Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower

by Christian McKay Heidicker

The two officers on duty didn’t look like the cops on TV either. One looked thick as cement and had his boots up on his desk, while the other, a weasel of a man, was straddling his chair backward, finishing a joke.

  “By this point, the shop owner’s getting nervous, y’know? Because the blind guy’ll probably saw off his own finger or something. Ha-ha. So here’s what he does. For the final test, he sneaks off and tells his secretary to come in and take off all her clothes and lie down on the table. So she does. Ha-ha. She strips and lies down, naked as a jaybird. Of course, the blind guy’s none the wiser. He just sniffs her and says, ‘This one’s tough. Could I smell the other side?’ So the secretary turns over face down, and the blind guy, y’know, ha-ha, he smells the other side. And then he stands up straight and says, ‘I think I got it.’ And the shop owner says, ‘Oh, yeah? What kind of wood is it?’ And the blind guy says, ha-ha, he says—” The weaselly officer could barely contain his chuckling now. “ ‘That’s a craphouse door off a tuna boat!’ ”

  He fell into fits of laughter, stomping his feet and clapping his hands at his own joke.

  The thick cop smirked. “So did the blind guy get the job?”

  The weaselly officer waved him away. “Ah, get lost. If you had a lick of sense you’d bust a gut.” He took a sip of coffee and noticed me over the rim. “Don’t look now, Shelley.”

  The thick officer quirked his eyebrow in my direction. “Hey, girlie. You paying our gas bill?”

  “Huh?” I said.

  The officer gave a nod. I looked at my foot, still safe on the sidewalk outside, and brought it in, the door clicking shut behind me. The two men stared as I crossed my arms over my stomach, thoughts escaping like steam.

  “Well, out with it,” Officer Shelley said, swinging his boots off his desk. “Puss stuck up a tree? Need us to chase it down for ya?”

  The weaselly cop sipped his coffee, amused.

  I considered hightailing it back to the motel right then and there. But then I remembered the dead glow of the television and the drip of the faucet. I couldn’t sit in that room another second without shattering the windows screaming.

  “I’d like to file a missing person’s report,” I said.

  Officer Shelley smiled, expanding his pale mustache. “So, not a cat?”

  “It’s my mother,” I said. “She disappeared last night. She’d never leave me alone this long. Not unless something . . .” My words failed.

  Neither officer reached for paperwork.

  “Standard procedure is to wait forty-eight hours before filing,” the weaselly one said. “Otherwise, our drawers would be flooded with married men who slept one off at a buddy’s house, if you catch my drift.” He winked and sipped his coffee.

  My shoulders unclenched a little. Here I was fretting like a chicken with its head cut off, and it hadn’t even been a whole day. For all I knew, Ma was collapsing on the motel bed right that moment, recovering from her first post-Phoebe bender.

  I nodded at the officers. “Thank you for your time.”

  I turned to go, but Officer Shelley said, “Hold a minute. Aren’t you that gorilla woman’s daughter?”

  I paused in the doorway. Officer Shelley eyed me while the weaselly one stood and stepped close so he could get a better look.

  “You know, Shell, I think you’re right. I can almost kinda see the resemblance.”

  I managed not to scowl.

  The weaselly officer stroked the fuzz on his chin. “Hey, here’s something none of us at the station can figure out. What kind of respectable woman keeps her daughter cooped up in a motel room? Why hasn’t she settled down yet?”

  “Daddy was killed by the Gila monster,” I lied. Ma and I whipped up a new tale for every town we went to. “Saved a busload of kids in the process.”

  “Shame,” the weaselly officer said, shaking his head. He recovered real quick. “Well, is she seeing anyone now? I seen pictures in the magazines, and wowza. Not to mention she’s famous!” His brow wrinkled up with a thought. “Say, you don’t suppose one of her fans kidnapped her, do ya?”

  Officer Shelley smiled. “Woman like that? I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “Like you said,” I said, squirming a bit, “Ma hasn’t been missing long. I’ll just go back and wait—”

  The weaselly officer caught my arm, pinching tight. “Hold on a second. We can’t just let a young thing like you go back to that motel room all alone now, can we? Not with no one around to keep an eye on ya.”

  I glanced through the station window. Daddy was frozen halfway through the sneeze he’d started that morning, the clouds roiled toward the horizon as if blown by his nostrils. His watchful eyes never did count as a father figure to anyone but Ma and me.

  “Pennybrooke’s a quiet town,” the weaselly officer said, “but what with all the spooky stuff happening in the world today, you never can tell when evil will show its face.” He pinched my arm harder. “But don’t you worry. We’ll keep you safe. Why, we stopped some greasers from stealing the jukebox just the other night with nothing but a hard look.”

  A Shiver would crumple you like an old gum wrapper, I wanted to say—would’ve said if Ma weren’t missing.

  Still gripping my arm, he nodded to Officer Shelley. “We could make one of the cells comfy, at least till her ma turns up, right, Shell?”

  My back pressed against the station door. Ma was right. These officers were just trying to lock me up where they could keep an eye on me. The blob headline screamed out from the newspaper on the desk. With one Shiver dead, another could be on its way. And if Daddy’s eyes wandered to Pennybrooke, I’d be locked up. I’d come to some horrible end involving aliens or giant insects, and I’d die a virgin who never got to see Paris.

  Officer Shelley sniffed. “She doesn’t want to sleep in no musty cell.” He looked at me with eyes as dull as gunmetal. “I got a couch at my place that’s fit for a king.”

  The weaselly one chuckled. “You’d know, too. Your wife makes you sleep on it often enough.”

  “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you,” Officer Shelley said, and the weaselly one fell quiet.

  A chill went through me.

  Never trust an older man who tries to get you alone, Ma once said.

  A police officer wasn’t just some carny I could shoo away like a mosquito. I reached behind my back and found the door handle.

  Officer Shelley stood and ambled toward me, adjusting his holster, which held a silver-and-oak revolver. “And if my couch is fit for a king”—he placed his hand on my shoulder—“it’s good enough for a princess, too.” His thumb grazed my collarbone, sending a thrill of fear through my body.

  I turned the handle and pushed back against the door, breaking free from both officers’ grips and stumbling outside. I started walking across the parking lot as fast as my pumps would carry me.

  “Hen outta the coop!” the weaselly one called, laughing.

  Heavy boots came stomping out the door. Halfway across the parking lot, a hand caught my wrist, stopping me with a jerk. I whirled and jammed my finger right in Officer Shelley’s eye.

  “Gah!” he cried out, and covered his face while I backed away.

  He blinked at his palm a few times. His face burned up with rage. “Now, that’s funny,” he said, not laughing. “If you weren’t a young lady, I’d drop you faster than a hot coal.” He fixed his tearing eye on mine and unclipped his handcuffs. “Not saying I’ll be soft with ya.”

  He came at me but was stopped by a burst of laughter from the station door.

  “Ha ha ha!” The weaselly officer was laughing so hard he nearly fell over. “A teenage girl—ha ha ha ha—teaching you a lesson! Boy, she pulled a real Curly on ya, eh, Shell? Ha ha ha! Wait till the others hear! Ha ha ha!”

  While Officer Shelley stood stunned, the handcuffs dangling from his fingers, I ran.

  “Ah, let her go!” the weaselly one called. “Girl who looks like that? Don’t much need to worry about her getting kidnapped.” />
  I ran all the way to the motel, my heart beating like a butterfly, narrowly escaping through a hole in a net. I scaled the motel steps and flopped onto the bed, blood fluttering through me, tip to toe.

  A knock came at the door, and I jerked upright.

  “Miss Lane?” an urgent voice said. “Miss Lane! I’ve been trying to call, Miss Lane. You missed our first rehearsal for the big event!”

  It was the carnival owner. He knocked again, louder this time. “Miss Lane!”

  I sat in silence until he huffed and his shoes clacked down the motel steps. Once my heart had found its regular rhythm, I got up and examined myself in the mirror.

  Ma once told me how she’d managed to get released from the asylum.

  I had to erase myself, Phoebe. Become a blank slate. A wallflower. As harmless as a woman in a painting. If I acted too chipper, the doctors thought I was manic and might pick up a chainsaw and discover what people looked like on the inside. If I was weepy, they thought I was depressed and might drink a Drano cocktail. But if I was nobody special, not too happy and not too sad, then they could stamp my file with a big old smiley face and safely release me into the world.

  I tried on a smile in the motel mirror, just like the girls on TV. I needed a story to tell while I tracked down Ma—one so convincing the police wouldn’t be tempted to lock me up.

  “Ma’s back,” I told my reflection. “She forgot to mention she had an errand out of town, and she turned up this morning with a smooch and a new braid belt just for . . .” Tears began to tremor in the corners of my eyes. I sucked in deep, then continued. “Ma’s back. She forgot to mention she was visiting a friend for a few days. Everything’s perfectly—” I sniffed, started over. “Ma’s back. . . .”

  The next morning, I gave up on sleep. I put on my cotton knit T-shirt dress, white stockings, and buckled shoes, and then reached under the bed and pulled out the suitcase where Ma kept all the cash from her Ook appearances. I counted out six dollars and then checked my expression in the mirror. I looked about as pleasant as a mortician recovering from a root canal. So I pinched my cheeks, forced on a smile, and then threw open the door.

  If the police weren’t going to be any help, then I’d find Ma myself. I’d ask everyone in town whether they’d seen the famous Loretta Lane, acting as sunny as if I’d only just misplaced her. If that didn’t work, I’d walk into the desert until I was out of earshot and ask Daddy if he’d seen what happened.

  This would be an act of desperation, of course. I hadn’t tried to talk to Daddy since I was eight years old, showing my paint-by-numbers to an empty sky until Ma called me inside to keep other people in the motel from whispering.

  When I was older, Ma told me that when I was just a lump in her belly, she borrowed a friend’s Model T, drove it out to the middle of the salt flats, pointed to her stomach, and screamed, “Hey! What’s the big idea?” It wasn’t until she unbuttoned her frilly top, flashed her chest to the sky, and still got no response that she realized Daddy was about as reachable as the end of a rainbow.

  Still, I wasn’t about to overlook any possibility of getting Ma back. The sooner I found her, the sooner we could ditch this town and get one step closer to New York. I’d be a regular Nancy Drew in Pennybrooke that day—only one who interviewed the clouds as well.

  When I walked into the motel manager’s office, a puffy white Pomeranian started yipping and jumping at my legs.

  “Good morning,” I said to the manager in a chipper voice, sidestepping the dog and laying the money on the counter. “I’d like to pay for another night, please.”

  Ma never paid for more than that in case Daddy’s eyes looked our way and we had to skedaddle.

  The manager smiled like a wrinkled apricot and then furrowed his eyebrows at the register. He didn’t seem to notice that his dog was putting runs in my fifty-cent stockings.

  “You didn’t happen to see Ma yesterday or this morning, did you?” I said, nudging the Pomeranian away with my shoe.

  “Don’t believe so,” the manager said. The register made a ding and spat out the drawer. “She gone missing?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” I said, hiding my disappointment. “It’s just she’s terribly sick—pale as a moon and leaky at both ends.”

  The manager flinched, which was just what I’d intended. I didn’t want him snooping around the room, seeing the spilled nail polish and the missing Ma, and getting any ideas to phone the police.

  “Would you mind canceling the maid service?” I said while the Pomeranian leapt and licked the spaces between my fingers. “I’d like her to get some rest.”

  The old man scratched the corner of his lips and nodded. “Ethel won’t complain. You’re our only guests on the second floor, and her knees have been acting up of late. You want I should give you some extra supplies?”

  “I would like that, thank you.”

  While I tried to keep the Pomeranian from shredding my stockings for good, the manager opened a cupboard and loaded up my arms with fresh towels and two rolls of bathroom tissue.

  “Tell your ma I said get better, and let me know if you meet anyone missing a dog.”

  I frowned at the Pomeranian. “It’s not yours?”

  The old man shrugged. “Just showed up in the parking lot a couple days back. I wanted to drown the thing, but Ethel’s got a conscience.”

  I took another look at the dog, its tongue dangling out the side of its mouth. It was as white as marshmallow fluff with a personality twice as sugary. Now that it had my attention, the dog spun in an excited circle, and I noticed a dark smudge on its back, right at the base of its tail. Kneeling, I touched the smudge and then stifled a gasp. It was Ma’s nail polish. Had this dog been in our room when she disappeared? If I found its owner, would I find Ma?

  “You mind if I take her?” I asked the manager. “Ma could probably use the company while she’s sick.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor,” the manager said. “I don’t want any messes in the room though.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry on that account.” I looked at the dog and forced a cutesy voice. “This little sweetie is made of nothing but cloud fluff.”

  The dog lolled her tongue in agreement and then trotted alongside my heels as I exited the office. I nearly dropped the towels and bathroom tissue when I saw the man standing in the parking lot. Officer Shelley leaned against the hood of his police car. He wore his civilian clothes—jeans, a cowboy shirt, and boots—and was chewing a toothpick to splinters.

  I remembered to smile. “Why, good morning, Officer Shelley,” I said as if this were an episode of Leave It to Beaver and I had never jabbed him in the eye.

  Shelley hooked a thick thumb through his belt, making his pants droop. “Your ma show yet?”

  “She sure did,” I managed without a waver, thanks to hours of sitcoms and mirror practice. “You know, it was the darnedest thing. She was plum certain she’d told me that she had a TV interview in Sherwood. When she got back late last night, I was so mad I could’ve spit. I told her if she didn’t remember to tell me where she was going in the future, I would have to start giving her the hiding.”

  Officer Shelley’s expression didn’t thaw an inch. I remembered how his eye squished under my finger—like a hard-boiled egg—and I grew nauseous.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I was in a right state, and you gave me a bit of a shock. I hope I didn’t hurt you any.”

  His bruised eye twitched, but he said, “No harm done.” He glanced up the motel steps. “Your Ma decent? I’d like to have a word with her.”

  “She’s terribly sick at the moment,” I said. “Probably contagious.”

  Shelley thumbed his nose like he smelled a rat. “In that case, why don’t I poke my head in and wish her well?”

  “Isn’t that kind of you. Um . . .”

  Before I could come up with an excuse, the Pomeranian let out a tiny growl. I wondere
d if dogs could sense evil in real life just like they could on TV. Then I had a revelation.

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten about you, naughty thing,” I told the dog in my cutesy voice. “Officer Shelley, you simply wouldn’t believe the mess she made all over the bed up there. Why, it looks like someone tossed an A-bomb in an outhouse. Doesn’t it . . . Pan-Cake?”

  Whether I named the dog after Ma’s makeup base or a breakfast item because I hadn’t eaten for two days, I wasn’t sure. But Pan-Cake panted up at me, as if she was proud of the imaginary mess.

  I gave Officer Shelley the most innocent of looks and held up the towels and tissue. “You wouldn’t want to help me clean it up, would you? Or is that not in your job description?”

  He shook his head. “It is not.”

  “Well, thanks for stopping by,” I said, starting up the steps. “I feel just as safe as a bug in a rug with you around.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But why don’t I see to it you make it safe to school this morning?”

  I smiled so big I thought my teeth might break. Ma and I moved around so much that school was nothing more than an inconvenience. I learned everything I needed from books and television.

  “And ruin my reputation?” I said. “If I show up to school in a police car, everyone will think I broke the law or something, and my good name will be soiled forever.”

  “Well, then I’ll follow behind,” he said. “It’s no trouble at all. I wouldn’t want to have to pick you up for truancy later.”

  Ma was right. This is what I got for involving the police in the first place.

  I wrinkled my nose at him in what I hoped was an adorable way. “Just let me get this little devil’s mess cleaned up.”

  While trying to figure out an escape, I poured a bowl of water, opened a box of Cracker Jacks, and then shut them in the bathroom with the dog. Then I walked down Main Street toward the high school with Officer Shelley’s police car following behind like a shark. In the sky, Daddy was digging in his nostril. He was no help at all in situations like this—only as a weather vane for Shivers.

  Before I could make a run for it, I was passed like a Frisbee from Officer Shelley’s watchful gaze right into the sunken stare of Freeman High’s principal. He stood seven feet if he was an inch and had long, thin limbs and a bald skull. “Miss Lane,” he said, giving me a grin as wide and eerie as the dummy from Howdy Doody. “This is a surprise. And here I thought the actress’s daughter was above schooling.”