The Missing Girl Read online

  “You’re going to school,” Mommy says.

  You’re so surprised by this, you yelp, “Mommy!”

  “Your stomachache ain’t that bad,” Mommy says. “I can tell.”

  And even though you know you shouldn’t, you start arguing. “Where’s Poppy? Poppy would let me stay home. He understands more than you. Mommy, it’s not fair.”

  “Never mind that stuff,” Mommy says, and her voice tells you she means business. “Your father’s sitting out in his truck, thinking things over, and he don’t want to hear from you.” She puts her hands on your shoulders and walks you out of her room and over to yours, the room you share with Fancy and Stevie. “Get dressed, you’re going to school,” Mommy says. “You’re not missing school for no reason. You’re going to stay with it and graduate, not like me.”

  You try to tell her you don’t have to think about graduation stuff for a long time, you’re only in fifth grade, but she doesn’t want to listen. “Hurry up and get dressed,” she says. She doesn’t care that you’ll have to run all the way to school, and you’ll probably still be late.

  That’s the bad part.

  The good part is that on the way to school—running, stopping to catch your breath, running again—you think of something you can say for your oral report. You can tell about Great-great-grandfather Ephraim Herbert, who came to Mallory from Ireland one hundred years ago. Or was it one hundred and eight? Well, whatever. Just say one hundred years, a century, and Mr. Spiegleman will think it’s fantastic. He loves to hear about old times and old people and, well, anything old.

  You won’t repeat, though, the other stuff Poppy told you with that funny look on his face. Like he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t think he should? Poppy always gets that look when he’s about to tell Mommy a story that will make her say, “Huddle Herbert! Don’t say them things in front of your girls.”

  Great-great-grandpa Ephraim had been an outlaw, which meant he was a criminal, a bad guy. Not that he ever hurt anybody—you would hate to know that about someone related to you—but he brewed bootleg whiskey in the woods, and once somebody shot him and he lived the rest of his life limping with a bullet in his leg.

  “Do you know what Ephraim looked like, Autumn?” Mr. Spiegleman asks when you’re done with your report in front of the class. “Do you have any family pictures?”

  You shake your head and look up at the ceiling. It’s hard for you to keep looking straight at Mr. Spiegleman. He’s so cute with his long ponytail.

  “No family stories about Ephraim?” Mr. Spiegleman says, almost as if he knows that you’re holding out, and for a moment, glancing at him, your face gets so hot, and you really want to tell him everything. But you don’t, because, like Mommy says, family business is family business and nobody else’s.

  Later, at the end of the day, Mr. Spiegleman reminds you not to forget your excuse for being late. You say, “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “I’m not worrying about you, Autumn,” he says, and he gives you a big smile, like maybe you’re his favorite, too.

  That evening Beauty writes the excuse for you. Mommy has Beauty take care of all that sort of stuff; she doesn’t want to be bothered. Besides, Beauty has beautiful handwriting. Everybody says so.

  Mr. Spiegleman:

  Please excuse my daughter Autumn Herbert for coming late to school Thursday morning. She did not feel well when she woke up but recovered sufficiently to attend her classes.

  Sincerely yours,

  Blossom Lily Herbert

  A TUNE IN MY POCKET

  BEAUTY MY SISTER gave me this tape recorder, she said, Fancy my love, which is her best pet name for me, she said, Talk into it, tell it things when you get The Urge. I said, What is The Urge? She said, You know, honey, when you want to talk a lot, but everybody is too busy to listen—that’s The Urge.

  She said, Do you get what I mean, and I said, Yes, I do, and I love you.

  And I love you, she said, and you can talk here and tell this little tape recorder everything. See, she said, you take this and push this button and talk all you want and when you’re done, you push this button.

  So I said, Okay, I will do it.

  And so this is The Urge, and I pushed the button, and I am talking all I want, like Beauty my sister said I could. They are all inside doing things like homework, and Stevie my sister, which is her new name, Stevie not Faithful, which she says is a girly name and she is sick of girly names in our family, and she is yelling again that we should have a computer, but my mommy said we don’t have the money and I told you a million times, so shut up about it, and she says she is too fat and smokes too many cigarettes, and Stevie my sister said, You said it, Mommy, you are a walking bad habit, which was such a funny thing to say, but my mommy didn’t laugh, she said, You are just too smart for your own good, Missy, and they were yelling too much, so that is why I am outside walking around having The Urge.

  To say, uh, uh, I have a lot to say. That is what Mrs. Sokolow my teacher says to me and she is sooo nice. She likes me. She loves me, and I love her. I am a good student for her. And I am the best, fastest-running runner in my class. Ha-ha! That’s a halfway joke, because who would be a walking runner? I am not like Randy Parsons, who can never see a joke. See a joke is also funny, and I like funny things.

  Funny things are my favorite things in the whole world, which is big, and Mallory where I live is small says Mim my sister, but I don’t think so. I think Mallory is big with a lot of streets and stores and houses and cars and big buildings like the opera house, which is where people used to get up on the stage and sing, and I think I would like to do that, because I like singing, it is my favorite thing in the whole world, but when I sing, Stevie my sister says, Shut up, you can’t carry a tune! And you know what? That makes me confused.

  Confused is what Mrs. Sokolow my teacher told me, like when I get mad at Stevie my sister because she says a mean thing, but I laugh because carry a tune is sooo funny. I asked Mrs. Sokolow my teacher can I say, You shut up, too, because I am not carrying a tune in my pocket. She said, Shut up is not nice, Fancy, but maybe you should try that next time and see what happens. So I did. I said to Stevie my sister, You shut up, too, I am not carrying a tune in my pocket, I am not carrying a tune in a bag, I am not carrying a tune in a box. And every time she says, Shut up, you can’t carry a tune, I will tell her I am not carrying a tune anywhere!

  And I am going to sing right now.

  Good-bye!

  LIKE VELCRO

  IF THE GIRLS are on time, his time, the man sees them as he turns at the corner of Carbon Street onto Fuller Avenue. They will be coming toward him, hopping over snow-clogged sidewalks, all legs and arms and hair, chattering away, seemingly unaware of the rot and filth of Fuller Avenue: the decrepit diner with the smeared windows, the pigeons pecking at the greasy papers clogging the gutter. The man hates pigeons, their noisy, grunting clucks, their strutting walk, the suspicious whir of their wings. Ugly creatures. Disease vectors. Rats with wings. If he had a gun, he’d shoot them all, do a good deed for the world.

  He likes the thought. A good deed for the world. He repeats it to himself, watching the girls. The girls…a good deed for the world. The phrases cling to one another, like Velcro they cling. The girls…a good deed for the world. As a young boy, he dreamed of doing good deeds—of helping an old lady across a traffic-clogged street or saving a screaming, helpless child from a fiery building. Once he told his mother these dreams of good deeds, and her face flushed, she kissed him and said, “What a very nice person you are!” His parents were older and quiet, and often appeared slightly surprised to see him there in their life.

  On his revised route he’s obliged only to cross this disgusting street to get to the bus stop, but the girls—poor things!—must walk the full length of the street, all twelve long blocks, to arrive at Mallory Central School. He knows exactly where the school is located. He has walked by the brick building with its ugly, blank-faced annex and rundown trailer, but
not too often. It’s the kind of place he takes care to avoid. He’d done things so carefully these past couple of years, it would be stupid to be caught hanging around a school. And he’s not stupid.

  He arrives at the corner of Fuller Avenue and Carbon Street at precisely the same time every day. If he’s lucky, the girls are there to greet him. Although they never even look at him, he likes to think of it that way: they are greeting him with their high voices, and how they toss their hair, and the way in which they bend and hunch against the cold.

  He thinks about them as he approaches the corner. Will they be there? His mind tingles, his step lightens. Behind his glasses, fogged by cold, he looks at each one, singles them out, fixes them in his mind. Then, later, at work, he has all of that—all of them—to think about. Musing over the girls makes time pass. Which one does he like the most? He considers, rejects, chooses, changes his opinion, prefers this one, then that one.

  Happiness.

  MAKING MRS. KALMAN HAPPY

  JUST AS YOU’RE leaving school, pretty Mrs. Kalman stops you in the hall and says, “Autumn dear, do you know who I am?”

  Of course you know. She’s your school counselor. You look at her briefcase and wonder what’s in it—must be important stuff. You fidget under her glance and wish you hadn’t braided your hair this morning. It’s too babyish.

  Mrs. Kalman is saying she’s been thinking about you.

  “Me?” you say.

  Mrs. Kalman nods. Is she looking friendly or serious? It’s hard to tell, because her face is always the same. “Mr. Spiegleman and I have been talking about you.”

  That doesn’t sound good. You must be in trouble. For the day you were late, maybe. Or maybe Mr. Spiegleman found out you knew more than you told on Oral Report Day, and he’s mad.

  “Mr. Spiegleman is concerned about you, Autumn. You failed the last two spelling tests.”

  Why does she have to say that? That’s not nice! Those tests were hard and, anyway, what does it matter? You’re not a good speller like Mim, who knows everything about all that language arts stuff.

  Mrs. Kalman is looking at you like she’s waiting for you to say something. What? What are you supposed to say? Your eyes wander up to the white-tiled ceiling. You like ceilings. They are like dreams…or stories. Right now, practically over your head, is what some people would call a water stain, but you’re seeing a girl’s face, her mouth half open, like she’s in the middle of talking. Maybe she’s giving an oral report. You like that idea. The water-stain girl looks like Fancy, who always has her mouth going. Like Stevie would say, Fancy’s a walking oral report.

  “Autumn!” Mrs. Kalman says in a voice that’s a little bit cross. “Hello! Look at me, please.”

  You drag your eyes down to her. Now you know you’re in trouble. You’re going to get detention. Poppy will laugh about it, except he doesn’t laugh very much since he fell off the ladder and walks around all bent over with that neck brace and everything, but Mommy will be plain-out mad. You didn’t show Mommy the two failing spelling tests. Your chest is tight. It’s like having a stomachache again, only higher.

  “Mr. Spiegleman tells me you’re just getting by in other subjects,” Mrs. Kalman is saying. “He knows you can do better. He says you’re not working up to capacity.”

  “Oh,” you say, and you wonder why you’re smiling. You don’t mean to smile. The smile is just there. You didn’t want it. It just popped out on your face.

  “Well, what do you think?” Mrs. Kalman says in that sort-of-cross voice.

  You shift your backpack. You look at her long blond hair. What are you supposed to say? You failed those tests. You didn’t want to fail them, but you did. Because you’re not special in school like Mim and Beauty. The stomachache in your chest gets worse.

  “Capacity,” you hear yourself saying. “That’s like a spelling word.”

  “Yes, it is,” Mrs. Kalman says. “Can you spell it?”

  You concentrate. Ka-pass-a-tee. But you know it begins with a C. You say, “C-A-P.” Under your breath, you say, “capacity” again, and you try to see the word. You say, “AS-A-T-Y.”

  “Not quite,” Mrs. Kalman says. “You’re off by two letters. That’s not so bad. Here, I’m going to write it down for you.” She takes a little notebook out of her briefcase and writes in it. “Now you can study this word and amaze Mr. Spiegleman when you ace it on a test.”

  Mrs. Kalman’s notebook cover is blue. You say, “Blue is my favorite color.” Was that a stupid thing to say?

  “Really?” Mrs. Kalman’s voice goes all singy, like she’s so happy you said that. “Well, guess what, Autumn, this notebook is for you.” You stare at her. She says, “It’s a present. Don’t you like presents?”

  You like presents, all right. You like them a lot. You wonder if you should say that. You wonder if you should tell her that your birthday is coming, but because of Poppy’s bad back and no job, there won’t be money for presents. Mommy told you that already. She warned you, so you wouldn’t be disappointed. But she said she would make you a cake, so that part is good.

  Mrs. Kalman puts the notebook in your hand. You find your voice and say, “Thank you.”

  She pats your head and says, “I want you to use it to write down your thoughts and feelings.”

  You think, What feelings? What thoughts?

  “Make me a promise to write in it every day,” Mrs. Kalman says.

  Every day? So it isn’t a present. It’s a school thing, an assignment.

  “It’s like a blog,” Mrs. Kalman says. “You know what a blog is, don’t you?” You nod, although you have just a vague idea.

  “It’s like a blog,” she repeats, “only in a notebook, instead of a computer, and just for you, not for the whole world. Private. That’s important. Private, personal thoughts and feelings. You do this, and you’ll see, you’ll like it, and before you know it—” She pauses sort of dramatically, and her voice rises, like Stevie’s voice when she gets excited. “Before you know it, you’ll be doing better in school!”

  “Uh-huh,” you say, because you don’t know what else to say, and you have to say something.

  Mrs. Kalman squeezes your shoulder. “That’s my theory, anyway. I hope I’m right, Autumn!” Now she’s laughing, and she looks nice when she laughs and tosses her blond hair around like a movie star. “It’s up to you to make me happy by proving my theory. All you have to do is write in this notebook every day. Will you do that for me?”

  “Okay,” you say, and you nod a lot and give her a smile. You like to make people happy, and you hope you can do it for Mrs. Kalman, but what you’re thinking is that she will look at the notebook, because she’s a teacher and that’s what teachers do, and then she’ll give you a mark, and it will be another bad mark.

  HAROLD AND VIOLET

  THE ALARM CLOCK brings the man awake. He gets out of bed promptly, stretches, then drops to the floor and does twenty-five push-ups. He’s a bit tired at twenty, but he keeps going. He’s proud of those push-ups. He was never one of those strong boys with thick shoulders and defined arm muscles, and it wasn’t easy working up to twenty-five. So he does his push-ups diligently, only allows himself to take off Sundays.

  After the push-ups, he showers, brushes his teeth, and combs his hair, parting it on the left side. Always the left side. Always twenty-five push-ups. Always clean socks, clean underwear, and a change of shirt every three days.

  He inspects himself in the mirror, straightens his tie. Always a tie, although it’s not a requirement of his job. “A tie shows self-respect.” His father’s words, one of the few good things his father ever said.

  He goes downstairs. The cats are waiting for him. “Good morning!” he says to them. They look at him expectantly. He’s hungry, but he feeds them first. “You know,” he says, getting the can of cat food from the cupboard, “I think of you guys before myself. You know what that means, don’t you?” He looks at them. They look back.

  He takes the can opener from
the drawer. The cats watch. Sometimes he’s lonely, but the cats make it better. He likes the way they watch him, listen to him, and he likes the way he talks to them, like a regular person, like anyone else. The thought passes through his mind that he’s a good man. He wishes that someone else knew how he feeds the cats before himself. He would like to hear someone tell him that he’s a good man, a good person.

  He opens the can of food. The cats follow his every move. They are quiet, concentrated. They aren’t shedders or talkers. He had the other kind—noisy, wild, undisciplined. Those cats had to go. They were bad for his health. He would find himself yelling at them, losing control.

  “You’re different,” he tells them. He spoons the food into their bowls. A bowl for each of them. “You’re good cats. You listening?” They are.

  “Harold. Violet.” He calls them to come to their feeding place near the back door

  “They say you can’t train cats,” he tells them, setting the bowls down on the floor, “but I trained you, didn’t I?”

  He’s said it before, but Harold and Violet don’t object. They look up at him, then bend to their bowls.

  They are named after his parents, whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in many years. Harold and Violet, the people, are probably still living in California, San Fernando Valley, same old place, same old house. One of these days he might visit them. He imagines the visit, how he will tell them he has two cats named for them. His father will stare at him, not getting that it’s a nice thing the man has done, a good thing, but his mother will be pleased. “You’re my boy,” she’ll say, and she’ll stroke his hair, and he’ll let her, although he doesn’t like to have his head touched.