Signal

by Cynthia DeFelice

  Cam and I don’t know exactly what happened after that. But what we guess is that Ray and Bobbi were watching TV, and when the news report gave the approximate location of the wheat field, Ray began to suspect that one of the people in the aerial photos was Cam. When the footage showed the deserted farmhouse nearby, Ray put that together with what he’d heard on the police scanner and came after us.

  I think back on how mean and mad he was that night, and how he smelled like he’d been drinking. Now I imagine him driving around in the dark on those twisty, backcountry roads, trying to find the gravel driveway leading to the farmhouse. I picture his frustration and his anger at Cam growing with every wrong turn.

  Meanwhile, my dad had reported me missing, and the police were searching for me. Cam and I were lucky, I guess, that the police showed up just a short time after Ray.

  It seems hard to believe, but Bobbi is really Cam’s mother. Ray’s not her father, just one of Bobbi’s boyfriends. Cam says there were a lot of boyfriends, but that Ray was the worst. He hated having a kid around. He hit her and locked her in the motel room, just the way she told me, and she ran away after that.

  It’s also hard to believe that Bobbi didn’t even report that her child was missing, but she never did. Ray told her he’d find Cam himself. Not because either of them really wanted her back, but because they knew there’d be trouble if Cam told anybody what Ray had done to her.

  When the story came out, Ray was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Bobbi was charged with abandonment and neglect, and she signed papers giving up custody of Cam.

  Which meant that Cam wouldn’t have to live with Bobbi, or any of Bobbi’s boyfriends, ever again. But it left the terrible question of what would happen to her. Bobbi had told the authorities that she had no idea where Cam’s father was. Which meant Cam was truly alone.

  Then something very cool happened. The local TV news reporters continued to follow Cam’s story. Because Charlene and Ernie knew me and were interested, they watched closely. When they learned that Cam had no home, they contacted Social Services to say that she could live with them if she wanted to.

  She’s been with them for a week now, and it’s working out great. Sidney latched onto Cam right away, and the two of them are always together, like Josie and me. Cam and I can hardly believe that she’s living right down the road from me with Charlene, Ernie, nineteen dogs, and seventeen cats! When I asked her how it was going, she said her new life feels a lot like the one she imagined for herself on her home planet.

  I think the story about her happy home with loving parents on a wonderful, faraway planet came to her when she was alone in the farmhouse and everything was so bad for her she couldn’t see a way out. She made herself believe it because she needed to believe in something.

  Then I came along. And when I believed her story, it made it even more real to her.

  I guess you could say we got carried away.

  But I still believe it could have been true. I’m still convinced there are other living beings out there somewhere, and that someday soon they’ll make contact with us. I hope they make contact with me.

  In the meantime, Dad and I have made a new start, too. For one thing, we’re talking—about all sorts of stuff, including Mom. We unpacked the boxes from the old house and started building the deck off the kitchen. We play soccer in the yard every night after dinner, with Josie joining in, and sometimes Cam and Sidney, too. Next weekend, we’re going on a camping trip to the Adirondack Mountains.

  I think sometimes about the night Cam and I lay in the warm, cozy tent with Josie, safe from the storm, talking and eating Tootsie Rolls and never wanting to leave. Cam admitted then that life on Earth has its strong points. As usual, she was right.