The Missing Girl (5 page)

won’t say that; it’s sort of sexist.

As she dashed across Oak Street, still unreeling
Beauty
and Ethan: The Movie
, Beauty almost did a repeat of the original Ethan scene, the real one, just catching herself short of running straight into someone else.

“Oops, sorry!” she said to the man, who was carrying a grocery bag, and she moved to step out of his way. It was funny, really. A total repeat. She stepped one way, so did he; she stepped in the other direction, so did he. “Double oops!” she said cheerily. At that point a little smile had teased Ethan’s mouth, and then there was that cute twitch of his nose, but this man was no Ethan. He looked at her for a moment, almost too long, then his eyes went blank, and he jerked the grocery bag up in his arm and brushed past her.

“Well, and thank you, too,” Beauty said to his retreat-ing, gray-coated back. There you have it, folks, a typical, emotionless, middle-aged Mallory type.

Yes, she thought fervently, it would be soul saving to leave this town! Which was exactly why nothing, nothing,
nothing
would change her mind about getting out of Mallory. That was one promise to herself that she would not break, as she had broken other smaller, less important
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promises—to eat less, to stop obsessing about her name, to drop her crushes on this teacher and that boy. She’d never managed to keep any of those promises for any length of time, but this one was different.

This promise was life or death. Stuck here forever in Mallory, she’d die. It was as simple as that. She’d be alive, but dead. She pulled open the door to the florist shop.

The bells chimed. Patrick looked up from arranging a mixed bouquet and greeted her with a smile.

“Patrick,” Beauty said. “I ran most of the way. I’m not late, am I?”

52

PATTERNS

GRADUALLY, AS THE weather warms, as the snow melts, the man’s attitude toward the girls alters.

Although there are five of them, sometimes only three appear. And then other times, two, with another one lag-ging far behind. The lack of patterns is upsetting. Is it right that he never knows if they’ll be on time, or how many of them he will see on any day, in any week?

He makes a chart. Basic, no frills. He notes the date and how many show up each day. That day it was two of them. The next day all five of them came galloping along.

He continues through the week, then the next week and the next.
Two. Five
.
Three. Three. Four. One. Five. Three.

And so on.

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He is looking for a pattern. Surely there’s a pattern. He dislikes uncertainty, ambiguity. As the weeks go on, he frets over their lack of system. Over the missing pattern.

It perplexes him. Why not make up their minds, do one thing or another, be consistent. He plays with the idea of speaking to them about it, but what would he say?
Girls,
I’ve been watching you. . . . Young ladies, why do you keep
shifting the numbers on me. . . . Listen, girls, you’re upsetting me with your constantly changing numbers. . . .
He mulls over the possibilities, but eventually discards them all. He’s no fool.

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THE ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD

SATURDAY MORNING, before you’re even

out of bed, Fancy finds the notebook with the blue cover that Mrs. Kalman gave you. Last night, after you wrote in it, you forgot to hide the notebook, and now Fancy’s got it, and she’s opening it. She’s in her nightgown and her feet are bare, and she’s got a bad case of bed hair, which you usually think is so cute on her, but not now.

“Don’t you read that,” you warn, kicking off your blankets. “That’s mine. Give it back to me right now.”

Fancy backs away, acting like she didn’t hear you or doesn’t understand or something. “Did you get this cute notebook for me?” she chirps, all innocent. “I love it.” She
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kisses the notebook, and then she grabs you and lays one of her big, squishy wet kisses on your cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Autumn my sister. It’s
sooo
cute. I can draw pictures in this notebook. I’ll draw you a picture.”

You jump out of bed and say in a really stern voice,

“Give me my notebook, Fancy.”

“Mine,” she says, and she quick swishes it behind her back with that sly look on her face that you just hate, hate,
hate
. Like she’s putting something over on you, like she’s smarter than you, which she isn’t, and you know it and she knows it. You reach around her for the notebook, but she dodges, giggling. “Hee hee hee hee!”

“Give it to me, Fancy, give it back to me right now,” you order.

“Will you two shut up!” Stevie is thrashing around on the top bunk. “I’m trying to sleep here. Autumn, let her have the crummy notebook.”

Okay, now you’re getting mad, and you want to yell back at Stevie, but you don’t, because what if she has one of her awful fits and everything gets messed up, and Mommy
orders
you to give Fancy the notebook, which you will have to do, because Fancy is special needs. Ugh!

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“Fancy,” you say, and you try to make your voice soft and nice like Mim’s. “Mrs. Kalman gave that notebook to me.
Personal,
to me. Which means she didn’t want anyone else to have it.” You take a big breath and say, “Okay, Fancy? Does that make sense to you?” Which is what Mim says when she explains something to make people stop fighting. You’re being very grown-up and mature about this, and you think Fancy should respect that.

Instead, her lower lip droops, and she gets all sad and says, “You don’t want me to have this cute notebook.

You’re being mean to me. I’m going to tell Mommy you’re being sooo mean to me.”

Mean? That is just
too much
. You’re always nice to Fancy, you take care of her all the time, you take her to Lafayette Park, you let her dawdle around looking at the ducks, you tell her stories at night. And now she’s saying you’re mean?

“I am not being mean!” You can’t help it, you just have to shout. “Give me the notebook! Give it to me now, you stinking brat.”

“Uh-oh, bad word, bad word,” Fancy cries, her mouth all spitty. “I’m going to tell Mommy, I’m going to tell.”

On the top bunk Stevie flops around. “Euuu, I hate you
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both. Shut up! Shut up, you two brats!”

Fancy makes a scared face and sinks to the floor, and you sink down next to her and cross your legs underneath your nightgown. “Shh,” Fancy says. “Stevie wants to sleep.”

“I know that,” you whisper back. “And I know Mrs.

Kalman will be mad if I give you the notebook. She said it’s for me to write my private thoughts. She made me
promise
to do that.”

“Promise? Oooh. O!” Fancy sighs deeply. “Mrs.

Sokolow my teacher says promises are, are—”

You say, “Important?” She shakes her head. “Precious?”

She shakes her head. You think, and then you say,

“Sacred?” which was a spelling word last week, which you didn’t get right, you put in an extra
c
, but you know what it means, and guess what, that’s the word Fancy is thinking of.

“Yes! Sacred. That’s what Mrs. Sokolow my teacher says. Promises are sacred, which means you have to keep them. You must, you must, you must.”

“Yes,” you say, “Mrs. Sokolow is right,” and you lean closer and you say in your most serious voice, “If you keep that notebook, Fancy, it will be
your fault
that I break my sacred promise.”

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Slowly, slowly, she brings the notebook out from behind her back. “Good girl,” you say, and you reach for it, but she snatches it back and puts it behind her again.

“Fancy!” you say in a mean voice. “Give it!”

“If I give it to you,” she says, “you have to tell me a story tonight.” You nod okay. “You have to promise sacred,” she says, “and no saying you’re too sleepy for stories.” You nod okay again. You’re breathing hard. She’s driving you
crazy
!

“I will make you keep your promise,” she says, and she still doesn’t give you the notebook. She’s got that look on her face again, her mouth pursed up tight as if she’s biting a smile, and her eyes jumping all around. You hate that look.

“I’m your big sister,” she says, “I am bigger than you, I am one and one-half years older than you, and if you don’t keep your promise, I will beat your butt.”

You would like to beat
her
butt. You reach around her, shoving her and wrestling for the notebook, and she yells,

“Okay, take it, mean sister. See if I care, you mean, mean, mean sister!”

You leap to your feet. “I am not mean,” you yell. You’ve got the notebook, but your feelings are so hurt, you’re ready to cry. “I am not mean!”

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“Autumn!” Stevie leans over the side of the bunk bed.

“For the last time, shut
up
.” She reaches out and pulls your hair hard, like she wants to pull it right off your head, and you can’t stand it, and you scream, “I hate you, Stevie,” and sink down on the floor, crying.

And then Mim is there, in her pj’s. You didn’t hear her come down the stairs, you didn’t hear her in the hall, you didn’t hear her pad into the room, she’s just here, standing on her toes to pat Stevie’s head and whispering to her, like
Stevie
is the one who needs comforting.

“Mim,” you sob, “Stevie pulled my hair, and it’s not my fault, and Fancy took my notebook, and—”

“I just borrowed it for one minute.” Fancy doesn’t even let you finish. “And I gave it back. I gave it back, Mim, I was good. I’m
good
,” Fancy says, “I’m a good girl!” She tilts her head and smiles like she’s looking at herself in a mirror and loving herself.

“Come here, you two,” Mim says, “let’s have a talk.”

“Oh, yes, I love a talk,” Fancy says, and she sits right down on the floor near the window next to Mim, who crooks a finger at you.

After a moment you crawl over and sit down on the other side of Mim, and you say, “What do you want to talk
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about?” You know you sound sulky, but you can’t help it.

Why isn’t anybody on your side?

“You can each tell me what happened,” Mim says in her soft voice that you practically have to lean forward to hear,

“but only one at a time can speak. The other one has to wait for her turn, okay?” She looks at you, and her look isn’t anything like her voice; it’s a hard look.

So you say, “Okay,” even though you know it’s
impossi-ble
to keep still when Fancy’s mouth starts going. It is so wicked hard you almost can’t do it, you almost have to say
something
. It’s like wanting to pee, it has to come out, doesn’t it? And when Fancy says you
gave
her the notebook, you almost burst, but Mim gives you another one of those looks you hate, with her lips all pressed tight.

Finally
it’s your turn to talk, and you tell Mim how Fancy
took
your notebook, without permission, and how it’s private and all that, and now Fancy has to keep quiet and just listen to you, and she keeps wriggling around and raising her hand, but Mim just shakes her head and pats Fancy’s hand. And you talk and talk and tell
everything
.

When you’re done, Mim says, “Hmm” and “I see,” and she doesn’t make Fancy apologize or anything. Instead, she says for you and Fancy to each think of something
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nice to say about the other.

“I can’t think of anything,” you say, which isn’t really true, but you are still a little bit mad at Fancy. Then you sigh and say, “Uh, well, okay. Lots of times she makes me laugh and be cheerful.”

“Yeah,” Mim says. “So true! Your turn now, Fancy.”

“I have two funny parts,” she says. “Part One! Autumn tells me the best stories of anybody in the world. Part Two!

A funny story came in my head that
you
”—she giggles and flattens her hand against Mim’s nose—“make your boyfriend be quiet all the time and listen to you talk, talk, talk.”

“That is funny, except I don’t have a boyfriend,” Mim says.

“Yes, you do,” Fancy says. “All girls have boyfriends.”

“No, they don’t,” Mim says. And she laughs.

“Yes, yes, yes, they do,” Fancy says. “And you have to have a boyfriend, Mim my sister, because you are sooo pretty, and boys like pretty ladies and girls, and someday I will be a pretty lady and have a boyfriend, and he will kiss me like this.” She makes a fat fish mouth and loud, smacky kissing sounds.

“Fancy, don’t be thinking about boys all the time,” you say. “You have to think about school and learning stuff.”

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Mim gives you that nice look that means,
Good for you,
Autumn, we all have to watch out for Fancy.
Then she says in her soft voice, “I know you want some alone time to write in your notebook, Autumn,” and she tells Fancy to come down to the kitchen with her and she will make hot chocolate. Fancy bounces to her feet and takes Mim’s hand, and they both leave the room.

You can’t believe it! Mim didn’t even ask if you want hot chocolate, too. Which you do! When you think how much you love hot chocolate and how hot chocolate would be
so
perfect
right now, tears well up in your eyes, and you fling yourself on your bed. You pull the pillow over your face, and you mumble, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

What are you sorry for?
Everything
. You’re sorry you called Fancy a stinking brat, you’re sorry that you told Stevie you hated her, and you’re sorry that what you write in the notebook is so stupid, but most of all you’re sorry for yourself, because
they
—your parents, your sisters—

don’t love you. At least not very much, at least not enough, and not the way you want them to love you—as if you’re the one person in the world who really matters.

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BIG MAD BEE

HELLO, HELLO, HELLO, I’m having The

Urge because I’m mad. I am
sooo
mad. I am mad like a big mad bee, because my mommy makes me stay home and on our street all the time, like right now, I can just stay on our sidewalk, because everyone is busy and it’s Saturday and no school. She says later
maybe
I can go for candy at Mrs. Wilkins’s nice little store on the corner, and
maybe
I can go to Lafayette Park with Autumn my sister, but she says probably not the park because she worries I’ll get my feet wet and get sick, like last winter when I got pneumonia and she had to take me to the doctor and give me medicine.