by Joan Bauer
I look at this white horse with gray and black spots. “I really like you,” I say.
Taylor makes a clicking sound. Zoe turns her head. “Get on, Anna.”
Uh, this is kind of quick. I like the concept of riding a horse, not—
Zoe shakes her head.
“Maybe she doesn’t want me to—”
“Put your foot in the stirrup.”
Taylor gives me a lift up. It doesn’t take much, and here I am, up on this horse. Up on top of the world. “We’re not going fast, right?”
“Not yet.” Taylor takes the reins and walks Zoe back and forth. I like being high, but I tense a little; Zoe shakes her head fast and neighs.
“She can tell you’re nervous just now.”
“She can?”
Taylor pats her. “It’s okay, girl. It’s fine.”
Zoe backs up and turns around and heads out of the barn. “Uh, this horse is moving. . . .”
Taylor laughs. “Enjoy it!”
I do, sort of, but Zoe keeps going toward the riding ring.
“Pull the reins and say, ‘Whoa, girl.’”
I do this, but my voice doesn’t sound like I mean it. Zoe seems to be waiting for a strong voice here, because now she’s just walking off on her own with me on her back.
“How are you feeling?” Taylor asks.
“Like I might need rescuing. . . .” I remember getting thrown over the fence, landing hard on my hands.
“There’s probably lots of things you need, Anna, but I don’t think rescuing is one of them.”
“Whoa, Zoe.” I pull the reins, and instantly she stops. I pat her neck. “Good girl.”
Taylor walks over smiling, and suddenly I realize that the whole time I’ve been with this horse I haven’t thought about much of anything else.
Zoe walks with me around and around the ring. I look up. The clouds are moving fast across the sky.
“That’s it for today.” Taylor helps me down. Zoe stretches her neck and touches my shoulder with her nose.
“That’s horse for ‘I like you,’” Taylor explains.
I look at Zoe from the side, smile, and say, “I like you, too.”
Taylor climbs in the saddle and rubs Zoe’s neck. “You okay, Anna?”
I nod. More than okay.
“You did really well.” Taylor makes a clicking sound, Zoe turns, and they ride out of the ring into the sunset—actually, it’s morning, but you get the idea.
I look at my phone.
From Becca: I’m a miracle, too!
From Lorenzo: What????? You’re just figuring out you’re a miracle??? I’ve known this about you for years.
I’m walking down the stone path past the birdhouses in Mim’s garden. I stop at the bird hotel my father made. It looks like a white frame house with shutters. Birds are flying in and out. Dad is good with his hands.
He’s good at so many things, but it’s like he left those behind. I don’t know why. I think adults can get so super- serious about their careers that they forget that fun is an important pat of life. I look at the yellow scrunchie.
I wonder if it’s okay to have fun when that girl is out there scared.
I wonder why the world is so different for people.
Here I am safe in this town, but so many kids aren’t in a safe place.
I walk to the patio, see Mim and Winnie in the kitchen.
“Just the girl we want to see,” Mim says.
I walk in, sit down at the bright purple table that Mim painted—it’s got a huge sunflower design on it. It’s impossible to sit at this table and be sad. Mim hands me a strawberry muffin just warm from the oven.
Winnie sips coffee, making those noises adults make when the caffeine starts to kick in. “Anna, did I ever tell you about my grandson Brad?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s interested in what happened at the library. He’s the one who made a phone call and got the police sketch artist to work with us.”
“Is he a policeman?”
“He’s in a different kind of law enforcement. He’s an agent for Homeland Security.”
That’s going high up!
Mim sits down with her coffee. All three of us are leaning in close at this purple sunflower table.
“Do you know all that Homeland Security does, honey?”
“They look for terrorists.”
“That’s some of it.”
“And they guard the borders . . . and life as we know it . . .” I think that’s right.
“You’d be amazed at what they do.” Winnie sips her coffee. “I called Brad to tell him our situation, and here’s the first question he asked me: Who was in control?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was the girl being controlled by someone, or did it seem she could go where she wanted?”
“The lady had her by the arm. She even went into the bathroom with her.”
“So,” Winnie says, “the answer is, someone else seemed to be in control of this girl.” She takes a big breath. “Brad says that can be a sign of kidnapping, or human trafficking—which is a form of modern-day slavery.”
I look at the happy sunflower on this table.
It’s not like I live in a cave. I know there are awful things that happen in this world.
But how can something so awful happen here?
“This is tough stuff,” Winnie adds. “But if Brad’s right . . .”
She lets that hang there.
“What do we do next?” I ask.
“We wait, honey.”
“We pray,” Mim adds.
I can pray, but I’m not good at waiting.
I write this in my horse journal:
Dear God,
I need you to speed this up because we’re pretty sure there are bad guys involved and they need to be stopped!
The other thing is, you’ve got to help the girl not give up. You’ve got to do it.
Thank you for horses, grandmothers, librarians, strawberry muffins, and Homeland Security.
Anna M
Fourteen
I’m waiting . . .
First I get a headache.
Then a stomachache.
Then I chew my thumbnails down even more.
I’m doing all this at the long table at Flower People. Burke is hanging around this table, too, not because I’m here. Taylor is sitting next to me.
Right now, he’s inspecting mum plants that look fine to me.
Taylor hasn’t really looked at him. Me, I just look people in the eye.
Burke takes the mum plants, says, “These are for the library,” and heads outside. Taylor watches him through the window. I give her a look, and she says, “Okay, well.”
Whatever that means.
Lorenzo says the best part about being twelve is you’re close to being a teenager, but you don’t have to commit to the whole exhausting experience.
Mom is supposed to call me back this morning, and I don’t know how that is going to go.
I keep trying to write something to Dad, but all I can think of to say is:
Please change back. I need a seriously good father right now!
Every kind of flower imaginable is on this table. I’m not great at arranging flowers, but Mim wants to change that. She takes a rose, cuts the stem. “Basically, nature tells us what to do.” She puts the rose in a vase and adds some greens. “Flowers don’t grow without green, so we need to add that to be natural.” Mim clips another rose and places it in the vase. “You don’t want them too tall. See? You pick the best flower you’ve got and make it your focal point.”
I take an orange one, Taylor goes for pink. Burke walks by, shakes his head at me. I put the orange flower down, pick up a puffy blue one. Burke nods and walks off.
“Now we b
uild around it.” Mim clips flowers quickly and puts them in the vase. “See how easy it is?”
I clip flowers and put them in the vase and it doesn’t look anything like Mim’s.
Taylor puts three big flowers in a vase surrounded by greens. “Get along, you guys. Make me proud.”
Burke laughs from the other room. Taylor smiles slightly. Her design looks much better than mine.
We change and arrange, I stick myself with rose thorns and cut a snapdragon too short. Mim fixes it. “That’s pretty good. Stick this here to make it better. See?”
She wraps ribbon around the vase. “That’s the ticket.”
That’s when Mom calls.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, which can be good or bad, depending.
“Mom, I’m sorry if it seems like I’m not listening to you.”
“Anna . . . listen to me.” Mom says that she and Mim have been talking, and Mim has explained what’s going on with the girl I saw.
“I have to stay, Mom. It’s hugely important. I need something that’s not about me, you know? I need to help somebody else! I’m not trying to be a pain.”
I wait.
Mom sighs. “Honey, I hear you. I understand how important this is. For now, you can stay.”
“Mom, thank you!”
“For now. But, hear me—if your helping this girl gets out of control, you’ll need to come home. You are dealing with a lot of stressful things all at once, whether you know it or not.”
Oh, I know it!
My chest feels tight.
“You can’t carry all of this on your shoulders, Anna.”
“I won’t, Mom. Now there’s Homeland Security.”
“What!”
I can’t rest at all!
At dinner we light a candle for the girl and pray that God will keep her safe. I want to pray that twelve guys from Homeland Security will drive their tanks to wherever she’s at and rescue her. Then she could get adopted by good parents in Philadelphia and we could be friends.
Every day, I promise, I’ll think about her.
I’m not going to let this go.
I look at every van I see, whether it’s new or scratched. I look in the back window to see if she’s there.
I call Daphne a few times to see if anyone has seen her.
No one has.
Just me and Winnie.
Everything feels hard.
Everything feels stuck.
Now my brain opens and I remember another thing—not made up—I remember!
The girl had a scar above her eyebrow. I try to draw it.
It was like a squiggle. I remember it now and something else, too.
She had earrings on. They were shaped like little pink flowers. I draw that.
I wish my dad were here, the way he used to be.
I could call him.
Maybe it’s a bad time, maybe something made him angry.
Even more reason—he needs to hear an adorable, talented voice.
I speed-dial my father.
Six rings.
I don’t want to leave a message. But then, Dad’s voice breaks in. “Anna?”
“Dad . . .”
“I am so glad to hear your voice,” he says. He doesn’t sound angry.
I bite my lip. “It’s good to hear yours, too, Dad.”
“Wow, kiddo, I’m so sorry I haven’t called you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I owe you a big apology. I’m sorry for all the anger, Anna, for all the outbursts . . . I’m sorrier than I know how to say.”
“That means a lot, Dad.”
“I’ve been working through a lot of stuff.”
I nod—I have, too.
“Tell me . . . how are you doing?”
And we talk about that. How I have one foot here and the other foot there.
We talk about the festival, and then in one long blurt I tell him about the girl in the van, the sheriff, and Homeland Security.
“You’ve got the big guns on your side! You’ve got a lot going on.”
He sounds like the dad he used to be. . . .
I want to ask, What happened?
Okay, I’m only twelve, but I’m not stupid.
“I wish you were here, Dad.”
“I wish I could get away, honey. Work is crazy right now.”
I tell him about the yellow scrunchie bracelets.
“Wear that like a flag,” he says.
I hold up my hand with the scrunchie. “I will.”
“I’m so proud of you, Anna. Prouder than I know how to say.”
He used to tell me that all the time.
I’d better not mess up.
I’m at the library retracing her steps—how she came in through the front door not on her own, how she was yanked into the bathroom by the lady with the white sunglasses and then pulled out, how she was so brave she tried to escape.
She’s got courage, I know it!
I’m in the petunia suit, happy on the outside, wilting on the inside. A lady comes into the library with her baby who won’t stop crying. This mother looks so tired. I go up to her and just give her a hug, and she starts crying—they don’t prepare you for this in petunia training.
“Can I help, ma’am?”
“I’ve just had a miserable week.” She tries to smile, but her heart isn’t in it.
And I do something you’re not supposed to do in the library, but I’m one tough flower and I’ve learned a thing or two. Actually, I learned this as a radish, about smiling when your heart aches.
That song I sang is perfect for right now. I look at the lady and don’t think about my voice cracking or my nerves or any of that.
I just let it come from my heart.
The lady is smiling at me and nodding and her baby is quiet as I sing this song called “Smile.”
Ben walks over as I finish, and everyone applauds.
I take a bow. The lady with the baby shakes my hand.
Ben says, “You said you didn’t sing.”
“Well, only sometimes.”
I go back to telling the people about the festival and passing out flyers.
I want to say, Have you seen a girl with baby animal eyes? There should be a flyer for that.
It’s hot in this suit.
Several kids circle me and do the slide. I try, but . . .
“I can’t right now, you guys. I’m sorry. I feel—”
That’s all I remember.
I faint dead away.
I wake up on the floor—a crowd of people is looking at me.
“I told you she’d be all right.”
I’m not sure who said that.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Low blood sugar,” someone guesses.
“The color’s coming back to her cheeks.”
A pile of festival flyers is on the floor next to me.
“It’s going to be fine, darling,” Winnie assures me.
“Get her some water.”
Ben holds out a bottle of water. I drink.
“Drink some more,” he says.
A woman puts her hand on my head. “No fever. You want to go lie down?”
“I am lying down.”
Ben laughs. I try smiling. I’m good at this.
Eventually, I get out of the petunia suit and move to the back table. It’s quiet here. I’m looking through a book about horses, feeling more relaxed.
A girl with short brown hair is sitting at this table. She’s half staring at me, which is irritating.
“Were you a flower?” she asks.
“A petunia.” I study a picture of an Appaloosa horse that looks like Zoe. I don’t want to talk right now.
“I need to talk to you,” she says.
She has a round face with blue eyes and freckles. She leans forward. “You saw that girl who came in here last week with that lady—the one with the flower tattoo?”
I shut the book. “Yes!”
She whispers, “They went in the bathroom together, right?”
“Right.”
“And I thought, that’s kind of strange.”
“Right.”
“And the girl was scared.”
“You remember her?”
The girl nods. “It just felt weird. The lady she was with smelled like smoke.”
I don’t remember that exactly.
This girl gets something out of her book bag. A matchbook. She holds it. “I need to tell you something.”
My heart is pounding. “Tell me.”
“My name’s Siri.”
“I’m Anna.”
“Don’t get mad,” Siri begs.
“I won’t!” I say that louder than you’re supposed to in a library. People look at me. Winnie raises an eyebrow. Siri looks scared. “I won’t get mad,” I whisper.
“I went into the bathroom right after the girl and that lady left, and I found this on the floor.” She hands me the matchbook.
It has a silver star that looks just like the star on the lady’s pink shirt!
In the middle of the star there’s this:
STAR NAILS
And the next part of the address I can’t believe!
514 ROSE ST.
ROSEMONT, VA
“WE MAKE YOU A STAR!”
Siri waves her hands. “When I found it, I had to go to my cousin’s wedding in Chicago and we were late leaving for the airport. So I couldn’t talk to anybody. We just got back and I came right here. I kept trying to tell myself I didn’t see anything wrong and I’m not sure I did, but . . .”
“I know,” I tell her. “I know exactly what you’re saying.”
Siri studies the matchbook. “I don’t know if the lady who smelled like smoke dropped it or somebody else. Do you think it might be something?”
“It’s something, Siri. Believe me.”
Fifteen
Winnie puts the matchbook in a clean plastic bag because it could have fingerprints—it’s got everyone’s fingerprints on it now, but it’s good to be careful. Then she sends it by Federal Express to Brad, who says that Siri needs to sit down with Daphne, the police sketch artist.