to decide!”
“Mom, I have to call you back.”
“You and I are going to talk this through now, Anna.”
“I can’t, Mom. I have to think. I love you. Bye.”
Did I just hang up on my mother?
Eleven
“Whoa, Zoe . . .”
I turn around and see Taylor sitting on the horse.
My phone is buzzing. It’s Mom.
Taylor says, “Do you need to get that?”
Probably, but I can’t.
I look at Taylor and start crying.
“I feel like a total idiot. I’m standing here crying in my dog pajamas! I don’t know you at all, but you’ve got to listen to me, Taylor! Listen to everything, okay?”
She jumps off Zoe, ties the reins to the fence. “Okay. Go ahead and tell me, Anna.”
I tell her everything about the girl in the van.
And this girl listens with everything she’s got.
She doesn’t say anything for the longest time, then: “I did a report on missing kids.”
I wait.
“What did you learn?”
“I learned it’s scary how many are missing, it’s awful how people sometimes look the other way, and sometimes there’s something that can be done about it. That’s what you’re doing, Anna. You’re doing something.”
I don’t feel like I’m doing much of anything except sitting in the garden totally stressed out . . .
And then, like a bolt, I remember!
I shout, “I can see it! It was right next to the license plate on the van. An American flag sticker. It was big.” I stretch out my hands to almost a foot. “Like this. And . . .” my heart is beating fast as my memory kicks in. “There was a slogan above the flag. ‘Proud to be an American,’ but the ‘can’ part of ‘American’ was torn. I remember!”
I try to draw it in my horse journal, but I’m not that good an artist. Taylor takes the pen from me. “Tell me again. Every detail.”
“It was an American flag.”
“Straight or flapping?”
“Flapping.”
She draws that.
“Not that much flapping.”
She draws it again. I nod. “‘Proud to be an American’ was in square letters.”
Taylor draws a P. “Like that?”
“Maybe a little bigger.”
PROUD TO BE
“That’s close.”
Taylor keeps trying to get it right. She doesn’t exactly, but it’s good enough.
I look at Taylor. “Is that enough to find her?”
Taylor takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“But we can try, right?”
“We’re going to kill ourselves trying.”
Now Mim walks toward us. Winnie is right behind her. They’ve got their game faces on.
“Winnie got you an appointment.”
“For what?”
Winnie doesn’t say.
“It’s okay. Taylor knows about the girl. I told her.”
Mim nods. “The appointment is to see the police sketch artist.”
“When?”
“As soon as we can get there.”
I turn to Taylor. “Will you come?”
Taylor nods, climbs over the fence, unties Zoe.
“We’ll pick you up in ten,” Mim says.
Taylor rides Zoe back to the barn.
Now all I have to do is remember everything perfectly and not mess up.
The artist sits at a table with a drawing pad and pencils in front of her. She smiles at me. “I like your shirt.”
It’s purple; it says, ACT OUT. I got it at the Children’s Drama Workshop. I pull at the shirt, hoping I don’t mess up. So much is at stake, it makes my stomach hurt.
“You’re visiting, I hear,” the artist says to me.
“I’m from Philadelphia.”
“Oh, those cheesesteaks . . .”
I nod.
“I’m Daphne. You want to get started?”
“I guess so.”
She opens her pad. “Tell me what you saw, Anna.”
I tell her about the girl, the woman, the van. Daphne looks at Winnie. “You saw this, too?”
“I didn’t see the van, just the woman and the girl.”
Mim and Taylor say they’re here for emotional support.
I take out the drawing Taylor made of the decal. “This was on the back of the van next to the license plate—on the left.”
Daphne studies it. “This is so helpful. Is there anything you want to add or take away from this, Anna?”
Suddenly, I remember something else. “Iowa,” I shout.
“What about Iowa?”
“I didn’t remember till now. The license plate—it was from Iowa. It said . . .” I try to picture it. “Something about corn.”
“‘The Corn State’?” Daphne asks. “That’s Iowa’s license plate slogan.”
She draws the back of a van, copies the decal, draws a license plate with THE CORN STATE. “Was it like this?”
My heart is racing. It’s hard to think.
“Take your time . . .”
I don’t want to make anything up, but, “The van was scratched up.”
“Where?”
“In the back, kind of . . .”
“Lots of scratches? Any dents?”
“Lots of scratches on the bumper, I don’t know about dents.”
Daphne draws scratches. She smudges the pencil with her thumb and looks at me.
I nod.
“What color was the van?”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember, but the decal was torn more.”
She fixes that.
“That’s better.”
“You’re helping so much, Anna.”
I shut my eyes. I’ve got a headache.
“Tell me the first thing you saw when the van pull into the library parking lot, Anna.”
“I’m not sure if I saw the lady first or the girl. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. You’re doing fine. Tell me more about the van. How did it look from the side? Can you remember how many windows it had?”
I gulp. “I can see the girl’s face looking out a big window.”
“That’s good.” Daphne shows me some pictures of vans. “Did it look like any of these? Take your time.”
I go through page after page and stop at one that has a big, long window like a bus. “It was like that. I can remember the girl looking out of this kind of window.”
Daphne draws. “Was she in a small bus, do you think?”
“I . . . I don’t know . . . no, it wasn’t a bus.”
“Like this?” Daphne shows me what she’s drawn. Her drawing looks like a bus.
“It wasn’t that long or that high, but it had windows like a bus.”
She changes the height and the length. “Better?”
“Yes.”
She asks questions about the girl. I show her the list I made, tell her about the baby animal eyes.
Daphne draws deep, round, scared eyes on the face of a girl with dark hair.
I mention the ponytail, the scrunchie.
“Let’s bring this girl out of the van. What was she wearing?”
I try to think. All I can remember is the lady grabbing the girl’s hand. I can see the lady’s arm.
I stand up. “She had a tattoo!”
“The girl?”
“The lady!”
Winnie leans back. “I remember that. It was a flower, like a daisy.”
“Where?” Daphne holds her pencil, ready.
“Just above the elbow.” I look to Winnie. “Right?”
Daphne draws an arm with a daisy tattoo. She draws a stem.
Winnie shakes her head. “No stem.”
“The flower was fuller,” I mention.
Daphne draws that, but it still isn’t right. “What arm? Left or right?”
“Left,” I say.
Winnie bites her lip. “It was right, as I remember.”
Oh boy.
Daphne smiles. “That’s okay. Was the flower like this?”
We help her make it fuller, but how is this going to help find a girl?
Colors are coming to me now.
The lady had a purple phone.
The girl was wearing white sandals.
The man had gray hair that fell over his ears.
The artist shows us pictures of faces. Some are criminals, I figure, some are famous people.
“Was the girl’s face round, square, long . . . what do you think, Anna?”
Winnie and I decide it was round.
“And the color of her eyes?”
“Brown,” Winnie and I say that together.
“What language did the lady speak?”
“Not Spanish or French. I know what those sound like.” Winnie didn’t hear them speak.
So much is on me!
Can you remember?
No, not anymore!
I don’t want to get it wrong!
“Should we take a break?” Daphne asks.
Yes, please.
Mim hands me and Taylor each a bottle of lemonade that has a picture of a man in an old-fashioned hat smiling like he knows a good secret—the lady he’s with is smiling like the world is an easy place.
A police car pulls up—we’re standing outside the station—and a big cop gets out. He has two moles on his cheek, his hair is thin on top of his head, he is as tall as my dad, and when he smiles at us he has a space between his two front teeth.
I could go back inside and describe the policeman and the lemonade man and his lady to Daphne and get every detail right.
But it seems the more I think about the girl, the foggier she becomes.
If they can find you, I promise I’ll be your friend.
“Memory”—Mim sighs—”is a tricky thing.”
“You were amazing in there, Anna.” That’s Taylor.
I finish my lemonade with a slurp.
“I swear, my brain aches.” Winnie rubs her forehead. “How are you, Anna?”
“I wish I could remember more.”
“All you can remember is what you can remember.”
But is it enough?
“We’ve got a lot here.” Daphne shows us the three sketches she’s made, of the van, the girl, and the lady with the daisy tattoo. “What do you think? Have we got it?”
This looks real. I felt like part of me is back there at the library. I can feel the anger of the lady, the girl looking at me.
Why didn’t I say something then?
Winnie studies the sketches. “This is good, Daphne. Very good. And I’ve got another piece. The lady had another tattoo on her calf. Her left calf. It was a spider.”
I never saw that. I get a chill as Daphne tries to draw a spider.
Spiders weave their webs where no one can see, then they catch their prey.
I close my eyes.
Daphne says, “Like this?”
“Smaller. More sinister.”
A spider and a daisy.
Daphne says they will put this out on the wires, and if we think of anything or want to change it, to give her a call. She makes copies of the sketches for us to take home.
We walk outside, get in the car. I’m trying to remember every detail of life. It’s a blue Chevy with black seats, and a figure of a woman with children around her is hanging from the rearview mirror. The figure is carved from light-colored wood.
Mim tells me, “When you’ve done all you can do, rest in that.”
Twelve
We stop by Debbie’s Dollar Daze to buy more yellow scrunchies. All that Debbie has are the non-important colors.
“The shiny purple ones are nice,” she says. “We’ve got headbands . . .”
“Do you have any more in the back?” Taylor asks.
Debbie doesn’t want to go into the back, but I blurt out, “This is life and death! We need yellow scrunchies!”
That gets her moving.
Of course, the last time I was in here, I shouted that I needed to see the sheriff. She looks at me strangely.
Taylor puts her hand on my shoulder. “Anna is just here visiting.”
Debbie gives a quick nod, runs into the back.
The number of people in town who don’t like me is growing.
But Debbie comes back with three more packages, each with a white, black, and yellow scrunchie.
Winnie, Mim, and Taylor are now wearing them as wrist bracelets.
“You might want to order more,” Taylor tells her. “These might catch on.”
Mom has left four messages for me. She’s talked to Mim and told her in no uncertain terms that she wants me home.
“Anna,” Mim says, “try to give your mind a rest if you can. That will help all kinds of things. You can talk to your mother in the morning.”
It would be nice if my dad would call. We haven’t talked for over a week.
I think of a poem by Robert Frost that Dad had in his classroom. . . . Here’s the part I remember:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Dad didn’t just teach math, he taught life.
I write this in my new horse notebook:
To the girl with the baby animal eyes:
Try to look out the window of the van as much as you can, and when you have to go to the bathroom, make sure lots of people see you.
If you get a chance to run away, do it.
You’re not invisible anymore, at least part of you isn’t.
The police are looking for you, and I’m hoping to remember more so I can help.
I won’t forget, I promise.
I won’t let it go.
Your friend forever,
Anna McConnell
Okay, now I can sleep.
But just a little.
Thirteen
I walk to the barn. Taylor told me to meet her early.
I’m glad to have something to do, something else to think about.
I touch the yellow scrunchie on my right wrist and wonder how that girl is doing.
I come close to the barn—it’s seven in the morning and the light seems to be telling me, slow down, don’t worry.
I remember walking into the stable when I had my first riding lesson. I was so excited.
Okay, this is my do-over. Although I’m not mentioning it to my mother.
Taylor is drinking something from a cup with the words I’M A MIRACLE.
I don’t feel like a miracle. I never once thought of myself that way.
I get out my phone and send this to Lorenzo and Becca: I’m a miracle.
Taylor doesn’t see me yet, but Zoe looks out. And I remember getting thrown like it was yesterday, but I can’t focus there.
“Hi, girl,” I say.
Taylor smiles. “You look ready.”
I nod.
“I just want you to know that the first time I worked with Zoe, she stepped on me. That was the beginning of our relations
hip.”
I back up.
Taylor motions me forward.
“I got thrown once,” I mention.
“How old were you when it happened?”
“I was ten. I’m twelve now.” I wish I could say I was a more significant age, like fourteen.
She nods. “I was twelve once. Now I’m sixteen.”
“So how was it for you—being twelve?”
“Not so good. That’s when my mom died.”
Nice one, Anna. Open your fat yap and ruin everything. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be—”
“It’s okay.”
No it’s not. “I’m sorry you lost your mom.”
“It was bad. Everything hurt.” She rubs Zoe. “I didn’t even want to be thirteen, not without Mom.”
Zoe shakes her head. Taylor smiles at me. “I thought my life was over, but all of it got me here. This is a good place to be. Here’s the synopsis: my father started dating all these women—he wanted a new wife and he found one.”
“Do you like her?”
“No.”
I need to stop asking questions.
“I lived with them for two years, nine months, and seventeen days.”
Zoe neighs in her stall. “We’ll get to you in a minute,” she tells the horse. Taylor pushes her straw cowboy hat back. “I asked my dad to send me to boarding school—he said it was too expensive. I got to the right place eventually.”
I mention my dad’s anger. “That’s part of why I’m here,” I tell her.
“So we’re both tough.” Taylor opens the door to Zoe’s stall. “Zoe got here three weeks after I did. I think we saved each other. Right, Zoe?”
Zoe gives Taylor a push with her nose. Taylor laughs. She hands me the reins. “Do you really want to know her?”
“Yes.”
“Stretch out your hand, then.”
I stretch out my right hand with the yellow scrunchie.
I look at Zoe from the side, I can tell she’s waiting. “So, Zoe, this is my hand, my right hand, and I do want to mention that I’m right-handed, so if you were thinking about, say, biting it or eating some of my fingers, that would be bad.”
Zoe sniffs my hand.
