Girl, Missing

by Sophie McKenzie

  Missing Mum and Dad was this constant ache. It was strange. Considering how often I’d hated them when we were back in London, I would never have imagined I’d miss them as much as I did. I mean, it wasn’t that I wanted to talk to them about anything specific. More that I wanted them there in the background, doing their Mum and Dad thing, alongside all the smells and sounds of my normal life.

  After a week or so, I’d kind of settled into a routine. After Shelby and Madison left for school, I’d get up. Then Sam and I would often go down to the marina. Sam had taken a month’s leave of absence from his work. Annie says he’s usually really busy, so the month off was a chance for him to unwind as well as to get to know me.

  To be honest, I don’t think he’s massively into unwinding. That’s why he spent so much time doing stuff on the Josephine May. Sometimes we’d go out, sailing round the bay. Those were my favourite times, especially when Madison came too. We’d stand in the bow, our faces pressed against the wind. And I’d forget about everything.

  It’s lovely when you get out there in the bay and look back at Evanport. The houses on the west side of the coast are all wooden-boarded and painted in pale pastel colours. Sam said they were really old, though they just looked like big beach houses to me.

  Jam had somehow got hold of a video camera phone, which meant now we could send little videos and pictures to each other. We talked all the time. He knew everything. How miserable I was. How much I missed him. How desperately I wanted to come home.

  When I wasn’t calling or texting him, I wandered about on my own, exploring all the cafés and shops – stores, I should say. Annie and Sam gave me loads of dollars my second day. Told me to go out and buy some new clothes. I got a new pair of jeans and several cute little tops, plus loads of this fabulous Ultra Babe make-up.

  But my best purchase by far were these knee-length brown leather boots with high, spiky heels. I was dead nervous taking them back to the house. Mum would have had a fit if she’d seen me in them, but Annie just said how pretty they were.

  MJ called most days, about lunchtime. She kept me upto-date with the search for Sonia Holtwood, which was not going well. Unsurprising really. Sonia Holtwood was just one of a number of identities the woman used. She nicked them from people the same age as her who died when they were kids. Just thinking about it gave me the creeps. Anyway, so far the FBI didn’t even know what her real name was.

  Annie never tried to talk to me about Sonia, or Mum and Dad. In fact, by the end of my first week, we’d pretty much stopped talking altogether. Well, I’d stopped talking to her.

  That sounds mean, doesn’t it? But if you’d seen the way she acted, you’d understand. She was always hovering somewhere nearby, watching me all the time. Then she’d give this irritating little cough. ‘Ooh, Lauren,’ she’d say – all bright and chirpy. And off she’d go. Did I want more counselling sessions? Would I like to meet the rest of the family? When might I be ready to think about high school?

  It was so fake.

  I preferred being around Shelby. At least she and I knew we hated each other. But with Annie I felt like an itch she couldn’t scratch. The more I drew away from her the more she hovered. The more I made it clear I didn’t want to be near her, the more she grasped at me.

  I could see Sam was anxious about the whole situation. But no one said anything and the tension between us built up and up. Then, two weeks to the day I’d arrived, everything came to a head.

  I’d just been looking at Goodnight Moon with Madison. I’d found the book on the shelf in my room. I only had the vaguest memory of actually reading it when I was younger, and the pages were creased and dirty round the edges – but there was something strangely comforting about just holding it in my hand.

  I sniffed in the dry, musty, deeply familiar smell of the paper while Madison learned some poem she wanted to do for Show and Tell the next day. She was laughing because she kept getting the words ‘ants’ and ‘pants’ muddled up.

  Then Mum and Dad’s lawyer, Mr Sanchez, phoned.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I said.

  ‘I do have news,’ he said. ‘Taylor Tarsen’s out on bail now. And so are your adoptive mom and dad.’

  ‘So can I see them?’ I said eagerly.

  ‘No. This is the problem,’ he said. ‘The Purditts are trying to block any kind of access visit. They are arguing there is a serious legal risk that your adoptive parents will attempt to abduct you if they are allowed to see you.’

  ‘I’ll speak to them,’ I said.

  I put down the phone, seething with fury.

  Annie fluttered out of the kitchen. ‘Any news, Lauren?’

  I marched up to her. ‘How dare you try and stop me from seeing my mum and dad.’

  Annie blanched. ‘Wait, Lauren,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘They brought me up for eleven years,’ I shouted. ‘I have a right to see them.’

  Sam and Shelby appeared from nowhere.

  ‘They took you away from us.’ Annie wrung her hands.

  ‘They didn’t know where I’d really come from,’ I yelled. ‘But even if they did, they’re still my parents more than you are.’

  ‘Don’t speak to my mom like that,’ Shelby snapped.

  ‘Everyone calm down,’ Sam said. ‘Lauren, I know this is hard, but you have to face what they’ve done. They don’t deserve to see you.’

  ‘And what about me?’ I shrieked. ‘Stuck here for ever. I hate it here. I hate it. I hate it.’

  I turned and ran up the stairs. I could hear Annie pounding after me, Sam calling her to come back. I got to my room and slammed the door.

  But there was no lock. A few seconds later Annie barged in.

  ‘Get out,’ I yelled.

  ‘No.’ Her eyes narrowed.

  I swore at her.

  She marched across to the bed and yanked on my arm.

  ‘How dare you treat me like this,’ she yelled, pulling me upright. Her face was completely red, her eyeballs bulging with fury. ‘I have done nothing but tiptoe around you since you got here. I love you so, so much and you won’t even let me in.’

  ‘You don’t love me,’ I screamed. ‘You don’t even know me.’

  We stood there, face to face, glaring at each other. I waited, hoping she would just walk away and leave me alone.

  But instead she let out a long, slow sigh. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted.’ She paused. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you – please?’

  Thrown by her change of tone, I followed her sulkily into one of the guest rooms. Annie walked over to a tall cupboard in the corner and opened the door.

  ‘Those eleven years, while your Mom and Dad were enjoying you, I was doing this.’

  I peered into the cupboard. It was overflowing with files and boxes of papers. Stacks of yellowing newspaper clippings and internet print-outs were piled on the shelves.

  Annie reached in and grabbed a file at random. She pushed it towards me. I read the peeling sticky label: Possible sightings of Martha. It was at least three centimetres thick.

  ‘Looking for you was all I did.’ Annie said. ‘I was obsessed. I neglected Shelby. I neglected Sam. We even split up for a while. In the end everyone was telling me to let go, that you weren’t coming back. But I never gave up.’ She turned to me. ‘Maybe you’re angry with us because you think we didn’t try hard enough to find you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, honestly. ‘I never thought about it like that. I mean, I know it must have been hard not knowing but—’

  ‘Hard?’ Annie stared at me. ‘I was terrified the whole time. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I stopped living. Wherever I went I saw you. Whatever I did, nothing ever took away the terrible guilt that I hadn’t protected you properly, that day.’ Her lip trembled. ‘The terrible fear.’

  ‘But you can’t punish my mum and dad for that.’ Tears pricked at my eyes. ‘They were desperate for a child. When they paid Sonia all that money, th
ey didn’t know I wasn’t hers.’

  Annie ran her hand through her hair. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that if nobody was prepared to pay people like Sonia Holtwood the huge amounts of money they want, they’d have no incentive to steal children and sell them?’

  She walked out of the room.

  I sat down on the floor, stunned. I’d never thought about what Mum and Dad had done like that. A great wave of misery welled up through me. I put my face in my hands. Why was all this happening to me? It wasn’t fair.

  After a few minutes I felt a little hand patting my back.

  I looked up. It was Madison. Her chocolately eyes were round with concern. ‘Hey, Lauren,’ she said.

  She put her arms around me and hugged me. It was the first proper human contact I’d had in a fortnight. I squeezed her back, tightly.

  ‘I brought something to show you,’ she said, pointing to a slim album on the floor beside her.

  I sniffed and tried to smile at her. ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘My special photo album,’ she said. ‘Pictures of you. And some of me. D’you want to see?’

  I nodded, wiping my face. Madison snuggled next to me on the floor and we looked through the album together.

  The first few pages were all baby photos marked with my name and the date. I stared at them, my eyes filling with tears again. Here was the life I had lost. The life I had so longed to know about back in London.

  ‘I wanted to show you earlier,’ Madison explained. ‘Mommy said I should wait until you were ready. Like she’s waiting for you to meet Gramps and Granma. But I thought you’d like them. Look.’

  She turned a few pages to another set of baby pictures. The lighting and clothes were different, but otherwise I looked similar – the same chubby face and brown hair. Wait. I looked more closely. ‘I’ve got brown eyes in these,’ I said.

  Madison giggled. ‘That’s me. We look alike, don’t we?’ she said proudly. ‘Everyone says we look like Daddy too.’

  I looked at her. I could see the similarity between Madi and Sam. The same turned-up nose and smooth, olive skin. Did I look like them too?

  I turned another page. This set of pictures showed Madison – no, this was me again – on a beach. I looked about three. There was a red plastic bucket in my hand.

  It jogged something in my memory. From my hypnotherapy with Carla. ‘My bucket,’ I said, my heart suddenly beating fast. ‘On the beach.’ That was where I played Hide and Seek with my mother. With Annie.

  Madison nodded. ‘It’s near here – Long Mile Beach. It’s where you went missing. Mommy told me.’

  She pointed to the bottom of the page.

  I gasped. It was the woman from my memory. Her eyes sparkling, her arms wrapped around me.

  ‘There’s Mommy,’ Madison said. ‘Wasn’t she pretty?’

  I stared at the picture. It was weird, seeing the face outside my own head. Unreal, somehow. I tried to match the beautiful woman I was looking at with the reality of Annie’s strained, lined face. The similarity was there. I could see that now, especially round the eyes. But, eleven years on, Annie looked like an old woman. No. Not exactly older. More like the ghost of the woman in the picture.

  ‘Mommy said she went sad when you went away,’ Madison said, tracing her finger down the picture. ‘Why isn’t she happy, now you’re back?’

  30

  From the heart

  The texts started the very next day.

  I was trying out some new Ultra Babe eyeshadow (Emerald Shimmer, if you’re interested) in the big family bathroom next to my bedroom.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Madison peering round the door. I pretended not to notice her, expecting her to jump out at me any moment. Surprise! But all of a sudden she spun round, so she was facing into the corridor.

  Two seconds later I realised why.

  Shelby was there. She didn’t notice me inside by the sink, but I could see the back of her yellow head as she moved closer to Madison in the doorway.

  ‘Pee-oo, what’s that smell?’ Shelby said.

  From all the giggling that followed I guessed she was with some of her snotty schoolfriends. One or two girls often came home with her after school. They’d spend hours prattling on about the boys they fancied or the latest lip injection they were trying to persuade their parents to let them have.

  ‘Pee-oo, that smell’s disgusting,’ Shelby’s voice rose in mock-horror.

  More giggling. I shifted a little so I could see more clearly. Shelby was standing side-on to me now, holding her nose. Madison was shrunk up against the door jamb. There was this awful, blank look on her face. As if she was trying to pretend she wasn’t there.

  I froze, my eyeshadow brush still in my hand.

  And then, before I could do or say anything, Shelby reached out and lifted Madison’s little top. She lifted it right up, so I could see the whole of Madison’s flat, white little belly. There was a cluster of little bruises down Madison’s side. Some were a dark purple, others more faded and greeny-yellow.

  ‘Shitty, smelly girls get punished,’ Shelby sneered.

  I held my breath, unable to believe what I was seeing.

  In a single, deliberate movement, Shelby leaned across and twisted a knot of flesh just under Madison’s ribs.

  Madison flinched. Tried to pull away. But Shelby was too strong.

  In one long stride I was there. I shoved Shelby in the chest. She stumbled back across the corridor, crashing into one of her stupid friends.

  ‘Stay away from her,’ I hissed. ‘Or I’ll make you sorry.’

  I caught a flash of the friend, her mouth wide open. And Shelby herself, her eyes glinting like bullets.

  Then I dragged Madison back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

  I was breathing heavily, my hands shaking with fury. I looked down at Madison. She was leaning against the wall, her face half-turned away from me. Her neck and cheeks burned red.

  I touched her shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’

  She stiffened, pulled away a little. I was itching to drag her downstairs and show Annie and Sam what Shelby had done – had clearly been doing for some time. Evil, evil cow. But I could see that kind of attention was the last thing Madison wanted.

  ‘If she ever tries anything like that again you tell me.’

  Madison just stood there, rigid as a pencil, her face convulsed with shame.

  I went back to the sink. The eyeshadow brush was still clutched in my hand. My eye fell on the little pad of eyeshadow I’d been trying out earlier. I held it out to Madison.

  ‘Would you like to try some on?’

  She gave me the tiniest of nods.

  I sat on the edge of the tub and scooped some of the glittery green powder onto the tiny padded stick. I held it up.

  ‘This colour will go really well with your eyes,’ I said. ‘You’ll look like a movie star.’

  Madison took a step towards me. She watched the stick as I brought it up to her face. ‘Close your eyes,’ I said.

  She did.

  I smeared a little of the powder on each lid. ‘Don’t want to put on too much, though,’ I chatted, ‘or you’ll look like Mrs Shrek.’

  Madison giggled.

  I added a dab of mascara after the eyeshadow. Then a slash of pale-pink lipstick. ‘You’re so pretty,’ I said. ‘In a few years you’ll be fighting off all the boys in your class.’

  Madison made a face. ‘Boys suck,’ she said.

  I grinned at her, then spun her round so she could see herself in the mirror.

  She didn’t say anything, but this little smile crept across her mouth.

  ‘Hey, let me take a video.’ I whipped out my phone. ‘Pose.’

  Madison went through her repertoire of acting faces. Happy. Sad. Cross. Scared. And, her pièce de resistance, Madly in Love.

  We both laughed. I felt a surge of love for her as she smoothed out her long hair and scampered out of the bathroom. Poor little kid. What chance did she have,
with totally screwed-up parents and a sister like Shelby?

  My phone beeped as I was packing up my make-up things into the cute little bag I’d bought the day before.

  I flicked it open, thinking it was probably Jam, texting just before he went to bed.

  I opened the text, totally unprepared for what I was about to see. One line. Three words.

  SAY NOTHING BITCH

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Shelby. It had to be. I thought about marching into her room and slapping her silly face.

  My heart pounded with fear. Anger.

  Then I decided she wasn’t worth it.

  I deleted the message and slipped the phone back in my pocket. Apart from my hand shaking a bit, anyone watching wouldn’t even have thought I was bothered.

  31

  The lecture

  I stopped talking to Shelby altogether and found even more excuses to avoid being near Annie. When I wasn’t phoning Jam, or Mum and Dad’s lawyer, I spent most of my time on the Josephine May with Sam and Madison.

  One day, Sam took me to meet his parents. Just me and him. I was dead scared beforehand. I mean, a few of Sam and Annie’s friends had popped in and out of the house before now – they all gave me these guarded smiles, like I was some kind of bomb that might blow up in their faces. I didn’t care about them. But Sam’s parents were my grandparents. My family.

  Though I wouldn’t have admitted it to Sam or Annie, I wanted to meet them. I wanted to know what they were like.

  ‘Annie doesn’t think we should push things,’ Sam said. ‘But your Granma and Gramps are desperate to see you.’

  They lived in this big seafront apartment near the marina. It was all on one level because Sam’s dad was in a wheelchair. Apparently he’d had a stroke two years ago. When I heard this, I got even more nervous. Suppose he couldn’t talk properly? Suppose he looked weird?

  In the end it was fine. He answered the door in his wheelchair and had me bend down to kiss his cheek.

  ‘You sure turned out pretty.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I’m your Gramps.’