So this kid calls me, totally out of the blue. It’s early morning, before school, and my mom would tell you that I should have been busy figuring out which pile of clothes my purple Converse were under and whatever happened to the math homework I did last night. (Well, I did half of it. Maybe a fourth. I never was good with fractions.)
Technically I guess I’m kind of exaggerating about the kid calling me. It’s the house phone that rings—the old-fashioned landline that my old-fashioned parents think they still have to have hooked up or, I don’t know, the world as we know it might end. But who can resist a ringing phone? I pick it up in the upstairs hallway as I walk past after brushing my teeth. I’m thinking it’s going to be someone selling windows or siding or something boring like that, and I always feel like it’s my duty to give people like that a wacky conversation so they have something interesting to tell their families when they get home from work.
One time I convinced a magazine salesman that I had a pet squirrel named Lulubelle whose life was so endangered by living in the same cage as my giant guinea pig, Nebuchadnezzar, that the guy called the SPCA.
My mom was not happy when the county animal control officer showed up at our front door.
But anyhow, answering the phone, all I’m thinking about is making up a good prank, one I haven’t used before.
If I can convince the window/siding/whatever salesman I’m my mom—if he calls me “Mrs. McCarthy” and everything—then . . .
“Hello?” I say. It comes out sounding odd, because I’m still trying to decide whether I want to use a fake accent. British? French? Of course, Australian is always fun. . . .
“Uh, hello,” the voice on the other end of the line says. “Uh, Daniella?”
Okay, this is weird. Nobody ever calls me on the landline—that’s what my cell phone is for. And it’s a kid, not some friend of Mom’s who might know me. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a kid about my age (thirteen), because, you know that weird thing a boy’s voice starts doing in middle school? Where it’s low, then high, then low, then high, and you can tell the boy’s just dying of embarrassment if he has to say more than two syllables? (If I were a boy, I would so totally use that to make everyone laugh all day long. I wouldn’t be embarrassed at all. It’d be fun.)
That’s what this boy’s voice is doing—the roller coaster of pitches—but somehow it doesn’t seem funny right now.
Maybe this is crazy, but what this boy’s voice makes me picture is someone with a gun to his head. Like—he’s that worried and stressed.
And right here is where I say nobody in their right mind would call me if they had a gun to their head. You call me for knock-knock jokes. You call me to borrow whoopee cushions and fake vomit for April Fools’ Day. Matters of life and death? Not my specialty. If I were around someone in danger, the only way I’d ever manage to save them is if I tripped and accidentally knocked the gun out of the killer’s hand.
“Yes?” I say, and there’s an edge to my voice, because I really don’t like thinking that this boy might be in danger and counting on me for any sort of help.
“Um . . . you still live in Ann Arbor?” the boy says.
Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting. I actually pull the phone back from my ear and give it a baffled look.
“Where else would I live?” I ask when I bring the phone back against my head.
“Uh, Liston, Ohio?” the boy says. “Or maybe Upper Tyson or Clarksville, but that’s not as likely—are you sure you aren’t moving or planning to move or in the process of—?”
“No,” I say.
This isn’t so funny now. There’s no prank I can turn this into, because the boy’s voice is so urgent and distressed about where I live. Does he think there’s something dangerous about Ann Arbor? (What—am I going to be attacked by white picket fences? Or people’s perfect yards? Maybe a single blade of crabgrass?)
Or is it those other three cities—in Ohio?—that are dangerous? What were they again? Istan, Upper Something, and Whatchamacallit-ville?
I’m about to ask the names again—and what’s so scary about them—when I hear the rumble of a different voice in the background over the phone. I can’t make out the words, but it sounds like a man. A really angry man.
“Um, sorry,” the boy says when the other voice stops. “I think I have some bad information. You really don’t have another address on a Robin’s Egg Lane in another city?”
Robin’s Egg Lane? Seriously?
“I’m going to hang up now,” I say, because I don’t like this. Maybe this is just a really, really good prank—payback, maybe, from somebody I’ve pranked. It wouldn’t be that weird for Natalie or Braden or Ilka or Hamid or—okay, probably three fourths of the kids at Forsythe Middle School—to arrange for some friend or relative I don’t know to call me up to try to trick me.
But this feels too real. It doesn’t feel like a prank at all, good or bad.
The boy on the other end of the line starts pleading: “No, wait, don’t hang up—are you adopted?”
I jerk the phone away from my ear. And then I stab the button to hang up so hard that it’s a wonder my finger doesn’t break.
§
I am adopted. It never used to bother me—I guess I bought the line my parents fed me when I was little, about how they chose me, while parents who are nothing but birth parents get stuck with whatever their own genes produce.
My mom even told me once, “It’s like you’re some mystery novel we don’t know the ending of. It’s going to be so exciting to see how you turn out!”
My mom always liked how I have blue eyes and this long thick brownish-blondish hair that seems to grow a couple inches every night. (I donated about a foot of it to this group called Locks of Love last year, and a month later I had the longest hair in my class all over again.) My mom—well, actually, both my parents—have boring brown eyes and thin, wispy, dull-colored hair. If you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t look at them twice.
And, not to brag or anything, but . . . everybody notices me. Everybody’s always laughing at my jokes or talking about my latest prank or begging, Can you do that really great imitation of the science teacher again?
I thought my parents were always proud of how funny I am.
But lately I haven’t been doing so great in school. (Here’s where Mom would say, Maybe you should consider doing all your homework, every night? Except Mom thinks that I already do all my homework every night.) I do try, but seventh grade is harder than sixth grade was. It’s starting to feel like there are certain things my brain is made for and certain things where my brain wants to say, “Hey, it’s really not like the world’s going to end if I don’t ever get algebra. Where is it written that every kid in the world has to know math?”
And, of course, both my parents have their PhDs. Their brains were evidently created to understand everything.
Then last month, when Grandma was in town visiting, I heard her ask Mom, “Do you think Daniella is just going through a phase, or is she always going to be that dumpy? I know you don’t know where she actually came from, but it’s pretty clear it’s peasant stock, don’t you think?”
I know Grandma didn’t know I was listening, and it was actually kind of fun to hear Mom lecturing her about how she had better not say anything to me about my weight, because that’s how girls end up getting eating disorders, blah, blah, blah.
But really, Grandma’s right. I’m built like a hobbit, short and squat. I don’t have the hairy feet, but it is like my toes are deformed or something, with the second toe on each foot overlapping the big toe.
Where woul
d that come from? Did my original family just give me up because they knew how I was going to turn out—a mess?
Maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that the day after Grandma went home to Connecticut, Mom started talking about how, if I wanted to, I could register somewhere to try to get more information about my birth parents.
Didn’t Mom think about how that could make me feel like she really just wants to give me back?
§
I stand by the phone in the upstairs hallway for a long moment.
You’re losing it, I tell myself. One stupid prank phone call that isn’t even funny, and you start worrying that your parents want to give you back to the adoption agency?
“Daniella!” Mom calls up the stairs. “Come down to breakfast! Your father and I have something to tell you before he leaves for work!”
My dad’s, like, a computer genius extraordinaire. I understand only about every fifth word that comes out of his mouth. But at least he laughs at my jokes. He just hasn’t been around much lately because of some big work project. He and Mom were both gone for a long weekend, and my other grandma—Dad’s mom—had to stay with me. I was already in bed asleep when my parents got home last night.
So I really do want to say good-bye to Dad before he leaves.
I glance down at what I’m wearing: oversize footie pajamas covered in giant pink bunnies. (They’re ironic, okay? I do know I’m not five years old anymore. But I’m never going to be too old for footie pajamas. They’re too comfortable.) Mom might frown, but Dad won’t care. I’ll go have breakfast now and get changed and ready for school after he leaves.
I half-run, half-slide down the stairs—that’s part of the fun of footie pajamas. In the kitchen Mom and Dad both give me big hugs, but there’s something a little off about how neither one of them will look me in the eye.
“Are we having gourmet Cheerios, or Wheaties à la mode?” I ask. Mom’s kind of a boring cook—I mean, she thinks it’s exotic to have a banana along with our dry cereal. So Dad and I spice things up by making up fancy names for our boring food.
This morning, though, there’s nothing out on the table. Mom and Dad haven’t even poured themselves coffee yet.
“Sit down, sit down,” Dad says. “We have some exciting news.”
You know how it’s always a bad sign when parents repeat themselves?
And when they say something is “exciting”? That’s almost a guarantee that they’re going to try to get you enthused about going to the dentist. Or cleaning the bathroom tile with a toothbrush.
“Okay . . . ,” I say cautiously.
“This weekend . . . Well, we wanted to tell you what’s been in the works the past few months,” Mom begins. “But . . . we just had to make sure everything was as great as it sounded. . . .”
“We’re getting a puppy?” I ask. “You entered something of mine on America’s Funniest Home Videos and they already told you it’s going to win?”
“We’re moving,” Dad says.
For an entire minute it’s like I can’t even understand English anymore. We’re . . . moving . . . Dad might as well be speaking underwater, or saying the syllables backward.
“Moving?” I repeat numbly. “You mean, like, we’re going to buy a different house here in Ann Arbor? Why? I like our house!”
I look around the kitchen, which, okay, maybe is a little small. But I’ve always lived here. My teeth marks from when I was little are on the baseboard; there’s a chip in the tile from when I dropped a giant bowl of fruit salad when I was five; every time I look at the silverware drawer, I remember the time Dad pulled on it a little too hard and it came out and all the forks went flying across the room.
If I’m in a bad mood, just looking at the silverware drawer makes me want to laugh.
I look toward the silverware drawer now, and I don’t even feel like smiling.
“Actually,” Mom says, and she swallows hard. “We’re not just moving here in Ann Arbor.”
“Your mother and I both got really good job offers from this place called Battelle Institute,” Dad says. “In Ohio. We weren’t even looking—we weren’t planning to move.”
“But these are dream jobs,” Mom says. She does look kind of dazed.
“Nightmares,” I correct her. “This is a nightmare. You want me to leave all my friends? Talia and Oscar and Zana and Rodrigo and Alyssa and . . .”
I can’t even list them all. I slump in my chair.
“And, Ohio?” I ask, twisting my face like it hurts just to say the word. Something clicks in my brain. “Is that why you went to that B and B in Ohio for your little getaway this weekend?”
“We had to meet with our future bosses. Just to make sure,” Dad says. At least he looks a little bit ashamed for keeping secrets from me.
No—lying, I tell myself. He and Mom lied to me.
“And we thought we’d just get a feel for what houses might be available in the area,” Mom says, and now it sounds like she’s apologizing. “We really meant to include you in that whole house-search process, but . . . when you find the perfect house, you’ve got to jump on it, you know? It’s, like, the most wonderful place you could imagine! And the schools are great there, and the price . . . They’re practically giving it away!”
“I never dreamed we could afford something like that,” Dad agrees. “And the house is already empty, so we should be able to move quickly. . . .”
I am getting cold prickles at the back of my neck. Maybe I would be getting cold prickles anyway, just at the thought of moving, but all I can think of is that weird call I just hung up on.
Are you sure you aren’t moving or planning to move or in the process of—? the boy asked.
How could he have known what my family was going to do before I did?
“You already bought a new house . . . without even telling me?” I say numbly.
“No, no. We wanted to talk to you before we made the official offer,” Mom is saying, and her voice might as well be coming from a million miles away. “But we want to call today. We just fell in love with this place when we saw it yesterday, and we know you will too.”
“See for yourself,” Dad says, and he’s holding out his iPad to me, with a picture of a house on it.
My eyes are so swimmy, I can’t get them to focus. The house could be a shack or a mansion—I can’t tell. But I can see Mom pointing to words above the picture; I can hear her proclaiming, “Even the street name is lovely. Robin’s Egg Lane. Isn’t that poetic?”
§
I don’t have a clue what I say to my parents next. I think I scream a little. And then I race back to the upstairs phone. I type in the code that lets me call back the last connection—it’s something I learned from doing prank calls. I don’t do anything to hide my own number, so the boy answers the phone, “Daniella?”
How does he even know my name? Where did he find my phone number? And most of all, how did he know we were moving?
I start firing questions at him, beginning with one I should have asked the last time: “Who are you?” Then I wrap everything else into: “How did you know?”
There’s a pause.
“I—what are you talking about?” the boy asks.
He has no right to sound confused. He started this. He’s the one who knows more than he should.
Still, it feels good to scream at him again.
“We are moving!” I shout into the phone. “This is so awful! My life is over!”
“I thought you said you weren’t,” the boy says, and there’s caution in his voice. Like maybe now he’s afraid of me? Or afraid of what I’m saying? Why?
“I didn’t know!” I scream again, and the only way I can keep from crying is to just go on screaming. “My dad made this big ‘family announcement’ at breakfast—he’s taking a job transfer, and that little ‘getaway’ my parents were on
was actually a house-hunting trip! They’re going to make an offer on a house today.”
I think best when I’m talking. And suddenly something breaks over me—an explanation. Somehow I’ve been thinking that the boy’s call was connected to my being adopted, and the weirdness of his knowing we were going to move meant there was something weird about my adoption, or where I came from, or something like that.
But suddenly I see that there might actually be a logical explanation.
It doesn’t make me any less angry at the boy on the other end of the line.
“What are you—the Realtor’s kid?” I snarl.
I can see it perfectly; Mom and Dad were meeting with the Realtor, and for some reason her son was lurking around—maybe the Realtor works out of her home. Anyhow, Mom probably started chatting with this kid, How old are you? Where do you go to school? What subjects do you like? Those are the kinds of questions Mom would ask. Then maybe the kid is the type who kisses up to grown-ups, and actually asks, What about you? Do you have kids? How old is she? What subjects does she like?
But why in the world would Mom or Dad say, Yes, we’ve got a kid. She’s adopted?
I miss whatever the kid says to defend himself. Thinking about what Mom and Dad might have told the kid—or told his mom, when he could hear it—makes me madder than ever.
“That wasn’t funny at all, if that’s your idea of a prank,” I rant at him. “Or were you trying to talk me into thinking I’m going to like the house? I won’t. My parents say it’s ‘wonderful.’ I bet it’s a pit!”
I like screaming at this boy. I can take out my anger over moving, my anger at Mom and Dad being so happy about ruining my life, my anger about their not telling me anything until now.
They’re not even my real parents, I think, and honestly, that is the first time that thought has crossed my mind in my entire thirteen years of life.
So do I feel like they’re my real parents only as long as we stay in Ann Arbor? As long as they don’t make me this mad?
I’m opening my mouth to scream something else at this boy, when a different voice surprises me.
Sought (The Missing) Page 1