Tell Me

by Joan Bauer

  “You show,” she says with a thick accent, “ba room.”

  “What?”

  “Ba room!”

  “Bathroom?”

  She nods.

  “There’s one inside.”

  “You show.” The woman shouts to the man, who gets the girl out of the van. The girl is nervous, looking around. The woman throws her cigarette down, grabs the girl’s hand, drags her over, then says to me, “Okay, now you show.”

  “This way.”

  I put my petal hat back on—it’s important to stay in character. I walk them to the bathroom behind the return desk. The girl is looking everywhere, almost like she’s never been in a library before. She has the biggest eyes. She looks at my outfit.

  “I’m a petunia,” I explain.

  The lady says something in another language, and instantly the girl looks down.

  “This is it,” I tell them. “There’s only room for one at a—”

  The woman goes in with the girl, slams the door shut.

  Winnie Dugan is saying to a boy, “Roland, you can’t take any more books out. You have eight overdue. . . .”

  I hear a flush, and the door opens. The woman leads the girl outside by the arm, back into the van.

  I walk back outside to get my iced tea and watch as they drive too fast out of the parking lot and almost crash into an SUV turning in. The van screeches to a stop. The SUV honks and pulls around the back. Then the side door of the van opens.

  The girl jumps out and tries to run.

  The man jumps out and catches her. “She sick, she sick!”

  For a half second she looks pleadingly at me—this girl is scared. The man carries her back to the van and drives off.

  What was . . . ?

  Did anyone else see this?

  I look around. I’m the only one out here.

  I run inside. A little girl says, “Wanna dance, flower girl?”

  “Not right now.”

  I run up to Winnie Dugan, who is saying, “I’m sorry to hear about your turtle dying, Roland, but borrowing a book is a sacred trust.”

  “Did you see that?” I interrupt.

  A girl with short brown hair runs out of the bathroom. “Siri,” a woman shouts to her, “I swear, if we are late and miss that plane . . . !”

  “I’m coming, Mom.” The brown-haired girl looks at me strangely. She and her mother head for the door.

  I turn to Winnie. “The girl who was in here with that lady . . . who went to the bathroom . . . did you see it?”

  “I did. It seemed odd. Who was she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  People walk by and smile at my outfit.

  I feel dizzy. I grab onto a tall bookcase.

  “Something about that child,” Winnie mentions. “What kind of car did they have?”

  “It was a van.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What color?”

  I try to remember. “Blue, maybe? Brown. I’m not sure.” I mention the lady’s hot pink shirt. “There was a star on it.”

  “I didn’t notice that.”

  I’m remembering when Becca’s cousin Martin tried to jump out of a car; her uncle had to carry him back inside and give him his medicine.

  Maybe this was the same thing.

  Or not.

  And if not . . .

  “I think the girl might be in trouble, Winnie.”

  “I wasn’t paying attention when they first came in, but as they were leaving . . .”

  Winnie asks the other librarian if she saw anything.

  She didn’t.

  I run outside to get air, I stand on the library steps gulping it in.

  My heart’s beating so fast.

  What just happened?

  I sit on the steps, put my head between my legs, and try to slow my breathing down.

  I’m trying to remember everything I saw.

  The girl.

  Her huge eyes.

  The scratched van.

  They were Asian. The girl and the lady. I think the man was, too.

  I know this much—I’d better remember.

  I’d better get it right.

  Nine

  I’m sitting at a picnic table behind the library. Ivy crawls over the wooden fence. Mim is here, Winnie, and Ben.

  I say, “How do you know if you really saw something or you just think you did?”

  Mim says, “Sometimes you don’t know the difference.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “You test it.” That’s Winnie.

  I tell them every detail I can remember.

  “The man driving the car was angry. He had a wide face. He wasn’t tall, at least I don’t think so . . . I mean, she could just have angry parents or . . . she needs help going to the bathroom. . . .” I shout, “Her hair was brown—dark brown and straight . . . she wore it in a ponytail.”

  “She was taller than the woman,” Winnie mentions.

  “That’s right! I can’t remember what the girl was wearing.”

  Winnie can’t either.

  I gulp. “I just remember her eyes—big and wide and sad and brown . . .”

  Winnie puts a legal pad in front of me. “Write it down.”

  “I’m not sure what I saw!”

  Ben hands me a pen. “You just went into massive detail, Anna.”

  “Do it now, honey. Before you forget,” Mim adds.

  I write:

  I was outside when the van pulled into the library parking lot and parked. It was an ugly van, scratched up.

  A lady got out, talking on her phone. Another language—not Spanish or French. I know how those sound.

  The lady was short.

  She was smoking.

  The color of her shirt was hot pink.

  The picture on her shirt was a star.

  The girl in the van had huge, brown eyes and never smiled. I just remember her eyes and how it seemed she wanted to run away.

  She tried to run away!

  The lady took her by the arm and went into the bathroom with her.

  The man driving the car was angry. He had a wide face. He wasn’t tall, at least I don’t think so.

  The girl’s hair was brown—dark brown and straight.

  She was taller than the woman.

  The girl was wearing ________.

  The color of the van was ________.

  The license plate was ________.

  I draw a girl’s face with huge eyes, baby animal eyes.

  “The girl I saw could just have weird parents or . . . she needed help going to the bathroom . . . or she doesn’t need help at all!”

  We look at Winnie, who says, “I’m calling the sheriff.”

  The sheriff sends Deputy Bitterson, who isn’t impressed by what I saw.

  “You don’t have a name, a license plate, make of car, young lady?”

  “It was a van, sir.”

  “What color?”

  I mention the scratches.

  “How old was she?”

  “Maybe my age. Twelve.”

  “Deputy,” Winnie says, “I saw the girl and the woman, too. This was not a normal situation.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s been no crime that we know of, no report that a girl with this description is missing.”

  “Do you always need that information?” Winnie demands.

  He takes in a breath. “Usually.”

  I look at the clock on the wall, ticking off the seconds.

  How much time is left to find her?

  Does she even need to be found?

  I look at the deputy. “What if the girl’s in trouble?”

  He sighs. “Unfortunate
ly, there are lots of kids in trouble.”

  Does that mean we don’t try to help this one?

  Winnie mentions getting an artist to draw a composite sketch.

  Deputy Bitterson’s long face is getting longer. “We don’t have a police sketch artist in Rosemont. Closest one is an hour away.”

  Winnie leans toward him. “We have a car!”

  “Mrs. Dugan, we have a couple thousand people who are going to pour into this town over the next two weeks. We need to make sure we’re safe and ready for whatever comes. We don’t have the man power to track this down. I’ll make out a report.”

  She’s in his face now. “What do you do in emergencies, Deputy?”

  “We do the best we can!”

  The genius hands him a copy of all I wrote down.

  Deputy Bitterson folds it without looking at it.

  Then he marches past the four-day book table, turns left at the My Favorite Book shadowbox display, and heads out the door.

  Mim’s backyard is packed to overflowing. There is a patio with a slider chair and a big tree with a rope swing, every branch has a birdhouse painted in bright colors, and a birdbath stands by the hammock; four birds are playing in it as a squirrel watches.

  And I can’t sit still.

  I flop into the slider chair, push it back and forth.

  I get up, I sit down.

  Mim is grilling bourbon chicken. “Don’t talk yourself out of what you saw, Anna.”

  “I know . . . I’m just confused . . . and worried . . .”

  “I can understand both those things. But do not doubt what you saw.”

  Right.

  I’m back in the sliding chair, pushing it back and forth, back and forth, I feel the rhythm of the movement.

  I watch the birds splashing. My dad made the big birdhouse. . . . It looks like a bird motel. Several birds fly in and out.

  Maybe that girl’s mother was just having a bad day.

  Back and forth . . .

  Mim puts the chicken on a platter. Bean heads over to the grill—he wants this chicken.

  “Why shouldn’t I doubt what I saw?”

  Mim looks right at me with her royal blue eyes. “Because Winnie saw strange behavior, too, and because you’re a smart, discerning girl. Live with that. Winnie is checking with someone who knows about these things.”

  “The sheriff?”

  “She has another contact.” Mim heads to the table. “Don’t overthink it, Anna.”

  “I can’t not think about it!”

  “I understand.”

  “We can’t give up!”

  “We won’t.”

  If I were a better person, if I’d been paying attention, I would have gotten the license plate and I would have run over there and helped that girl. I could have at least taken a picture with my phone!

  Did I do that?

  I did not do that!

  I sat there

  Doing nothing . . .

  And now a girl with baby animal eyes might be in serious trouble, and it’s all my fault!

  Mim carries corn bread to the table, studying my face.

  “I’m not overthinking it!”

  I grab a piece of corn bread, take a bite.

  “This corn bread is amazing.”

  I sit there trying not to overthink anything, but the minute you try so hard, every worry you have tumbles out.

  I eat some bourbon chicken, and this chicken is beyond great, and I sip my orange juice and I look at Mim and burst into tears.

  Mim says, “Come on. I want to show you something . . .”

  I shake my head.

  I go over what I saw.

  The girl’s eyes were brown.

  Her shirt was—

  I bolt up. “She had a yellow scrunchie, Mim! Her hair was in a ponytail! I remember!”

  Ten

  Blue.

  Purple.

  White.

  Red.

  Pink.

  Silver.

  Where are the yellow ones?

  I’m tearing through every scrunchie in the hair section of Debbie’s Dollar Daze store.

  It’s got to be yellow!

  I look through the headbands, the combs, and way in the back is a package of three scrunchies, one white, one black, and one yellow.

  I hold it up, run to the counter to pay. I see a journal with a white horse on the front, I grab that, too. I can hear Mim leaving a message for Winnie.

  Okay, it’s not a huge memory, but it’s something.

  It’s another clue!

  I pay my two dollars, tell Debbie I don’t need a bag, rip the plastic package open, grab the yellow scrunchie, and put it on my wrist like a bracelet, the kind of bracelet people wear when they promise to remember someone who’s lost.

  I can see her scared eyes when she ran toward me.

  I make a fist and raise my hand.

  I promise to remember you.

  Now more is happening, right here in Debbie’s Dollar Daze.

  This sweeps into my brain: The lady in the van had a mole on her chin.

  I buy a silver pen, write that down in my horse journal.

  What else?

  Her fingernails were painted purple.

  And . . .

  There’s more. I know it . . .

  I feel memory so close . . .

  But what?

  Mim walks over. “You need a break, Anna.”

  “I can’t—”

  I’m trying to remember!

  I holler, “I need to see the sheriff!”

  Debbie at the counter looks nervous. “Is there a problem?”

  “Yes,” I yell, “and it’s huge.”

  The sheriff isn’t at the station when we get there. He isn’t there the next morning either.

  “They’re gone for the day.” That’s what a lady named Maria at the front desk tells me.

  “Can’t you call them?” I ask.

  Mim puts her hand on my shoulder and says to Maria, “Deputy Bitterson filed a report recently on a missing girl . . .”

  “Not that I saw.” Maria is looking at her computer screen. “This happened when?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Maria shakes her head. “Nothing yet.”

  How long does it take to file a report?

  “He said he’d send the report in,” I mention.

  “He hasn’t done that yet.”

  “This is an emergency,” I add.

  “He doesn’t seem to think so,” Maria says.

  I step forward. I know my rights!

  At least I think I do.

  They might be different when you’re twelve, but I’ve got some.

  “Can I give you the information and can you send in the report?”

  Maria says, “We don’t normally do that.”

  I’m sick of people talking about normal!

  “This is way past normal!” I shout. “And I have more information!”

  Mim says, “Maria, please address the seriousness of this.”

  Maria takes the information about what I saw and where I saw it, and I make sure she types it all in.

  “I’ve got it,” Maria says.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you going press send?”

  Mim clears her throat.

  And Maria sends it.

  Mim says, “Okay now, Anna?”

  It’s not close to okay, but it’s a start.

  That night I sleep with the yellow scrunchie on. I’m not taking it off.

  I wake up early with a headache and a stomachache.

  Bean is whining that he needs to be let out. I walk with him through the kitchen, open the back door.

  The glow of the early mor
ning is so beautiful. I stand there looking out across Mim’s garden. The birds are waking up; the flowers are glistening. I need to get out in this. I slip on my sneakers, grab my horse journal, and head outside in my pajamas.

  I walk along the stone path past the birdhouse my father built to the bench by the split-rail fence. I check my messages. I’ve got five from Lorenzo, three from Becca, three from my mom—everyone asking:

  Where are you?

  I don’t know where I am.

  This is supposed to be a vacation.

  This is supposed to be a quiet time for me to think.

  Bean comes up hopefully with his ball.

  “Not now, Bean.” But he sits there like he knows what’s best.

  I need to do something for somebody.

  “Just a couple times.” I throw the ball. He catches it in midair, brings it back.

  I throw it again.

  Endlessly.

  It’s like Bean was made specifically to catch balls.

  What was I made especially to do?

  I write Lorenzo, tell him what happened.

  And I’m here to tell you, only your ultimate best friend, who knows you better than anyone could, would write back and say:

  She’s lucky it was you who saw her, Anna. You won’t let it go.

  Electricity shoots through me.

  No, I won’t!

  I’m going to drive people crazy until they do something to help.

  Now my mom calls.

  “Anna, I want you to listen. I’ve thought long and hard about this.”

  I close my eyes. I already know.

  “You’re getting divorced, Mom. . . .”

  “No. We’re working hard to understand what’s happened and what to do.”

  I stand a little straighter. “Okay . . .”

  “I think . . . actually, I know that the right thing for you to do now, honey, is to come home so—”

  “I can’t come home!”

  “Anna, I feel that you and I need to come home and your father can stay in Center City with the Dylans. They’re such good friends, they said they’d help however they—”

  “I can’t. Mom! I’ve got something to do. Something important!”

  “What in the world is happening there that is so important?”

  I don’t know how to tell her. If I tell her, she’ll swoop in and get me out of here fast.