Jakarta Missing (20 page)

“Me, too,” Melanie said. “But you know what? My cousin said the mongo important thing is that Jakarta is going to set the girls' school record for the most points in a regular season, and she didn't even play the whole season. She'll have her name on the wall with all the other Wildcat heroes, and the record will stay on the books for a long, long time. Maybe
forever
.”

Dakar tried to squeeze something out of her mouth, but nothing came. “Come to my house this afternoon and tell me everything,” she wanted to say to Melanie. Or, “Let's have another sleep-over at your house. I know a lot of other stories.”

But she couldn't. How long would it be before Melanie found out that both Mom and Dad were gone? And Melanie's mom was just the type to think she and Jakarta needed foster care.

Okay, Dakar thought as she walked on. A mongo important thing, Melanie's cousin had said. What if Mom knew how well Jakarta was doing? Would she come home to help cheer Jakarta to victory? If Mom wouldn't come home for that, what was the chance she would ever come home at all?

No. Stop. Don't think that way. Dakar concentrated fiercely in the rest of her morning classes, as though she had built a box in her brain and could keep that thought inside. But at lunchtime, as she started toward the cafeteria, feeling hungry and a little shy about the way the whole middle school seemed to be buzzing with talk about the game, she couldn't keep the thought out of her head anymore. Mom and Dad were getting a divorce. Mom was never coming back.

“Are you that Tarzan girl's sister?” a boy asked her. Dakar made a face at him. For a moment she wanted to stand up on the table and shout, “Yes, she's my sister, and her name is Jakarta.” Another part of her wanted to hide under the table until lunch was over. She put her head down as she pushed the tray along its grooves. Don't think. Don't think.

“Africa child.”

Dakar jerked her head up.

“Africa child, aren't you going to say hello?”

“Why—why are you here?” Dakar asked.

The cook gave her hips a self-satisfied pat. “You think Pharo would let me stay away with winter coming on? And miss this team he's been talking about? No, I was sitting in the sun, having such talks with my baby sister, but Pharo wouldn't leave me alone. He kept sending me postcards. ‘You have to come home,' he kept writing. So here I am.”

Dakar glanced behind her. She was holding up other people in line. How embarrassing. She rushed over to put her tray on the milk cart and trotted back to the kitchen. “Why did you decide to go, after all?”

“Got a call that my baby sister was sick,” the cook said. “And I got to thinking about how you said that God was candlelight. And what about God showing up in the Bible as a dove? Birds fly, I thought. And that little Africa child flies. Aren't you ashamed to not be as brave as a child? Maybe there's a time to be anchored down and a time to fly.”

The cook thought she was brave? Dakar shook her head. Not even biting on her thumb could keep away the tears in the corner of her eyes. “Why didn't you say good-bye?” she whispered.

The cook clicked her tongue softly. “Africa child, you've been all curled tight around your feelings, hiding them away,” she said. “I can see you're starting to uncurl a little bit. That's good. Life is already a dry and weary land without hiding your true self away from the people who care about you.”

Okay, she
had
been curled tight, Dakar thought, hunched over her tray at one of the back tables. Just like a water baby. But what happened if you uncurled? Your insides were all bare and unprotected. Those bare insides helped you be close to other people, but then what happened to the people you cared about? Hoodies got them. Or you had to leave them behind.

For the rest of the day she imagined herself tucked inside a turtle shell, a nice, strong, safe shell. The only time she poked her head out was when Mr. Johnson asked her a question in math class. As Dakar opened her mouth to answer, Melanie turned around, and for the second time that day they were suddenly looking right at each other.

Had she made it up, Dakar wondered later, or did Melanie sign, “Are you okay?”

T
he snow had stopped by the time Dakar stood by the bus and watched the basketball team load its gear. She hugged Jakarta, not caring who saw. “Make a thousand points,” she whispered.

Jakarta laughed. “Okay. Don't worry about shoveling snow or anything. It's not like we have a car to get out of our driveway.”

When Dakar got home, the wind was starting. Even after she was inside, she could hear it slithering around the house, moaning at the cracks. She set to work cleaning everything she could think of, liking the solid feel of her hands in soapy water. In Africa they always had house workers. Everyone did—not just the
ferenji, mzungu, khawaaga
but middle-class African families, too. So she didn't really know much about cleaning, but it was kind of fun, and it made the time pass.

She ate cold cereal for supper, reading in between bites. Too bad Mom and Dad thought television was mind rot. Mostly she didn't miss having one, but tonight she could use the sound of another voice.

When she got to the end of the chapter she was on, she checked her watch. Jakarta would be warming up now. “Loose as a goose,” she whispered, concentrating on Jakarta's arms, her legs, her arms. It was Jakarta's
mind
that had to stay the most loose. Dakar had seen Jen and Beth get nervous, once they finally got sent in, and miss shots they always made in practice.

At seven-thirty she went to the front door and poked her head outside. The game would be starting. Dakar concentrated on that moment when everything was possible, the two centers crouched, all the focus and energy sucked into the whirlpool created when the ref bent down to toss the ball in the air. “Go, Jakarta,” she shouted. The air was fuzzy with snow.

“See, I'm fine,” she said out loud. She shut the door and locked it. And for a long time she was. She didn't want to go upstairs without Jakarta, so she made a nest on the downstairs couch and curled up there with her books. It was only later, later when the wind just wouldn't stop howling and seemed to have grown scratching fingers, that she got scared. What if an escaped convict had gotten away from the nearest prison (wherever that was) and was scratching at the door, working his way inside? What if a snake was crawling up the shower drain? What if …

She dashed upstairs for supplies—two blankets, her pillow, books, and candles—and rushed back down slip-sliding her hand along the banister so she wouldn't tumble. In the living room she put her pillow over her head and tried to think. Melanie's cousin had said Jakarta was about to set a record. Even though she'd joined the team late, she was about to make more points than any girl in the whole, entire school, ever.

Jakarta would surely stay around then, especially if Mom and Dad were here to cheer her on and tell her how great she was doing. Don't give up. Don't give up, O ye of little faith. But what to do? She dug in the bookshelves until she found a book of Psalms. She closed her eyes, opened the book, and pointed her finger without looking. Psalm 137. “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For how could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?” Dad must feel that way living in Cottonwood—even if Dakar had never seen a moth that had a harp to hang up.

“Foo,” she told the psalm. But it was zero help in figuring out what to do. She felt foolish. In boarding school one of Dakar's roommates said she'd heard of someone who tried this and put his finger on “Judas went out and hanged himself.” He shut the Bible, opened it again, and put his finger on “Go thou and do likewise.”

She lit a candle. “Trust the universe,” she chanted. “The universe is goodness all around you.” Was that the same thing as saying, “The earth and the firmament are full of the glory of God”? People were always trying to find the words to wrap around the mysteries. “Trust the universe,” she said again. She hated the sound of her out-loud voice in the empty living room. And the candle made scary shadows. She blew it out.

When the phone suddenly rang, her stomach lurched. Mom! A half second later she realized this was her chance. Pharo had told his mom, “You have to come home.” It might be selfish, but she could do that, too. Who made Jakarta boss of how everything should be? Yes! she thought as she ran to pick it up.

“Dakar?” It was Dad's voice, faraway and faint. “How's it going?”

She wanted to say, “I'm scared. Really scared,” but how could you say that to someone who would say, “It is a poor life in which there is no fear”? Had the kitchen door just moved? She watched it carefully. No. Must be the light in here.

“Dakar?”

“I'm okay,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“We're staying in a house for the weekend, so I'm finally near a phone. The camps are bad. People are desperate for blankets. We've heard aid is getting to Guatemala City, but it's not reaching the camps, so two of us are off tomorrow to find out what we can about that.”

Dakar felt a sudden tenderness curling up her throat. Dad always could be counted on to leap to the defense of anything that couldn't fight for itself.

She listened to him talk about the camps, and suddenly he said, “How are my resourceful girls? Is your mom back yet?”

“Please come home,” she wanted to say. “I don't feel resourceful anymore.” She said, “We're doing okay. Do you think most of the people you're trying to help will end up okay?”

After she hung up, she frowned at the telephone. Stupid universe—made the wrong one call. Well. She checked the clock. Jakarta would be home soon. It was already ten and the game should be over.

Something outside clunked against the side of the house, and Dakar inched to the window and tried to see out, her heart pounding like a loud, annoying song. All she could see was snow. Then the phone rang again.

This time it was Jakarta calling to say that the bus was stuck. “One of my teammates let me use her cell phone. Coach says there's probably whiteout conditions wherever there are open fields between here and Cottonwood.” The phone crackled for a moment. “He says it might be a dangerous, slow-going trip. Don't wait up.”

“D-dangerous?”

“Don't worry about me,” Jakarta said impatiently. “Hang on a second.” The phone went silent, and then Jakarta's voice came back on. “See. Coach just said we're not even going to try to drive home tonight. Lock all the doors and hop in bed, okay? I have a whole team to help figure out where we're going to sleep.”

Dakar made herself a cup of cocoa as if filling up her stomach would help fill up the empty hole inside. Back in the living room she curled up with her cocoa and tried to read again. This time her mind kept buzzing every time she turned a page. What
were
those clunking sounds?

She dragged two chairs into the living room and managed to drape her blanket so that it made a tent. There. Now she didn't have to look at the whole big living room. “I'm fine,” she whispered. And Jakarta, who had a whole team to help her figure things out, would definitely be fine. She snaked her arm out of the tent, grabbed her lists and thoughts book, and wrote, “I wish I had a team.”