Gone Missing

by Jean Ure

  The minute I’d said it, I felt mean. After all, she was the one who’d taken care of the baby.

  “Look, just don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll ask Darcy. She’ll know!”

  I couldn’t ask Darcy that night because she didn’t come in. At eleven o’clock me and Honey got tired and went to bed. We couldn’t decide whether to sleep on the sofa or in the single bed in the baby’s room. The bed obviously belonged to Darcy’s sister, and we were a bit worried in case she might not like two strange girls sleeping in it; but as I said, “She’s not here, so she needn’t ever know.” And as Honey said, “The baby might wake up and need something.”

  We’d only been asleep about an hour when there was a banging at the front door. I sprang up, in alarm. Honey clutched at me.

  “Don’t answer it!”

  “But s’ppose it’s Darcy?” I said. “She might have gone without her key.”

  I opened the door just the tiniest crack, keeping the chain on. Two hoodies stood there. A big black one and a weedy white one. They wanted to know if Sharleen was in. I couldn’t immediately think who Sharleen was, and then I remembered she was Darcy’s sister. In quavering tones I said that she was away, and stood, heart pounding, waiting for the door to be battered down. Instead, after mumbling at each other in their hoods, they said OK and went off again. I closed the door, with trembling hands. Honey, who had been anxiously peering over my shoulder, said, “We could have been murdered!”

  It was no more than I had been thinking myself, but one of us had to show some backbone. Very firmly, I told her that that was nonsense.

  “Just because one of them was black…you’re being really prejudiced!”

  Honey said it was nothing to do with being prejudiced. “They were wearing hoods.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it’s a fashion statement.”

  “But it’s midnight!” wailed Honey. “Who comes knocking on people’s doors at midnight?”

  I said, “You’re not very streetwise, are you? This is London! They do that sort of thing in London. It’s the way they live. It’s different down here.”

  “But what did they want?”

  “I don’t know! They probably wanted to go clubbing, or something.”

  Honey muttered again about it being midnight. “And Sunday!” I thought pityingly that she had no idea. As we clambered back into bed, she said, “Do you think they’ll have discovered we’re gone yet?”

  “Bound to, by now,” I said. People in London might still be wandering round at midnight, but not in Steeple Norton. Especially not teenagers. My curfew was ten o’clock, tops, and that was Fridays and Saturdays. Sunday I was meant to be in by nine thirty. We’d had so many rows about it, I’d lost count. But midnight was unheard of, even for me, so I reckoned Mum and Dad would be pretty sure I’d gone. They’d be asking themselves, “Where can she be?” and “Why did she do it?” Mum might even be crying. Dad—

  I couldn’t picture what Dad would be doing. He certainly wouldn’t be crying. Would he even be worried? Or would he just say, “Good riddance!” and lock the door?

  He’d have rung Honey’s mum, to check whether I was there–or, more likely, Mum would have rung her. They would have woken her from her stupor and she would have reported that Honey, too, was missing. Maybe Dad would have got into the car and driven round a bit, looking for me. Maybe Mum would have found Marnie’s number and tried ringing her. I wondered what Marnie would have said. Would she have told Mum about the boys from Glasgow? Would Dad have rung the police? I could just hear him, bawling them out. Yelling at them to “Shift yourselves and do something!” Dad always came on heavy; he didn’t seem to realise he put people’s backs up. Maybe he just couldn’t help himself.

  Darcy must have come back some time during the night, cos when we woke up next morning she was there, in her bedroom, asleep. The baby was crying fit to bust, but Darcy didn’t stir. Honey, very indignant, said, “Just as well we’re here. Poor little thing!” I left Honey to look after her and went to wake Darcy. I bounced myself down on to the bed.

  “Hey!” I prodded at her. She groaned, and opened an eye.

  “Wozzamadder?”

  I said, “The baby’s crying.”

  “Oh, God!” She rolled over, on to her back. “Can’t you see to it?”

  “Honey is, but I just thought you ought to know.”

  “Why? What do I want to know for?”

  I said, “It’s your baby!”

  “It’s not my baby.”

  “Well, your sister’s. Two men called last night,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Midnight. I told them she wasn’t here.”

  “Right.” Darcy hauled the duvet over herself.

  “Neither were you,” I said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened, I just stayed on a bit. It’s half term! You don’t have to look at me like that, I wouldn’t have gone out if you hadn’t been here. I told you, I never leave it more than a couple of hours. OK?”

  I said, “OK,” though I didn’t really think it was. I thought that Honey was right, and if I had a baby I wouldn’t trust it to someone like Darcy. But I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.

  There wasn’t much for breakfast; just a bit of stale cereal and a couple of crusts of toast. Darcy said that was all right, she wasn’t hungry.

  “I never eat breakfast.” She said she’d go down the shops later on and stock up. “You two had better stay here, you don’t want people recognising you. Let’s see if you’re on the telly!”

  We still weren’t. I didn’t know whether I felt more disappointed or relieved, but Darcy said it was good.

  “Longer they leave it, the better.” She said that when she came back from shopping she would do something to change our appearances. “Do something with your hair…give it a make-over!”

  We had some fun, that first morning. Darcy came back from the shops with a load of chocolate-covered doughnuts, which we sat and consumed straight away. Darcy said, “See if the baby wants some,” but Honey wouldn’t. She said that doughnuts weren’t good for babies.

  “They rot the teeth.”

  Darcy said, “What teeth?” and we both cackled.

  Honey got quite cross. She told us that we were behaving irresponsibly. She said, “This baby is helpless. We’re supposed to be taking care of her.”

  “Oh, just stop being such a bore,” said Darcy. “Me and Jade left home to get away from all that!”

  It was true that at home I couldn’t have gorged on doughnuts, specially not chocolate-covered ones, without Mum nagging at me. I said this to Darcy.

  “This is it,” said Darcy. “You’re free!” She pushed the box of doughnuts at me. “Have another!”

  I managed four, but after that I came over a bit sick and had to stop. Darcy jeered and called me a wimp. She said, “You ain’t got no stamina, girl! You’d better get your act together tonight, I got hotpot.”

  “She can’t eat hotpot,” said Honey. “Not if it’s got meat in it. She’s a vegetarian.”

  If looks could have killed, then surely Honey would have dropped dead on the spot. What business was it of hers?

  “You gotta be joking,” said Darcy.

  “No, she is,” insisted Honey.

  Darcy looked at me like I was some kind of bug-eyed alien. “Since when?”

  “Since never,” I said. “It was just something to annoy Dad. He got on my nerves, you know? Always trying to make me eat stuff I didn’t want.”

  “You told me it was principle,” said Honey.

  She was really starting to get on my nerves! Ever since she’d taken charge of the baby, she’d become all bumptious and full of herself.

  “It was principle,” I said. “Principle of being allowed to decide for myself what I wanted to eat.”

  Honey opened her mouth. She got as far as, “You s—” when Darcy scrunched up the doughnut box and chucked it at her.

  “Never mind all that! Let’s get on
with the make-over. We’ll do Jade first, then you.”

  She made me sit on a chair in the middle of the room while she slowly walked round, studying me from every angle.

  “Know what?” she said. “It’s all gotta come off…all that hair! I’ll go get the clippers.”

  Honey looked at me, wonderingly. “Are you going to let her?”

  “Course she is!” Darcy’s voice sang out from the bathroom. “I know about these things.”

  It was true, Darcy had always been like a sort of icon where anything to do with fashion was concerned. She came waltzing back, with a pair of clippers.

  “It’s a total mess, anyway,” she said, yanking at a strand of my hair. “Dunno when you last had this lot styled.”

  I didn’t like to tell her that Mum had always cut it. I just mumbled that it was “Ages ago.”

  “Yeah, that figures,” said Darcy.

  By the time she’d finished, the floor was covered in wads of hair and I was practically bald. Just a lovely sleek fuzz all over. I gazed wonderingly at myself in the mirror. Mum would never have let me shave my head! Dad would go ballistic.

  “You look like one of those punk people,” said Honey.

  “Yeah.” Darcy took a step back, admiring her handiwork. “Suits you,” she said.

  It did, too! I don’t mean to brag, but I’d never realised before what a nice shape head I had. Some people, you can’t help noticing–like men when they have lost their hair–have heads that are lumpy and bumpy.

  There are square heads, and pointy heads, and heads like big nobbly potatoes. Mine is quite small, and round, and neat. I am aware that makes me sound like a rather vain sort of person, but it just happens to be true!

  “OK,” said Darcy. “Now it’s her turn.”

  She moved across to Honey, with the clippers. Honey shrank back, in instant alarm.

  “I don’t want my hair shaved off!”

  “No. Wouldn’t suit you,” said Darcy. “You’ve got the wrong sort of face. Too big. What you need…”

  “W—what?” said Honey.

  “You need a different colour!”

  Darcy went rushing off again, down the hall. Honey curled herself up, into a corner of the sofa.

  “It’s got to be done,” I said. “Otherwise we’ll never be able to go out.”

  “Got it!” Darcy burst back into the room, triumphantly clutching a bottle. “Ever wanted to be a brunette?”

  “Not really,” said Honey.

  “Well, you’re gonna be! C’mon!”

  Between us, we marched Honey into the bathroom and set to. Ten minutes later, her hair was a deep, rich chestnut.

  “What d’you reckon?” said Darcy.

  “Great,” I said. “It matches her eyes.”

  Honey stared doubtfully at herself in the bathroom mirror. It’s funny, cos she looked a whole lot older with her hair dark. Not as striking, but definitely more like sixteen than twelve. I said this to her, thinking she’d be pleased, but she munched on her lip and muttered that, “I don’t feel like me.”

  I said, “That’s the whole point! You’re not you. You’re a new person. We both are!”

  Honey went on munching. Darcy said, “It’s no big deal. It only lasts a week or two. If you don’t like it, you can always try something else.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” I said.

  As for me, I preened like mad the rest of the day. Every time I passed a mirror, I had to look in it. I said to Darcy that it had been worth running away, just to get a new hairstyle.

  That, of course, is very shallow, and I know that I should be ashamed of ever having such a frivolous thought, especially when Mum was probably sitting at home worried out of her mind, wondering where I was and whether I was all right.

  I did feel a bit guilty when I thought of Mum, but only a bit. She had never properly stood up for me. If she had just occasionally been on my side, I could have put up with Dad and his bullying ways. I hadn’t wanted to run away. Though now that I had, it seemed they didn’t really miss me. There still wasn’t anything on the TV news, which surely there ought to have been? It was over twelve hours since we’d left home! Didn’t they care? Didn’t they want us to be found?

  I could see that Honey’s mum mightn’t be that bothered if she never got Honey back. I could see that my dad, because of his pride and always being convinced he was in the right, might wash his hands of me. I could even see that Kirsty might not be too broken up. But surely Mum still loved me???

  Maybe what it was, Mum would have wanted to go to the police and Dad wouldn’t let her. Mum would be crying and begging him. “Alec, please! We’ve got to get her back!” And he’d be, like, “She chose to go, she can stay gone.”

  I said to Honey, as we lay in bed that night, “I bet that’s what it is. I bet Mum’s desperate and Dad’s bullying her, same as usual.”

  “What about my mum?” said Honey. “What d’you think she’s doing?”

  I said, “Drinking, probably.” And then, in case that might be hurtful, I added that it wasn’t her mum’s fault. “People can’t help being alcoholics. It’s something in their blood.”

  “She’s not an alcoholic!” said Honey. “It’s for her nerves.”

  It would have seemed unkind to argue with her. “Either way,” I said, “she can’t help it. Let’s go to sleep!”

  Maybe tomorrow there would be something on the news.

  seven

  There wasn’t anything! Not even so much as a mention. It was like me and Honey simply didn’t exist any more. They were just getting on with their lives without us.

  “They don’t always put things on the telly,” said Darcy. “They never did with me.”

  “You didn’t run away,” I said.

  “Are you joking? I’ve run away more times than I can count!”

  She didn’t say it like she was boasting; just matter of fact.

  “Is that why you’re down here?” said Honey.

  “Nah! I’m down here cos my mum said she’d had enough of me. Said she couldn’t cope any more. But when I was younger I used to go off all the time.”

  Honey and I were both staring at her, like mesmerised.

  “Where did you go?” I said.

  “Anywhere took my fancy. First time I ended up round my nan’s. She used to live in Walmley. Like just a bus ride away?”

  I nodded. I knew Walmley.

  “They got in a bit of a flap about that, cos I was only eight. They thought I’d been abducted.”

  “Did they go to the police?”

  “Yeah, but then my nan rang and said I was with her.”

  “So where d’you go the second time?”

  “Don’t think I went anywhere, really. Just had a bit of a walkabout and came back. I was only away for, like, a few hours.”

  Honey said, “But what did you do it for?”

  “I dunno.” Darcy shrugged. “Got the hump about something. One of my mum’s blokes, prob’ly. Jack. He was a right so and so! Used to throw his weight around, think he could tell me what to do. Me! Like he was my dad, or something. In the end I said I wasn’t standing for it any more and I just got out.”

  Eagerly I said, “Like me! That’s what I did.”

  “You have to. You can’t let them get away with it.”

  “So where did you go that time?” said Honey.

  Darcy gave one of her cackles. “Went up north with a mate. Went to Newcastle and stayed with this guy we knew. We were there nearly a week before they got on to us. That was in Year 7, that was.”

  I said, “I don’t remember you going off!”

  “Well, I did,” said Darcy.

  “They never told us.”

  “No, well, they wouldn’t, would they? Might have got all the rest of you at it!”

  I hadn’t specially been friends with Darcy in Year 7; it wasn’t till Year 8 that we’d started to hang out. We’d quite often bunked off school together, but only the odd day, nothing major–though Dad, ne
edless to say, had gone ballistic when he found out. That had been another of our big rows. He’d have shot through the roof if I’d ever tried a stunt like running off to Newcastle.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d have been only too glad to get rid of me.

  “You still gotta be careful,” said Darcy. “Just cos you’re not on the telly doesn’t mean they’re not looking for you.”

  “Why do other people get on the telly and not us?” said Honey.

  “Like I told you,” said Darcy, “I didn’t.”

  “No, well…” Honey didn’t actually say it, but I knew what she was thinking. It was what I was thinking myself. Darcy had been running away and bunking off school and getting into trouble ever since she was little; it was only what people expected of her. But me and Honey weren’t like that! Honey had never been in trouble her whole life, and even I had never done anything worse than a bit of mini shoplifting. Nothing big time! It wasn’t like I was a hardened criminal.

  “See, it’d be different,” said Darcy, “if you were just little kids. A couple of ten year olds, they’d really pull out all the stops.”

  I swallowed. “So you don’t think they’ll ever have my mum and dad on?”

  “What, with all the guff about Come home, all is forgiven?” Darcy flung out her arms. “My baby, my baby, we just want you back!”

  “Yeah, well.” I tried to match my tone to hers. “Something like that.”

  “What about my mum?” said Honey.

  “Forget about your mum,” said Darcy. “She’s a lost cause, what I hear. And your dad!” She turned, to look at me. “Can’t see him shedding any tears.”

  Neither could I; not if I were honest. Dad wasn’t the sort of person to break down and cry. Mum and Dad on the television, pleading for me to come home. But what was I going to do if they didn’t? I hadn’t made any plans! Always, at the back of my mind, I’d imagined Mum weeping on the screen, Dad with his arm around her. We just want her back!

  It wasn’t going to happen; I could see that, now. Running away had been the easy part. It was what to do next that was the problem.

  Darcy said, “Live for today, that’s my motto.”