Girl, Missing

by Sophie McKenzie

  Mum put her hands on her hips. ‘Is that what Jam thinks?’

  ‘Of course. Anyway, I’ll come in with you. Jam can sleep with Rory. Rory’ll love it.’

  ‘OK,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll call Jam’s mum.’

  8

  America

  My stomach was already in my throat before the steward announced we were beginning our descent into Logan Airport.

  The last few days had been beyond hectic. Our tickets were non-refundable, so we had to pay an admin fee to get Dad’s ticket switched to Jam’s name. This took seven long, frustrating phone calls with Mum muttering pessimistically the whole time that it wouldn’t work out. Then there was a nasty panic on Thursday evening when Jam couldn’t find his passport. But once we were on the plane, there was nothing to do except think.

  And my thoughts led to one, inescapable conclusion: I was utterly, totally mad.

  I was planning to find my way round a strange airport, buy a ticket to another strange airport, then take a bus to a place I had never been, to find out information I was sure no one wanted to give me.

  I looked across the aisle, to where Jam was explaining some Legends of the Lost Empire PSP move to an enraptured Rory. He must have sensed me watching him, because he looked up and smiled.

  No way would I have admitted it to another living soul, but the truth was I’m not sure I’d have had the guts to go through with my plan if I hadn’t had Jam with me.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m no wussy little airhead needing some big strong guy to look after her. I’m used to travelling around London on my own. And I’ve been on aeroplanes before.

  It’s just this was a big deal. And I needed a friend to share it with. My best friend.

  It took ages to get through customs and immigration. After queueing for nearly an hour we reached the counter and an unsmiling official. He asked us to place our forefingers into a groove on this little box, so there’d be a record of our fingerprints at the airport, then made us stand in front of a tiny camera to have our pictures taken. Every time he looked at me I felt guilty.

  Mum was in a right state. She worried about our luggage getting lost. She worried about one of the officials stopping us and dragging us off to be interrogated. And she worried about what she had forgotten and left at home.

  By the time we were out in the airport lounge, free to hang out until the connecting flight an hour later, I don’t know which of us was more strung out. At least that made it easier for me to persuade Mum to give us some money.

  ‘Jam and I want to have a look round,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to buy anything, but imagine if something happened to you and we couldn’t find you later. You’d want us to have some cash on us, wouldn’t you?’

  Mum pulled a wodge of dollar bills out of her purse and handed them over. ‘Emergency use only,’ she said sternly.

  I nodded, trying to ignore the pinpricks of guilt that stabbed at my conscience.

  To me, this is an emergency.

  ‘And for goodness’ sake put it in your shoe.’ (This is her anti-mugger hiding-place of choice.)

  ‘Can I come with you?’ Rory whined.

  ‘No,’ I snapped. All of a sudden my nerves felt like they were strained to breaking point.

  ‘But later we’ll go and look at the games in the Duty Free shop,’ Jam added pacifyingly.

  ‘Much later,’ I muttered.

  So, with a worried sigh, Mum pecked me on the cheek and reminded me for the tenth time where we were to meet up for the New Hampshire flight.

  As I walked away from her I realised my hands were shaking.

  ‘Let’s count the money,’ Jam said.

  I grinned. You could always depend on Jam to get practical when needed. I checked my purse. $523, including the $200 Jam had given me. Plus Jam had $180 from his mum, making $703 in total.

  My heart thumped. This was it. Make or break.

  ‘Seems a shame to spend it all on flights and buses,’ Jam murmured.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  He reddened. ‘I’m just saying. Hey. Chill. I’m totally cool with this.’

  ‘OK.’ I took a deep breath. ‘So where do we get tickets for Burlington?’

  I couldn’t have done it without Jam. Firstly, he was fifteen, and therefore allowed to travel independently. At fourteen, most airlines insisted that I had to be accompanied by someone his age or older. Secondly, Logan Airport was big. Not any bigger than the airports at home. But still really confusing. I’d researched everything on the internet – we needed a ticket each from Boston to Burlington, then another from Burlington back as far as Concord. But finding where to buy them and making sure we had all the right information with us was much harder than I’d expected.

  Then there was the ticket-buying itself. We’d got this story planned – how we were cousins, meeting up with family in Vermont. How my dad had given us cash to get our tickets. The busy girl on the desk swallowed it whole, just glancing at our passports and not really listening to us, but my legs were like jelly by the time we got the tickets in our hands.

  If Jam hadn’t been there, I honestly think I would have given up on the whole idea. But we made it. We bought our tickets. We found the gate. We got on the domestic flight.

  As it was taxiing down the runway I checked the time. This part of America was five hours behind the UK – it was only 11am here.

  We were due to meet up with Mum soon. I felt another stab of guilt. But if Mum had talked to me, I told myself, we wouldn’t need to be doing this.

  I turned off my mobile and told Jam to do the same with his. As soon as we’d landed in Burlington I’d text Mum and let her know we were OK. Tell her to go on ahead to New Hampshire. We’d meet her there.

  In my heart I knew there was no way on earth Mum would get on a plane without me. But what could I do about that?

  It’s her own fault. She shouldn’t have lied.

  Burlington was freezing. We’d seen the snowy mountain tops from the plane, but even so I wasn’t prepared for the icy blast that hit us as we walked off the aeroplane. It was the first sign that I hadn’t planned everything as well as I thought.

  ‘I wish I’d brought a hat,’ I said, tugging my jacket around me. The outside of the airport was all grey concrete, with a huge car park off to one side.

  ‘Look.’ Jam pointed to a row of buses. I knew from my internet research which line stopped at Marchfield. Unfortunately, we had to wait nearly two hours for the next bus.

  At last, we pulled out of the airport onto wide, empty roads marked with green signs. Beyond the roads were long stretches of frost-tipped fields with huge, snow-covered hills in the distance.

  The other cars we passed seemed bigger – longer – than cars at home. But it was the space that got me the most. The roads were so wide, and the land around them went on for ever. Even the sky seemed bigger.

  I huddled next to Jam in the back of the bus. I felt strangely calm. We’d done all the difficult stuff getting here. And whatever was going to happen at the adoption agency was ahead of us.

  The bus was well heated and, after a while, I felt my head drooping. I slipped into a deep, velvety sleep.

  I was on the beach again, stumbling across the sand. I could see the woman with the long, dark hair far ahead of me. She was darting in and out of the rocks, laughing. The sun was shining on my face. I was happy. I scampered across the sand towards the rocks. She was there. I was going to find her now.

  I woke up, disoriented. Jam was still asleep, his elbow digging into my side, his head lolling against my shoulder.

  I looked out of the window. The open stretches of land had given way to a thick forest of pine trees. I checked the time. Just gone 3 pm. We’d already been travelling for nearly an hour.

  Mum. I gulped. I’d completely forgotten about texting her. I fished out my mobile and switched it on. Oh no. I scrolled through something like twenty increasingly hysterical text and voice mail messages.

  Guilt rose in me again
. No. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel sorry for her. I quickly tapped in a text: we r ok, c u l8r.

  I hesitated. I knew the message wouldn’t satisfy Mum for a second. But at least she’d know we were all right. I pressed send, then switched the phone off again.

  About half-an-hour later we arrived at Marchfield. As we drove through the outskirts of town, past endless rows of low, detached houses, my stomach twisted into a million knots.

  Everything depended on the next couple of hours.

  The bus driver grinned when we asked if he knew which end of Main Street number 11303 was.

  ‘It’s the Marchfield Adoption Agency,’ I said.

  ‘Kinda young to be thinking about adopting kids, aren’t you?’ he chuckled.

  I blushed.

  Main Street seemed a bit run-down after all the big houses we’d seen earlier – lots of the shops were boarded up and litter was scattered all over the pavement.

  The driver dropped us at the top of the road.

  ‘You OK?’ Jam said as we watched the bus zoom off.

  ‘Course,’ I lied. In fact my legs were shaking so much I wasn’t sure if I could even walk. What was I doing? How on earth was I going to find the courage to march into the adoption agency and follow through the plan Jam and I had made?

  Jam put his arm round me. I sank against him. My head nestled against his chest. Jam’s heart was beating fast under his jumper. I hugged him. He must be feeling pretty scared too.

  Somehow, knowing that helped. I pulled away, gritting my teeth. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  9

  Access denied

  The agency was at the far end of Main Street. The road got slightly smarter as we walked. Fewer boarded-up buildings and more actual businesses, albeit with grubby windows and peeling paintwork. There seemed to be hardly any people about, though cars roared past constantly.

  Back home I’d imagined the agency being a big house set in an elegant lawn. In fact it was just a shabby, concrete office block, with nothing to make it stand out from the other buildings in the road.

  I stood outside, my stomach churning like a washing machine.

  ‘Okay, Laurenzo?’ Jam squeezed my arm.

  I nodded slowly and pushed open the door.

  A large woman in an elastic-waist skirt was standing beside the reception desk. ‘Hi there. How can I help you guys?’

  I gulped. This is it. Don’t screw up. ‘I’m Lauren Matthews. I was adopted from here,’ I said, trying to control the shake in my voice. ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Tarsen. He did it. I mean, he organised my adoption.’

  A flicker of surprise crossed the woman’s face. ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No.’ I swallowed. ‘I just happen to be here . . . on . . . on holiday, so I thought it would be . . . I wondered if I could talk to him.’

  The woman frowned. ‘We close in ten, honey. Early for the weekend. Why don’t you make an appointment for Monday?’

  ‘No.’ Jam and I spoke at the same time. Panic rose in my throat. The plan was to get in and out and back to Burlington Airport as quickly as possible. After buying our air and bus tickets we had precisely $43 left. No way could we hold out until Monday.

  ‘Please let me speak to him. Please,’ I begged. I could feel tears threatening. I blinked them angrily back.

  ‘Well, I’ll try him,’ the woman said doubtfully. She pointed us to a couch by the desk, then spoke softly into her headset.

  We waited. Five minutes passed. Then a buzzer sounded. The woman wheezed as she leaned across the desk. ‘Reception?’ she said.

  She talked quietly again, for a few seconds, then looked up at us, surprised. ‘Mr Tarsen’s coming down now,’ she said.

  I’d expected somebody important-looking. But Mr Tarsen was a bit like a mouse – small and slight with a pointy nose. When he shook hands with me, his palms were damp.

  ‘Elevator’s over here,’ he smiled. His eyes flickered over Jam then back to me. I caught a whiff of musty cologne as he turned away.

  My heart thudded loudly in the muffled silence of the lift. The three of us got out on the first floor. Mr Tarsen led us down a long corridor. My eyes were fixed on the back of his neck, where tufts of wiry grey hair poked out of the top of his white polo-neck.

  He stopped outside a door marked Resource Center.

  ‘I’d like to speak to you alone,’ I said. This wasn’t strictly true of course. I would much rather Jam stayed with me. But stage one of our plan was for me to keep Mr Tarsen talking, while Jam had a good look round and worked out where my file was.

  Mr Tarsen looked mildly surprised. ‘OK. Your boyfriend can wait with my assistant,’ he said.

  ‘He’s not—’ I started. But Mr Tarsen was already herding Jam towards the next room along. ‘We won’t be long,’ he said.

  He came back and took me into the Resource Center. A long row of filing cabinets led down to a small window. There were a few tatty sofas and a plastic box full of kids’ toys in one corner. I perched on the edge of one of the sofas. My mouth was dry. What the hell am I doing? I felt like I might puke any second.

  Mr Tarsen sat down opposite me. There was a framed poster on the wall behind his head. It was covered with snapshot-style pictures of smiling families with a line written in swirly type at the bottom: Marchfield makes miracles. Every day.

  I could hear Jam’s voice in my head. Could that be any cheesier? I wished he was with me.

  ‘How can I help you, Lauren?’ Mr Tarsen’s manner was kindly but businesslike. Like he knew I was upset and was trying to tell me he sympathised, but he didn’t have time to deal with me crying.

  I told him my story. That I’d been adopted through Marchfield eleven years ago, but that my parents wouldn’t tell me anything about my life before that.

  I didn’t mention Martha Lauren Purditt.

  ‘I really, really need to know where I come from,’ I said. ‘I thought maybe you could tell me something about my real mother.’

  There was a long pause.

  Mr Tarsen’s smile seemed a little strained. ‘I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

  ‘Why not?’ My gut twisted into a knot. I knew what was coming, but I had to look shocked. Upset. Like I wasn’t expecting it.

  ‘Until you’re eighteen, you’re not entitled to see your original birth certificate without the approval of your parent or guardian. And you’ve already made it clear your adoptive parents do not approve. I bet they don’t even know you’re here, do they?’

  I blushed. Mr Tarsen shook his head in this really patronising way. ‘I’m afraid I would be breaking Vermont State law if I told you anything.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh no.’ My voice sounded phoney to my ears. I wondered how far Jam had got in his search.

  Mr Tarsen stared at me. ‘It isn’t just your age,’ he said. ‘I checked your file before I came down. In your particular case, the mother filed a request for non-disclosure immediately after you were adopted. That means she doesn’t want you to know who she is or where she is. Ever.’

  The knot in my stomach tightened. Was that true? I’d turned up at Marchfield, expecting that I would have to be cagey about what I wanted. After all, it was likely the agency knew at least some part of what had really happened. A seed of doubt now crept into my head. Maybe I’d got the whole thing wrong. Maybe Mum and Dad and the agency were on the level. And I was simply a child whose mother didn’t want her.

  No. That couldn’t be true. I had remembered my mother. I had dreamed of her. She loved me. She hadn’t wanted to lose me.

  Mr Tarsen fidgeted in his chair. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he said.

  ‘You mean I mightn’t ever find out?’ I said. ‘About my past?’

  ‘I’m sorry not to have been of more help.’ Mr Tarsen stood up. His patronising smile deepened. ‘But you wouldn’t want me arrested now, would you?’

  I stared at his white polo-neck.

  Maybe
for crimes against fashion.

  He nodded towards the door.

  Do something.

  ‘Can’t you tell me anything about my mother?’ I said. I knew I was on dangerous ground. The last thing I wanted was to make Tarsen aware of what I knew about Martha, but I had to give Jam more time to snoop about. ‘You must have met her?’

  Mr Tarsen shook his head. He stood up. Walked to the door. My heart raced. There was no way Jam would have found where my file was by now.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What about Sonia Holtwood?’ I’d remembered the name from Mum’s diaries. I knew it was risky to mention her – after all, whoever she was, she was obviously involved in my adoption in some way. But I was desperate. I had to give Jam more time.

  Mr Tarsen stopped with his hand on the door handle. He turned round to face me.

  ‘Where on earth did you get that name from?’ he said slowly.

  ‘I saw it written down somewhere,’ I said, unable to think of a plausible cover for Mum’s diaries. ‘Who is she? Someone who worked here? Or my . . . my real mother? Or . . . ?’ I looked down, pressing my hands against my jeans to stop them shaking.

  There was a long pause. I could feel Mr Tarsen’s eyes boring into me. ‘What else did you see, Lauren?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing.’ My face was burning.

  Crap. Crap, crap, crap.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard for adopted children to accept the truth,’ Mr Tarsen said softly. ‘So they make up fairy-tales. Foundling stories. Stories about being stolen away from their homes.’

  I looked up at him.

  ‘Is that it, Lauren? Is that what you think happened to you?’

  I sat silently, my heart pounding. Mr Tarsen stared intently at my face. Did he know what had happened? Or was he simply guessing at what I might be thinking?

  He leaned forward. ‘Believe me, Lauren. Sonia was simply young and irresponsible and unable to cope with you.’

  ‘So she was my mother?’ The words came out in a whisper.