Tell Me (15 page)

I look desperately around.

A big lady in a straw hat decorated with too many flowers walks slowly by.

I'm not asking her.

Now Dad pulls up, his face purple.

“You're in trouble, young lady.”

I get in the car. “There's no time!” I tell him what I just saw, then I scream, “How do you call Homeland Security?”

Dad takes out his phone. “You call a grandmother.” He parks in front of Mabel's.

One call to Winnie and she's on it like a police dispatcher. She calls Dad back. He puts her on speaker. “Brad is on his way. The sheriff is coming. Both of you, get to a safe place.”

Dad looks at me.

“I'm fine,” I say. And terrified. I keep that to myself.

We wait, we watch.

“What do you think is happening, Dad?”

“I don't know.”

A big moving van pulls in front of the salon, blocking our view.

Dad gets out to look. “The driver is talking on the phone. I think he's lost.”

I'm so upset, I feel like throwing up.

Dad looks at me. “Are you up for this?”

“I started it, Dad. I finish what I start.”

Now I see the van heading out of the tall gate.

Where is the sheriff?

“Anna, wait here.”

“I'm staying with you!”

The van is heading down the street!

Dad sighs deep. “Do not tell your mother.”

Dad turns fast onto the street, gets two cars behind the van. He guns the car and gets in front of the van. Now he's going so slowly people are honking. Dad drives through the green light, makes a half turn, and stops, blocking the intersection. People lean on their horns.

Now we see Brad in a dark car driving toward us, Dad lifts a hand slightly. Brad sees the van. Dad guns the motor, like something is wrong with the engine.

If I wasn't sitting down, count on it, I'd faint.

Dad gets out of the car.

“Be careful, Dad!”

He lifts up the hood, shakes his head.

“Sorry!” he shouts to the cars who are stuck behind him, including the flower van. “I think my transmission died.”

Now Brad pulls in right next to Dad, and the van swerves and rams right into Brad's car, just missing us. Brad jumps out like one of those guys in the movies. Another car comes behind the van—it can't move.

Brad's at the van now with his gun out. “Get out of the car,” Brad says. “With your hands up.”

The man in the van says something in another language.

Brad motions with his gun. The man understands that. He comes out with his hands up, and I swear this is the man I saw that day at the library!

Electricity is shooting through me.

I feel like I'm having a heart attack.

“Homeland Security!” Brad shouts. “Come out with your hands up!”

No one else comes out of the van.

Now the sheriff finally shows up. He puts handcuffs
on the driver of the van, an Asian man who is shouting in his own language. Brad looks inside the flowered van. It looked so pretty just minutes before.

I close my eyes.

Be careful!

Brad steps back, holds his gun up.

“There's no one else,” he says.

No one else!

More cars pull up, along with a big white van.

One pulls up behind Star Nails, another is on the side street, another parks right in front on Rose Street, one is across the street down from Mabel's. The agents signal to each other. Brad gets out, another man gets out, and they walk up to the front door in a way that says,
We're so not here to get manicures.

Dad and I are across the street at Mabel's parking lot watching. We can't hear anything, but after several minutes, an agent brings out the Happy! guy, who is really not happy anymore.

He's shouting, “I'm legit. One hundred percent!”

People are stopping to look, and one of the agents shouts, “Move back, folks. Across the street, please. We've got to keep this area clear.”

I lower my head and close my eyes, but Dad says, “Look.”

I do, and now Brad and another man bring the women out who work there.

There are five of them—they look shocked and scared, but one looks up to the sunshine and she raises her hand and shouts, and another woman shouts, and now I see the lady who gave me the note, and I can tell that she's crying, and she's saying something and pointing behind her. I want to run up to her.

It's me, remember?

But I know I can't.

“Back away, please, folks, let these women have some privacy!”

A women agent is holding the hand of a nail lady, who looks shocked. They're looking at the sun and the sky and the trees and all the flowers like they haven't been outside in a while.

I don't understand what this means.

I don't know what they went through in there.

Dad puts his arm around me. “I'm proud of you, honey.”

I keep looking and looking. The women from the nail salon get in the big white van. It drives off. Then,
one by one, the Homeland Security cars pull away until there's no one left except the people on the street wondering what happened.

But one thing is clear.

She's not there.

They didn't find her.

Dad squeezes my hand. “Anna, I think we should go—”

“No!”

I keep waiting and watching.

I'm glad the women are out, I'm so, so glad.

“Where is she?” I ask. “Where is she?”

It won't ever be right if they don't find her.

“Anna,” Dad says, “so many things happened today that nobody expected. Don't start thinking you know how everything is going to end up.”

We wait for news from Brad.

Hours pass. Winnie says, “Brad says things are shaping up.”

What does that mean exactly?

I tell Dad I think Brad should be telling us something. “I mean, I started this, I didn't let it go, I waited, and I believed, I yelled at someone in the sheriff's office, and I think I deserve to know more than ‘things are shaping up.' Shaping into what?”

Dad sighs and looks at Mim, who is getting ready to go to the hangar to check on the floats. “I know you don't normally hear this from me, Anna, but you need to be patient.”

He's right. “Patient” is not a normal Dad concept.

Even Bean jerks his head when Dad utters the P word.

But patience isn't anything I've got right now.

I don't know how to wait anymore.

Right now it seems like all I know to do is worry.

But I know something that helps with that.

“How you doing there, Zoe? I just came to see you, girl.” I rub her neck. “Is that okay?”

Zoe turns to look at me like she's glad I came.

I put my head against her side and sigh. I didn't know you could be such good friends with a horse. I just keep my head there.

“Are you good with this, girl?”

I can tell she's listening. I rub her side, pet her on her hind leg, rub her on her face, and I don't know why, but I just feel her strength coming at me. She knows I'm hurting.

“Have you ever just felt nervous, you know, and you can't get over it, and you don't know what to do? I don't know how that works with horses, but with people, we're supposed to think ourselves out of this stuff. But the more I think the deeper I get.”

I lift up some grass to her mouth, and she takes it.

“Does grass help with stress?”

Zoe stomps her back foot.

I hear, “Do you want to ride?” I turn to see Taylor.

“That's okay?”

“Of course.”

Taylor puts a blanket on Zoe, then throws the saddle over her. “Up you go,” she tells me.

I stick my foot in the stirrup and lift up like I do this all the time. I'd sure like to.

“Take her out, Anna.”

I sit high above the ground holding the reins and grin.

“Go ahead,” Taylor assures me.

I give a little tug, just a little, and we head out the stable door toward the ring.

“Take her on the trail,” Taylor says. “She'll bring you back.”

So we head to the tall trees, and Zoe knows where to go. “We're doing it, girl.” Zoe's ears are a little forward, which means she's listening.

“Do you think we can trot a little?” I push my foot gently at her side. She picks up the pace. I'm bouncing up and down like an idiot, trying to remember how to go up and down with this. I find the rhythm.

Up and down, up and down.

Across the trail, past the thick green leaves, across a little stream, past scurrying chipmunks and feathery
ferns, along the path that this horse knows so well.

The sunshine is pouring through the trees, and it's like the path is lit somehow, and I feel something inside me, all the worry maybe, just give way to this ride, this horse.

“Whoa, girl.”

She stops.

Whoa, Anna
.

I close my eyes and just sit here, and I notice that my heart isn't racing; my mind isn't either.

I sit here with my friend.

I rub her neck.

And then it's time to head back. I touch the reins, and this huge horse turns just from that.

Just from a little touch!

“Let's go home, girl. Okay?”

I press my foot into her side so slightly, and we're heading back.

I duck at a low-hanging branch from a tree. I smile at a squirrel who climbs a tree.

I pat Zoe's neck. “Good, girl, Zoe.”

She trots out into the clearing like we do this all the time. Now I see Taylor's house and the riding ring.

“Let's look good getting there,” I tell her, and I press my foot again and she speeds up to home.

I move with this horse—we're connected. I feel like we could race to California without stopping.

“Whoa, Zoe.” She slows down.

Taylor is watching and smiling.

I bring her into the pen.

I get off.

“How was that?” Taylor asks.

“Better than anything.”

I look at Zoe, who nuzzles me with her head.

“She thinks you have promise, Anna.”

Zoe sticks her nose behind Taylor's straw hat and pushes it off.

Taylor laughs. “She likes my other hat better.”

We walk to the stall.

I can't stop smiling.

“I have a question, Anna.”

“What?”

She looks down. “I don't want to kill the moment, but do you think Burke might possibly . . . like me?”

“Yes.”

“That was quick.”

“It wasn't a hard question.”

She rubs Zoe's mane. “Oh . . .”

“So, do you like him?”

Zoe turns around to look at Taylor. I wait.

“Possibly . . . I don't know . . .”

Zoe looks at me.

“You don't know?”

“Well, I mean . . .” Taylor coughs.

Being a preteen is so much easier—we get right down to it.

“Does he know you like him?”

Zoe looks at me like,
Of course not.
Taylor makes a noise.

I smile. “Do you want me to tell him you like him?”

“That, Anna, is the lamest idea!” She storms out.

Actually, I'm an experienced teller. I told Ronny Palto that Becca liked him and I told Lorenzo that Candy Turgin really liked him. I sang it, actually. I thought would be fun news, but it wasn't.

“Candy Turgin!” Lorenzo shouted. “Just kill me now.”

I look out the stall door. Taylor is outside pacing. “Someone needs to tell Burke,” I say. She makes another noise. I go back to Zoe, who is easier to understand. I rub her down. Then I give her a hug—a big, long hug. I
know hugging a horse might sound strange, but don't knock it until you've tried it.

There's a rustle behind me. Taylor again. “They've asked me to be the queen of the flowers for the parade. They want me to ride Zoe. Mim called me about it—the committee voted.”

“You said yes, right?”

She grins. “There's a robe and headgear.”

I laugh. “That's perfect.”

“I was such a mess when I got here, Anna, I didn't even go to the parade . . . and now . . . well, I'm royalty.”