Tell Me (7 page)

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 morning 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.

“Anna, listen to me. I don't like the way you're sounding. I can hear the stress. I think it's best that we all see Jen individually and as a family so that we can—”

“I don't want to talk to Jen!” I'm shrieking now.

“Anna, I very much want you to feel heard in all this, but sometimes a child doesn't get to decide!”

“Mom, I have to call you back.”

“You and I are going to talk this through now, Anna.”

“I can't, Mom. I have to think. I love you. Bye.”

Did I just hang up on my mother?

“Whoa, Zoe . . .”

I turn around and see Taylor sitting on the horse.

My phone is buzzing. It's Mom.

Taylor says, “Do you need to get that?”

Probably, but I can't.

I look at Taylor and start crying.

“I feel like a total idiot. I'm standing here crying in my dog pajamas! I don't know you at all, but you've got to listen to me, Taylor! Listen to everything, okay?”

She jumps off Zoe, ties the reins to the fence. “Okay. Go ahead and tell me, Anna.”

I tell her everything about the girl in the van.

And this girl listens with everything she's got.

She doesn't say anything for the longest time, then: “I did a report on missing kids.”

I wait.

“What did you learn?”

“I learned it's scary how many are missing, it's awful how people sometimes look the other way, and sometimes there's something that can be done about it. That's what you're doing, Anna. You're doing something.”

I don't feel like I'm doing much of anything except sitting in the garden totally stressed out . . .

And then, like a bolt, I remember!

I shout, “I can see it! It was right next to the license plate on the van. An American flag sticker. It was big.” I stretch out my hands to almost a foot. “Like this. And . . .” my heart is beating fast as my memory kicks in. “There was a slogan above the flag. ‘Proud to be an American,' but the ‘can' part of ‘American' was torn. I remember!”

I try to draw it in my horse journal, but I'm not that good an artist. Taylor takes the pen from me. “Tell me again. Every detail.”

“It was an American flag.”

“Straight or flapping?”

“Flapping.”

She draws that.

“Not that much flapping.”

She draws it again. I nod. “‘Proud to be an American'
was in square letters.”

Taylor draws a
P
. “Like that?”

“Maybe a little bigger.”

 

PROUD TO BE

 

“That's close.”

Taylor keeps trying to get it right. She doesn't exactly, but it's good enough.

I look at Taylor. “Is that enough to find her?”

Taylor takes a deep breath. “I don't know.”

“But we can try, right?”

“We're going to kill ourselves trying.”

Now Mim walks toward us. Winnie is right behind her. They've got their game faces on.

“Winnie got you an appointment.”

“For what?”

Winnie doesn't say.

“It's okay. Taylor knows about the girl. I told her.”

Mim nods. “The appointment is to see the police sketch artist.”

“When?”

“As soon as we can get there.”

I turn to Taylor. “Will you come?”

Taylor nods, climbs over the fence, unties Zoe.

“We'll pick you up in ten,” Mim says.

Taylor rides Zoe back to the barn.

Now all I have to do is remember everything perfectly and not mess up.

The artist sits at a table with a drawing pad and pencils in front of her. She smiles at me. “I like your shirt.”

It's purple; it says,
ACT OUT
. I got it at the Children's Drama Workshop. I pull at the shirt, hoping I don't mess up. So much is at stake, it makes my stomach hurt.

“You're visiting, I hear,” the artist says to me.

“I'm from Philadelphia.”

“Oh, those cheesesteaks . . .”

I nod.

“I'm Daphne. You want to get started?”

“I guess so.”

She opens her pad. “Tell me what you saw, Anna.”

I tell her about the girl, the woman, the van. Daphne looks at Winnie. “You saw this, too?”

“I didn't see the van, just the woman and the girl.”

Mim and Taylor say they're here for emotional
support.

I take out the drawing Taylor made of the decal. “This was on the back of the van next to the license plate—on the left.”

Daphne studies it. “This is so helpful. Is there anything you want to add or take away from this, Anna?”

Suddenly, I remember something else. “Iowa,” I shout.

“What about Iowa?”

“I didn't remember till now. The license plate—it was from Iowa. It said . . .” I try to picture it. “Something about corn.”

“‘The Corn State'?” Daphne asks. “That's Iowa's license plate slogan.”

She draws the back of a van, copies the decal, draws a license plate with
THE CORN STATE
. “Was it like this?”

My heart is racing. It's hard to think.

“Take your time . . .”

I don't want to make anything up, but, “The van was scratched up.”

“Where?”

“In the back, kind of . . .”

“Lots of scratches? Any dents?”

“Lots of scratches on the bumper, I don't know about dents.”

Daphne draws scratches. She smudges the pencil with her thumb and looks at me.

I nod.

“What color was the van?”

I shake my head. “I don't remember, but the decal was torn more.”

She fixes that.

“That's better.”

“You're helping so much, Anna.”

I shut my eyes. I've got a headache.

“Tell me the first thing you saw when the van pull into the library parking lot, Anna.”

“I'm not sure if I saw the lady first or the girl. I'm sorry.”

“That's okay. You're doing fine. Tell me more about the van. How did it look from the side? Can you remember how many windows it had?”

I gulp. “I can see the girl's face looking out a big window.”

“That's good.” Daphne shows me some pictures of vans. “Did it look like any of these? Take your time.”

I go through page after page and stop at one that has
a big, long window like a bus. “It was like that. I can remember the girl looking out of this kind of window.”

Daphne draws. “Was she in a small bus, do you think?”

“I . . . I don't know . . . no, it wasn't a bus.”

“Like this?” Daphne shows me what she's drawn. Her drawing looks like a bus.

“It wasn't that long or that high, but it had windows like a bus.”

She changes the height and the length. “Better?”

“Yes.”

She asks questions about the girl. I show her the list I made, tell her about the baby animal eyes.

Daphne draws deep, round, scared eyes on the face of a girl with dark hair.

I mention the ponytail, the scrunchie.

“Let's bring this girl out of the van. What was she wearing?”

I try to think. All I can remember is the lady grabbing the girl's hand. I can see the lady's arm.

I stand up. “She had a tattoo!”

“The girl?”

“The lady!”

Winnie leans back. “I remember that. It was a
flower, like a daisy.”

“Where?” Daphne holds her pencil, ready.

“Just above the elbow.” I look to Winnie. “Right?”

Daphne draws an arm with a daisy tattoo. She draws a stem.

Winnie shakes her head. “No stem.”

“The flower was fuller,” I mention.

Daphne draws that, but it still isn't right. “What arm? Left or right?”

“Left,” I say.

Winnie bites her lip. “It was right, as I remember.”

Oh boy.

Daphne smiles. “That's okay. Was the flower like this?”

We help her make it fuller, but how is this going to help find a girl?

Colors are coming to me now.

The lady had a purple phone.

The girl was wearing white sandals.

The man had gray hair that fell over his ears.

The artist shows us pictures of faces. Some are criminals, I figure, some are famous people.

“Was the girl's face round, square, long . . . what do you think, Anna?”

Winnie and I decide it was round.

“And the color of her eyes?”

“Brown,” Winnie and I say that together.

“What language did the lady speak?”

“Not Spanish or French. I know what those sound like.” Winnie didn't hear them speak.

So much is on me!

Can you remember?

No, not anymore!

I don't want to get it wrong!

“Should we take a break?” Daphne asks.

Yes, please.

Mim hands me and Taylor each a bottle of lemonade that has a picture of a man in an old-fashioned hat smiling like he knows a good secret—the lady he's with is smiling like the world is an easy place.

A police car pulls up—we're standing outside the station—and a big cop gets out. He has two moles on his cheek, his hair is thin on top of his head, he is as tall as my dad, and when he smiles at us he has a space between his two front teeth.

I could go back inside and describe the policeman and the lemonade man and his lady to Daphne and get
every detail right.

But it seems the more I think about the girl, the foggier she becomes.

 

If they can find you, I promise I'll be your friend.

 

“Memory”—Mim sighs—”is a tricky thing.”

“You were amazing in there, Anna.” That's Taylor.

I finish my lemonade with a slurp.

“I swear, my brain aches.” Winnie rubs her forehead. “How are you, Anna?”

“I wish I could remember more.”

“All you can remember is what you can remember.”

But is it enough?

“We've got a lot here.” Daphne shows us the three sketches she's made, of the van, the girl, and the lady with the daisy tattoo. “What do you think? Have we got it?”

This looks real. I felt like part of me is back there at the library. I can feel the anger of the lady, the girl looking at me.

Why didn't I say something then?

Winnie studies the sketches. “This is good, Daphne.
Very good. And I've got another piece. The lady had another tattoo on her calf. Her left calf. It was a spider.”