The Ostrich and Other Lost Things

by Beth Hautala

  How he shared interesting facts.

  How he was always careful to bring his dishes to the sink for Mom.

  The way he’d drawn that ostrich picture for me.

  The way he’d smiled at me onstage, as if he knew I was nervous.

  The way he said my name. “Ol-i-vi-a.” Carefully. Exactly.

  The way he put things together in very specific ways. Puzzles. Games. Patterns. He knew how things went together and came apart better than I did.

  And then I remembered how he’d banged his head against the wall after he’d thrown the glass of milk. How he’d stood in the middle of my room and slapped himself after cutting up my costume. Had he been showing me he was upset? Or was he trying to tell me he knew what he’d done and that he wished he hadn’t? Maybe he was trying to tell me that he was sorry.

  What would that feel like—to have a thought or a feeling and not be able to communicate it? If I were my brother, would I be able to use words the way I wanted? Would they make sense?

  I tried to picture Jacob and me, if we switched places. And I knew, even if I couldn’t use the right words to tell him, even if I didn’t know how to make him understand, I’d still want him to find me, if he could. More than anything. Even if something he’d said was the reason I’d run away in the first place. I’d want him to come for me, searching and never stopping, until I was home. Until I wasn’t lost anymore. Until I was found and loved.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I can find him,” I said.

  No one heard me.

  Officer Holtz was talking to Dad and listening to her radio. Mrs. Mackenelli was talking to Mom. A couple other neighbors who’d come over were standing around talking to each other. So, I slipped my hand into Dad’s and said it again, a little louder.

  “I can find him.”

  Mom looked up, and Dad looked down at me, and then Officer Holtz looked at me, too.

  “I’ll find him,” I said. And this time, it was a promise I made to my brother.

  31

  Lost Boy

  THE POLICE HAD been searching for five hours.

  Mostly they were looking behind the house where the state park met our backyard. The minimal maintenance road ran through that land until it got to the zoo, and then after the zoo it came to a cell tower. But besides that, there wasn’t much out there. Just a lot of open space, and woods, and swamps, and hills, and many places a person could hide.

  I had to join the search.

  I tied my shoelaces into double knots. This was bigger than missing eyeglasses, or a missing wallet, or a ring, or a pet. Bigger than Jacob’s ostrich.

  “Sweetheart,” Dad said as he sat down beside me on the bench by the door as I got ready to go. “I know you really want to help, but Officer Holtz thinks it would be a good idea if you stayed here. So do Mom and I.”

  “What?” I looked at him. “No!”

  “Olivia, in cases like these, the family’s involvement in searching often makes it more difficult for us to find a loved one,” said Officer Holtz. “Important things can be missed and new complications can arise. We can’t afford that now. Every minute counts.”

  “You don’t understand. I have to go out and look for Jacob! I can find him! I know I can!”

  “Olivia, I know you are extraordinarily good at finding things,” said Dad. “But we need to let the experts do their job here.”

  “Dad, please! I—”

  “We don’t want to have to worry about you, too, Olivia,” said Mom. She walked over to me and held my hand.

  “We will find Jacob. We will.” Dad said it twice, like he was trying to convince himself. “We just don’t think you going out there is the best idea.”

  I shook off Mom’s hand and stood up.

  “Just listen to me. Please. Jacob is my brother, and he is out there right now waiting for me to come look for him. I have to find him. It’s what I’d want him to do if it were me out there somewhere.” Suddenly there was a lump growing in the back of my throat. “He is out there because of me. I can’t stay here and let everyone else go out and look for Jacob when it’s all my fault he’s gone to begin with.”

  Dad stared at me for a minute, and then his eyes filled with tears. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. But I wasn’t finished yet. I pulled out of Dad’s hug.

  “Please, Officer Holtz?”

  She looked over at my parents, then back at me.

  “I can’t just stay here,” I said firmly. “I am a finder of lost things. I know I can find Jacob.” I looked her in the eyes, begging her to let me do this.

  She didn’t get it.

  Maybe she never would. Maybe no one would. But I couldn’t watch Jacob disappear and never come back, like his toy ostrich. I couldn’t just stand here, drawing maps and gathering pretend clues, while everyone else did what they were supposed to do.

  “Sweetheart, it’s not your job to find your brother,” my mom said gently. Her words reminded me of what Charlie had said. And she was right. Maybe it wasn’t my job to take care of Jacob. But I wanted to. This was one thing I had to do. So what if Jacob wasn’t normal. Neither was I. Neither was anyone. And, yeah, sometimes things were hard. But Jacob was still my brother. And if I could do anything to help find him, I needed to do it.

  “Look,” I said, turning back to Officer Holtz. “I’m small. I can fit into small places.” I crouched down and squished myself into a ball so she could see just how small I could get. “And I’m tough! I can walk and walk and walk, and I won’t get tired. Plus, I’m not afraid of the dark, or of strange animals! I work at the zoo.” I took a breath. “I notice things other people miss—that’s what makes me such a great finder. You need me! And I—”

  But Officer Holtz held up her hand, cutting me off. “What makes you so certain you can find him?” She was still skeptical. She didn’t want me going out there.

  “It’s true. Olivia is really good at finding things,” Dad said. He glanced over at Mom. “Extraordinarily good. But more importantly, you said yourself that every minute counts.”

  Officer Holtz nodded.

  “Well, every minute that passes is one minute closer to dark.” Dad’s voice got tight. “I think it’s wise to use every resource we have at our disposal. Including Olivia.”

  Mom stood up and came to stand beside him.

  Dad’s argument sounded logical, and Officer Holtz must have thought so, too, because she looked at me and sighed. But she nodded, and Officer Holtz, Mom, Dad, and I all set off down the road.

  * * *

  • • •

  When we met up with the police officer who was stationed at the search party’s meeting point, I couldn’t believe how many people were there to help. Most of them were officers and volunteers with training in this kind of thing. Mom’s face was white and her eyes were wide. Dad wrapped his arm around her. They seemed to hold each other up. When Dad held out an arm for me, I sandwiched myself between them and held on tight as Officer Holtz explained how this was going to work.

  “You will each get a whistle,” she said, handing them out to the three of us. Each one dangled on the end of a white cord like a necklace, and we hung them around our necks. “If you find anything, anything at all, a piece of fabric, an article of clothing, a footprint, a piece of hair, blood”—Mom squeezed my hand just for a second—“blow your whistle and keep blowing it until we can locate you. One of the officers will join you as quickly as possible and follow up on whatever it is you find.”

  I looked at everyone stretched across the tall grass. I didn’t know them, but I knew they were here to help. They cared about my family. A lump rose in the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard.

  “When it’s time to start or stop, you’ll hear an air horn,” continued Officer Holtz. “Three blasts, a brief pause, and
then three more.”

  We all nodded, understanding what we needed to do. And then we started walking.

  * * *

  • • •

  We maintained ten-foot gaps of space between each person. As we walked through the grass and underbrush, we covered every inch of ground with our eyes and our feet. There was nowhere a thirteen-year-old boy could hide that we wouldn’t see.

  “Jacob! Jacob!” All down the line, the search party called his name. “Jacob!”

  Mom walked beside me, ten feet away, pushing grass aside with her feet as she went, walking around trees and fallen logs, peering under thick brush.

  I listened. I really truly listened for my brother. Not with my ears, but with everything I was. I gathered everything I knew about him—his habits, things and places that made him feel safe—and lined it all up in my mind.

  Jacob hated wearing wet clothes. He would try to stay dry, so maybe we didn’t have to worry about wet, swampy areas so much.

  Jacob liked to be in small, safe places. We might need to look extra carefully for any kinds of holes or heavy underbrush or overturned logs that could make for a shelter or cave he might want to hide in.

  Jacob didn’t like heights, so we probably didn’t have to be nervous about him climbing trees.

  I thought and thought. Each piece of information—a clue. Something that could help with the search.

  It would be okay. I was extraordinarily good at finding things.

  So, I added my voice to the line, calling my brother’s name.

  “Jacob! Jacob!” It’s me, Olivia. I’m here. I’m looking for you. And I’m sorry. I really am. Jacob, I can’t remember the way. Can you take me home now? “Jacob! Jacob! Jacob!” I called for my brother. Speaking love to him. Hoping he could understand.

  * * *

  • • •

  We walked for hours. Eventually I lost track of time.

  We walked through low land and mud swaths that smelled like decaying plants and buzzed with flies. We walked through grasses and weeds thick with burrs and thistles that stuck on our clothes and skin. We walked through underbrush so heavy I actually got down on my hands and knees and crawled through it, just like I told Officer Holtz I could.

  We walked until the skin on my heels had been rubbed raw. Even when a branch whipped back and caught me in the face, I kept going. I was hot and burned from the blazing late afternoon sun, and horseflies buzzed around us, biting when they landed. But I didn’t complain. I didn’t cry. And I wouldn’t stop. Not until we found Jacob.

  And then, just before dark, someone started blowing an air horn.

  Bwaaaa—bwaaaa—bwaaaa! Three short blasts. A pause. And then three more. Bwaaaa—bwaaaa—bwaaaa!

  Everyone stopped. A woman in uniform next to Mom, and then another volunteer next to her, and on and on down the line.

  “No! We’re not done,” I said. “We’re not done!” I looked at Dad on one side of me and then at Mom on the other side. I was cold now, and tired. My shoes were wet, and bits of grass and seeds and prickly shrubbery had worked their way into my socks and through my jeans, scratching me. There was this ache in my chest that made it difficult to breathe. “We aren’t done yet!” My voice cracked. I hadn’t tried hard enough. This was all my fault, and I still hadn’t fixed it. “We can’t give up!”

  “It’s dark, sweetheart. We can’t see anymore.” Mom wrapped her arms around me.

  I let go of my whistle. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding on to it—clenching my fist around it until it left an imprint in my palm. I wrapped my arms around Mom and rested my cheek against her shoulder. I blinked back tears. None of this would be happening right now if it hadn’t been for me—for those words that had made my brother leave. What if we couldn’t find him?

  I took a shuddering breath. I’d listened and gathered clues and examined the evidence, but there was only silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Mom squeezed me tighter and tighter until I could feel her heart pounding against my chest.

  “Shhh. This is no one’s fault, Olivia.” But she was crying, too. A second later, Dad wrapped his arms around us. The three of us cried together.

  Officer Holtz came up behind us in the darkness. “We’ll try again tomorrow, at first light.” And the way she said it made me take a deep breath. She was firm. Reassuring. “If we try to search in the dark, we are guaranteed to miss something. We can’t afford to miss a single thing.”

  Mom and Dad nodded. I wiped my eyes. She was right.

  * * *

  • • •

  Officer Holtz radioed in and a few volunteers showed up with pickup trucks and four-wheelers to help give people rides back into town. Everyone piled in and shadows swam everywhere as we moved toward town.

  Even though we were done for the night, I kept listening. I listened so hard the inside of my head felt drawn tight, like a string on a guitar. Like it could snap any second if I wasn’t careful. But I listened anyway. I listened and searched with every bit of myself, and still there was nothing. Not a sound. Not a whisper. Not even a breath.

  I pictured Jacob’s face in my mind. Narrow and freckled. Heavy dark eyebrows and a straight nose. I pictured the way he shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other when he was upset. And how he twisted his shirtsleeves. I pictured him staring just over my shoulder instead of meeting my eyes when he talked to me.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “We’re coming, Jacob. I’m coming. I won’t stop looking.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Eventually, everyone gathered back together, the whole group of us, in the middle of our driveway. By this time all of our neighbors had heard about what was going on, and several of them walked over and stood in the yard with us, offering support and sympathy and help with whatever we could think to ask for.

  Officer Blakeman stood up and whistled loudly with his fingers, calling for attention.

  “We’ll meet again in the morning, first light—six a.m. You’re welcome to come back and help us pick up the search,” he said to our neighbors. “But until then, there is little more you can do. Thank you all for your help this afternoon.” He nodded to his officers and volunteers. And to Mom and Dad and me. “Every set of eyes matters. Thank you. Get some rest.”

  I watched as people left, our neighbors walking back across the street and through yards. So many people wanted to help. What would they say if they knew this was my fault?

  I needed to hold it together. I needed to find Jacob.

  I was the only one who could fix this. It couldn’t wait till morning.

  32

  The Love Anyway

  A COUPLE OF the officers stayed late to talk to Mom and Dad in the kitchen. They sat at the table and spread out maps. They pointed and said words like “topography” and “landscape,” “direction” and “strategy.” They circled places on the map and called them “zones,” making plans for the morning. There were night officers out there in the dark now, searching with dogs, trying to pick up Jacob’s scent. But so far none of the messages that came rattling and crackling through their radios had anything to do with finding my brother, and everything to do with still searching for him.

  After they left, Mom and Dad sat next to each other on the couch in the living room, holding hands. They didn’t say anything. They were just quiet. Staring at nothing. Staring at the empty place my brother had left behind.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  I stood in the middle of the living room, trying to decide what to say. How to say it.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said quietly. But the words were lodged in the back of my throat, stuck on the sob that forced its way out instead.

  “Oh, sweetheart . . .” Mom stood up and held out her arms. I wanted nothing in the whole world as much as
I wanted to just go and let her hug me and tell me it was all going to be okay. But I didn’t. I shook my head and wrapped my arms around myself.

  “This is all my fault,” I choked.

  “Honey, no.” Dad shook his head and stood up beside Mom, but I interrupted him because he didn’t really know. He didn’t understand. Neither of them did. They were going to be mad. And disappointed. And I deserved that.

  “When I told Jacob I hated him, and that he ruined everything, he believed me. He repeated it. And he slapped himself. Like this!” And I slapped myself, the way Jacob had in the middle of my room.

  Mom wrapped her arms around me before I could do it again and kissed the slapped spot on my face.

  “Shhh. I know, I know . . .” She held me there and rocked me until my breathing slowed down. Dad wrapped his arms around both of us. But they still didn’t understand. They didn’t know. They didn’t know about my map, and searching for Jacob’s ostrich, and my list of neverdos. They didn’t know I knew about “Recurrence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Siblings,” and that I was like him.

  “No. You don’t.”

  They looked at me with questions.

  “I know Jacob is getting worse. I’ve been looking for his missing ostrich—because that’s when things started changing for him. When he lost it. He was different before it went missing. He was better!” I took a deep breath and kept going before they could stop me. “I even made a map so I could keep track of where I was searching. Then I found the article on Mom’s desk,” I said, my voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to, but it was right there and I saw it. ‘Recurrence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Siblings.’ And I know you think I have it. Just like Jacob. I’m trying really hard to keep from doing all the things Jacob does, but I end up doing them anyway. So, I’ve been looking and looking,” I said, but I was crying now, too. “Because if I can just find Jacob’s ostrich and give it back to him, I know it will help. I know it will make things better, like they were before. And if I can help Jacob, then maybe there’s a way I can keep myself from getting worse, and then neither of us will need a change in environment or anything else.”