Missing Pieces (2 page)

Chapter 3

I love the smell of a campfire.
I’m an expert marshmallow cooker, so I showed Bryce how to get the marshmallow just right at the end of the stick. He didn’t listen, and his first one fell into the fire. Can you spell s-t-u-b-b-o-r-n?

Dylan popped his head out of the tent. While Bryce tried again, I gave Dylan a couple of plain marshmallows and told him to lie down.

I was nervous about my EEG the next day, not because it hurts or anything, but because last time the doctor said we’d have to try “something different.” I don’t know what that means, but I was hoping I’d get better rather than worse.

An EEG reads the waves in your brain. Mine do weird stuff when I sleep, and if we can’t make things better, my brain could remember those weird signals and I could just pass out even during the day.

I kept telling Dylan to lie down, and he giggled and scrunched into his sleeping bag. When I yelled at him, he stuck his head inside his sleeping bag and Bryce frowned.

We had only a few weeks left of school, and I was glad seventh grade was almost over. We started talking about the summer and what we would do. Earning money was at the top of the list.

Bryce said something about a bike trip with his friend Jeff Alexander. “And I’m going to get a paper route and use my ATV,” he whispered.

“Good luck,” I said. We ride our ATVs to school, but we’re not allowed to ride them on the street. “I’m going to talk with Mr. Crumpus and see if I can roll silverware at the Toot Toot Café.”

“They don’t let kids our age work.”

“I can try.”

Headlights passed our house, and the driver gunned the engine. Not many people live past us on our road. What was going on out there?

Chapter 4

I could tell it was a truck,
and whoever was inside whooped and yelled. Then the tires spun gravel.

“Probably high schoolers joyriding,” I said.

I picked up Dylan—sleeping bag and all—and he rolled over and hugged my neck as I carried him inside. I laid him gently on his bed. He opened his eyes and stared at me, like he wanted to say something. But then his eyes shut, and he was out again.

I pulled the sleeping bag up around him and tiptoed out. When I closed the door, I heard the roar of the truck and glanced out a front window. Our house is set back from the road, but I could see the truck clearly. A strange light flashed inside the cab—it glowed. I saw faces, at least two, but I couldn’t make out who.

One of the passengers rolled down the window and held something outside. The truck sped up and went behind a tree. I heard a loud explosion, like someone had set off a cherry bomb. The truck sped away with more whooping and shouting.

I raced through the kitchen and into the backyard and met Ashley coming toward the house. Her eyes were wide. “Did they crash?” she said.

I shook my head and told her what I had seen. We rushed to the tent and grabbed our flashlights.

Chapter 5

We flew around the house
with our flashlights focused on the end of the driveway. Bryce didn’t seem as scared as I was. I just hoped no one was hurt.

“Maybe we should get Sam,” I said.

Bryce rolled his eyes. I hate when he does that. It makes me feel so stupid.

I expected to see twisted metal, a car on fire, or mangled bodies. I’ve seen a couple of really bad car wrecks, and the memory sticks with you.

We stopped at the end of the driveway and panned our flashlights to the other side of the road, where I noticed a couple of broken bottles. No crashed cars. No bodies. I couldn’t imagine what had made the metallic crashing sound.

“Oh no,” Bryce said, moaning. “Look.”

He pointed his flashlight at our mailbox. Mom had picked out a big one so she could send and receive her manuscripts. She’d painted flowers on the side, rising like vines, and had let Bryce and me help.

Now the mailbox seemed to cling to the post with its last ounce of strength. It lay flat, the flowers bent, and the red flag Bryce had painted with white stripes and stars hung near the ground.

“Why would they do that?” I said, gasping.

“Mailbox baseball,” Bryce said. “Guys ride around with a baseball bat and flatten mailboxes as they drive by. It’s some kind of a stupid contest.” He was silent a minute. Then, “It was like a member of our family. How many orders from eBay and Amazon.com came in that big old thing?”

“Mom’s going to be mad. We should call the police.”

Bryce already had his cell phone out. Since we’ve dealt with them so much in the past few months, he had the number memorized. We walked down the road far enough to see that our neighbors’ mailboxes were also smashed. Bryce told the police what had happened and which direction the truck was going.

Bryce closed his phone. “They said they’ve had a bunch of these this spring and thanked me for calling.”

“Think they’ll catch ’em?”

Bryce shook his head. “If they don’t, I’d like to.”

Chapter 6

We woke Sam
and he followed us outside. He studied the mailbox and cocked his head. “I’d say that was a home run, wouldn’t you?”

I couldn’t believe he was being so good about it.

Sam told us to camp out in the living room. I guess he thought whoever had done it might round the bases again. I wanted to bury the old mailbox, but he said the police might want to look at it.

Ashley and I played Monopoly while we watched an old movie. I could tell she was nervous about the EEG, because she didn’t buy Park Place when she had the chance. Plus, she didn’t choose to be the dog. She’s always the dog, but tonight she picked the shoe.

By 3 a.m. I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I went to bed and didn’t wake up until after she was gone. I wanted to tell her good luck, even though I don’t really believe in luck.

Chapter 7

I don’t pretend
to know how prayer works, but I believe it does. Don’t get me wrong. God doesn’t always answer the way I’d like, but I do believe he hears everything we pray, whether out loud or in our minds.

I used to wonder about all the people in the world praying at the same time. It seemed impossible that God could hear everybody and answer, but I guess that’s because I don’t know how much God can do. I mean, how could he speak the world into existence? I don’t understand it, but I know he can do it.

Still, sometimes I worry about my prayers and what I ask for. There are people in the world who don’t have enough food or medicine for a sick child. So it makes me feel a little silly to pray for my cat Patches’ hair ball or my ingrown toenail. But I think God cares what we care about and wants us to talk to him. In Sunday school class I asked people to pray about my EEG.

As Sam and I walked into the doctor’s office, I could almost feel people’s prayers.

“Ashley?” the nurse said, the one I’d had since we moved to Colorado. She looks like what you’d expect a nurse who gets along with kids to look like. Her perfume has a hint of lilacs and makes me want to sleep for a hundred years.

As she hooked the electrodes to my head she asked how I was doing since she had last seen me. I hardly knew where to begin.

We talked as she worked, and finally the machine was ready. “You know the drill, Ashley,” she said. “Just relax and try to sleep. When you wake up, Dr. Alek will see you and your dad.”

She turned the lights low. My eyes were tired, and it felt good to drift off. Before I fell asleep, I prayed one last time.
Help my brain do what it’s supposed to do and not what it’s not supposed to do.

It was kind of lame, but I knew God would understand.