“Okay, but how about celery with peanut butter and raisins?”
“Okay, but how about celery with peanut butter and chocolate chips?”
“That just sounds gross.” I wrinkle my nose. “Celery with peanut butter and raisins. Final offer.”
He pouts and runs ahead of me. “Fine.”
The new Jefferson kitchen is blinding in its whiteness and shininess and sunniness; every time I walk in, I have to blink and tell myself that no, Scarlett, you haven’t just stepped through a portal to the future. As my vision clears, I notice my sister at the table, her hands cloaked in oven mitts, sliding the last cookie off a baking sheet and placing it onto a piled-high plate. Wisps of dark hair stick to her forehead, forming crazy curlicues in the sweat.
“Hello, Scarlett,” she says, her voice cold and distant. You’d think the sugar would sweeten her tone even a little bit, except she probably hasn’t tasted her product. If I’d made those cookies, I’d have eaten all the dough, and it would have been worth it, even after Melody told me how much I’d regret it next time I stepped on the scale. “I told Matthew he could have a cookie earlier. I had to make some for the bake sale tomorrow.”
I have to bite my tongue not to ask “Which one?” Melody is sixteen, a year younger than me, and involved in so many school activities it makes my head spin just to think of them: student government (vice president!), chorus (second soprano!), field hockey (varsity!), French club (la trésorière!), creative writing club (cofounder!). Even now, during summer, she has all sorts of things to do and baked goods to make. I honestly have no idea how she manages to do all that she does. I can barely manage to hold myself together enough to make it to school every day. Even this new job is pushing it.
“He shouldn’t be eating cookies before dinner,” I say.
It’s too late: a cookie is already half-chewed and half-down Matthew’s gullet. Little traitor.
“It’s just one cookie,” Melody says, turning around to put the baking sheet in the dishwasher. “I think he’ll live.”
I stare at her back and fantasize about her turning around with a big white smile, a hug, and a “How was your interview?” I wouldn’t even care if she got flour and sugar all over me. That could be showered off, but the glow she’d give me would last for days. Weeks, maybe.
“I got the job,” I say. Not that she’ll care.
“That’s good,” Melody says, turning back and flicking a sticky curl from her forehead. She rubs her hands together; bits of flour and sugar and whatever else goes into chocolate chip cookies flake off and drift to the floor like snow. “You’ll have something to put on your college applications now.” She gives Matthew a peck on the top of his head, and love washes over her face for a moment; it makes my chest hurt just to see it. Matthew doesn’t even acknowledge it, consumed as he is with his third cookie. “I have to shower and take these to Sarah’s. Can you watch Matthew? Dad should be home any minute.”
I deftly pluck a fourth cookie from Matthew’s hand. He groans, and I almost relent. Almost. “Yeah, I can watch him.”
“Good. Thanks. See you later.” Melody sweeps out of the kitchen without a backward glance, shiny sheet of hair swinging behind her.
After I’d made the call from the police station, the cop, the nice one who had wrapped me in a blanket that smelled like old milk, sat with me to wait for my parents. Plural, because once upon a time I had a mother, too. They came as soon as they could; I could hear the screeching of their tires in the parking lot through the open window. My heart thumped as I heard their footsteps coming down the hall, and then they turned the corner and I saw them: my dad, hollow-cheeked, threads of silver winding through his beard; my mom, her face lined and eyes weary, carrying toddler Matthew; and Melody, trailing behind them, hands clasped before her, mouth trembling.
My dad burst into tears and fell to his knees, pulling me into his arms and holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. My mom couldn’t stop patting my head, like I was a lost dog. She had this funny look on her face, half disbelief, half astonishment, and she had to put Matthew down and rest her other hand against the wall to keep herself from falling over. Matthew kept tugging on the bottom of her shirt and asking her who I was, but she didn’t answer.
Melody just stared. Even when I looked at her and said, squeezing the words over the lump in my throat, how happy I was to see her again, she just stared. Even after I made it out of the hospital, my butt frozen from sitting on cold metal table after cold metal table, and I told her how happy I was to go back home and sleep in my own bed, she just stared, eyes colder than the hospital’s tables.
Nothing has changed since.
I have no friends. When I told that to my dad a while back, he reacted with horror, patting me on the shoulder and assuring me that of course I had friends, that I was perfectly normal and everybody liked me. I squinted at him in surprise, because I hadn’t been seeking pity or attention. I’d simply been stating a fact.
I had friends once—Maddy and Nicole, my best friends from elementary school, neither of whom I’ve spoken with since I returned home—and I could have friends again, if I smiled at the girls at school and asked them questions about themselves. I’ve tried a couple of times, started the process, but always put a stop to it. After a certain amount of time, the girls would start asking about my past, asking about when I moved to New Jersey or why I got nauseous at the smell of tuna fish. I’d clam up, and they’d withdraw, and I’d think that it was for the better. Because the closer we got, the closer I’d get to slipping up. Revealing what had happened to me. To Pixie.
But third grade. Maddy and Nicole. My dad woke me up on my last normal morning with the whap of a pillow and a kiss on the forehead, and bid me goodbye with a big, arm-swinging hug. My mom handed me my lunch, crinkly in a brown paper bag, and warned me not to trade my sandwich for Maddy’s Oreos, because she’d know.
The school day itself was ordinary, achingly so, and because I went over the details a thousand times in Stepmother’s house, I know it by heart. There was a spelling test I passed with an 88 (photosynthesis and extinction got the best of me), a short video on Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, a lesson on the multiplication of fractions, and lunch, where I traded my sandwich for Maddy’s Twinkie (it wasn’t an Oreo, so the trade was legit).
On my walk home, I almost didn’t notice the car sidle up next to me.
“Hey there,” the man inside said. “Don’t panic, honey, but I have some bad news. Your mommy got sick, and she and your daddy had to rush to the hospital in the ambulance.”
My heart climbed up my throat. “Is she going to be okay?”
“They don’t know,” the man said. His voice was deep, and half his face was covered in a shadow of stubble. “But they sent me from the hospital to bring you back there to see her.” He paused, then continued ominously, “Hopefully, we’ll make it in time.”
Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t listen to strangers, even if they say they know you. “My house is right near here,” I said, already moving away, my fingers locked tight around the straps of my backpack. “I should go home first.”
“They told me you needed to come right away.” He licked his lips nervously, and I blinked, and somehow he was standing outside the car. “I didn’t want to have to say this, but it doesn’t look good. She might die, honey.”
The word “honey” looked wrong coming out of his mouth; there was something about his fat lips and the way his eyes didn’t move as he spoke.
“My next-door neighbor will take me,” I said, my heart thumping so hard it made me feel sick. “But thanks. I have to go now.”
I turned, and suddenly he wasn’t standing next to the car but was in front of me, and his arms were locked around me, and my backpack was dropping to the ground the way my insides were dropping to my feet.
“Sorry, honey,” he said, and his hand was over my mouth, and something smelled sickly sweet, like stomach medicine mixed with the dregs from a box of sugary cereal. “I
tried to make this easy on you.”
And then everything was black.
—
First days scare me: first days of school, first time shopping at a new store, first time trying a new food. I don’t like the unfamiliar, because all bad things start with the unfamiliar. So I’m not exactly looking forward to the Five Banners orientation.
It’s not so bad, though. The day passes in a blur of bright colors and glossy paper and stupid catchphrases. (This year’s Five Banners corporate motto: Safe! Friendly! Clean! They love their exclamation points, Five Banners.) I learn a lot about the park’s history and the League of the Righteous. I learn nothing about how to operate a cash register or what to do if an item doesn’t ring up or how to deflect creepy old men from hitting on me. (Make up a fake boyfriend and trot him out when you need him, Lara in Rides advises; best to make him tall and strong and very, very jealous.)
The next day—my first day at Adventure World—is misty, and cool for June. The sun shines palely, as if through a sheet of gauze, and I shiver as the chill pricks me.
I stand in my front hallway, checking the contents of my clear Five Banners fanny pack, making sure I have all the identification cards and employee documents that grant me access to the park—you’d think I was trying to fly to Pakistan or Somalia. My dad hovers beside me, cup of coffee in hand. A column of steam stretches toward the ceiling. “They didn’t give you a jacket?” my dad asks. “You look cold.”
“I’m not cold,” I lie. I kind of hoped the neon-green polo would keep me warm through the sheer radiance of its color, but no such luck. And the pants sag on me, even with the aid of the belt. “I’ll be inside most of the day anyway.”
Employee ID card, check. Driver’s license, check. Phone, check. All set. I take a deep breath. “Well, off I go. Hopefully, I won’t get fired on my first day.”
“You won’t get fired.” And then my dad is hugging me with one arm, cup of coffee held carefully to one side, and he is warm, and I am warm too. I close my eyes and commit this hug—they’re so few and far between, after all—to memory. “You’ll be the best damn cashier Five Banners has ever seen. They’ll be begging you to stay next year, but you’ll have to tell them, ‘Sorry, folks. Off to Harvard to become a neurophysicist.’ ”
I can’t help my laugh as I pull away. “Is that even a thing?”
“It doesn’t have to be a thing. You’ll make it a thing.”
My laugh dries up. “If any of us are going to make it a thing, it’ll be Melody.”
“Don’t worry about Melody. Melody has her own problems.” He smiles down at me. “Besides, Melody hates math, and I hear neurophysics involves lots of math.”
“Fine,” I say. “As long as it doesn’t involve geography, then I’m in.”
“No geography. Just geometry. Lots of hypotenuses and angles and x’s and y’s.”
“I can handle that.” Math is easy. Math is good. If you do everything right, you get the right answer, and the right answer is the same every time, whether you get it in the morning or at night or your teacher hates you or whatever. Literature is open to too much interpretation. Something like “the grass is green” can mean anything except that the grass is colored green. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late. Give Matthew a kiss for me.”
“Good luck. You’ll do great.” He retreats to the kitchen, coffee cup now clutched tightly in both hands. He doesn’t look back.
Today the parking lot is positively bustling. We are a sea of phosphorescent algae in our glowing green shirts, shifting and flowing around the cars in waves. I drift along in the crowd, feeling the voices rush over me. There’s a concert going on today, apparently, which means a lot of drunk guests, and security guards taking overtime. Wonderman’s Fall, one of the most popular roller coasters, is down for emergency repairs. Two guests fought yesterday over the last souvenir cup at Orcaman’s Reservoir, and an ambulance drove straight through the flower garden featured on the front of the Five Banners Adventure World brochure, sparking a design crisis. Fascinating stuff.
As I near the employee entrance, though, one word pushes its way to the front of the gossip, shoving all the mundane words about souvenir cups and gardens to the ground and trampling them under its feet—“missing.” Missing. Missing.
“Hey, what happened?” I ask a fellow green shirt.
“You didn’t hear about Monica?” The girl’s enormous doe eyes flick to my name tag. “You’re in Merch”—she must notice my confusion—“Merchandising,” she clarifies, “so you’ve got to know her.”
“It’s my first day,” I say. “But I interviewed with a Monica.”
“Blond hair? Tons of mascara? Nails out to here?” She motions somewhere vaguely in front of her.
“Well, not quite out to there, but yeah,” I say. Blond hair, long nails, warm smile. “I think.”
The girl leans in. Her breath smells like pretzels. “Monica went missing,” she says, her voice hushed, like she’s afraid someone will overhear. It’s too late; we’ve gathered a crowd of other green shirts, mostly Merch tags, like me. They join in, a Greek chorus of whispers: Working late this weekend, till midnight, the only manager on the east side. Sent all her workers home and then never counted her tills. Supervisor next morning went to go check it out, all pissed, and found the tills half-open, money everywhere, a trail of nickels out the door. Nothing on the cameras. No witnesses. No word for two days now.
She’s gone.
She’s gone.
She’s gone.
—
The green shirt inside the employment office clocks me in and prints out the receipt with my day’s assignment on it, but all her movements sag, and even I can tell she’s just going through the motions. I wonder if she’s always like this—saggy, tired, glum—or if she knew Monica. Her nails are long and crimson too, so I assume she did, then realize how ridiculous that assumption is, like there’s a secret guild of long-nailed girls.
“You’re at headquarters,” she informs me, then tells me how to get there.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to sound extra perky, because that’s what normal people, people like Melody, do in times of crisis: try to cheer each other up. “And don’t worry about Monica. It’s better to be missing than dead.”
Her head jerks up and her lips part, but I’m gone before she has the chance to speak.
I push my way through the clouds of whispers and enter the park through the employee entrance. There aren’t real people in the park yet, just employees sweeping the cobblestoned streets and straightening signs in windows. People are walking in groups, as if they’re schools of fish, afraid a shark will pick them off if they venture out by themselves.
Before opening, the park smells like stale popcorn and rain on stone. Sounds are harsh and abrupt: the whap of a flap opening over a stand selling superhero capes and plastic visors, the screeching of the chains lifting the metal grate over the park’s hamburger joint, the rush-roar of a coaster doing its first warm-up lap of the day.
“Yesterday we had to close the Dragon King at five o’clock, with the lightning,” a passing green shirt tells his colleague. “You can’t imagine the crying and the…”
I make my way to headquarters, which has the distinction of being the park’s south-side merchandising hub. In the comic books and the cartoon, the League of the Righteous headquarters is full of computer screens reporting on the movements of the LoR’s sworn enemies, like Slugworth and the Blade.
This LoR headquarters, on the other hand, overflows with coffee mugs plastered with Wonderman’s face, rompers with Skywoman’s logo on the front, and Orcaman key chains. There are even fake computer screens reporting on Slugworth’s movements; they’re on sale for $49.99, plus tax. I stop to examine them. According to the splashy package, you can record your own voice-overs for Slugworth’s actions. I’m tempted to do one of my own, just to delay the actual start of the day. I can still turn around. I can still go home and bury my face in my blankets and not hav
e to meet strange people and do new things.
But then I’ll never get to be Skywoman.
I push my way through the packed aisles, shoving aside fallen stacks of T-shirts with my feet. Normally, I would automatically pick them up and hang them evenly spaced on the rack, but my hands are fidgeting too much with nerves right now.
Finally I find myself at the cashier’s station. There are three registers. All three are empty. I blink at them. Nobody magically appears.
“Hello?” I say. “Is anyone here?” If I wanted to, I could totally sweep a stack of Wonderman pajama pants and personalized Skywoman doorplates into my arms and take off. If I wanted to. “Hello?”
The back wall opens, fluttering a display of bath towels, and a boy falls out. “Hello there,” he says. I stare, dumbstruck. The secret door is a hiding place on par with the concealed chute to Wonderman’s secret garage, where awaits his prize vehicle, the Wondermobile (which can transform into a plane, a submarine, a boat, or a rocket ship, depending upon his—or the plot’s—needs on any particular day). “You must be Scarlett.”
I stare some more. The boy is probably my age, red-haired and freckly. The collar of his polo is rumpled, unlike mine, which I ensured this morning was perfectly straight. “Yes,” I say. “How did you know?”
His eyes crinkle at the corners. They’re warm and sharp and the color of weak tea. “You’re wearing a name tag,” he says.
“Oh. Right.” I try to sneak a look at his name tag, but it’s hidden behind the register. “They sent me here. It’s my first day.”
“No way,” he says. “I swear I’ve seen you before.”
I don’t recognize him from school. I don’t recognize him from my neighborhood.
Could he know me from Before?
No, I tell myself firmly. Illinois is a long way away; the odds are minuscule. It’s more likely he caught my face on one of the MISSING posters or on the news after I was found. “A feel-good story,” all the anchors chirped, smiling and exposing big teeth so white they had to be fake.
Never Missing, Never Found Page 2